Two weeks ago I started talking about the value of questions. In that first post, “Questions & the Heart,” I suggested a few personal ones that can help us evaluate our walks with God. Last week I posed some questions about Christians and politics. This week we’ll look at a series of questions that can be very revealing.
X-Ray Questions
The Bible has a lot to say about idolatry. It’s the thing that took the nation of Israel into bondage over and over again throughout the Old Testament narrative. But as New Testament believers we are not free from idolatry.
It was such a concern to God that He inspired Paul to address it at least a dozen times (1 Cor. 5.11, 6.9-10, 10.14; Gal. 5.19-21; Col. 3.5-9 & others). Peter, John, and Luke all address it, as well (1 Pet. 4.3; 1 Jn. 5.21; throughout the book of Acts).
If we think of idolatry strictly in terms of the worship of statues, amulets or false gods that might seem a little confusing. But Ezekiel 14 can help us understand:
1 Then some elders of Israel came to me and sat down before me.2 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 3 “Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts and have put right before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity. Should I be consulted by them at all? 4 Therefore speak to them and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Any man of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart, puts right before his face the stumbling block of his iniquity, and then comes to the prophet, I the Lord will be brought to give him an answer in the matter in view of the multitude of his idols, 5 in order to lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel who are estranged from Me through all their idols.”’
Idols can be anything that occupies the place in our hearts due to God. They are those things we run to when we are distressed, angry, or seeking comfort and refuge. Idols are more important to us than pleasing God. So how can we know if there are idols vying for our worship of the true and living God?
Paul Tripp and Timothy Lane in their book How People Change provide us with a list of questions that can give us a lot of insight. They call them “X-Ray Questions.” The list is a little long but I would encourage you to read through them:
1) What do you love? Is there something you love more than God or your neighbor?
2) What do you want? What do you desire? What do you crave, long for, wish? Whose desires do you obey?
3) What do you seek? What are your personal expectations and goals? What are your
intentions? What are you working for?
4) Where do you bank your hopes? What hope are you working toward or building your life around?
5) What do you fear? Fear is the flip side of desire. For example, if I desire your acceptance, then I fear your rejection.
6) What do you feel like doing? This is a synonym for desire. Sometimes we feel like eating a gallon of ice cream, or staying in bed, or refusing to talk, etc.
7) What do you think you need? In most cases a person’s felt needs picture his or her idol cravings. Often what we have called necessities are actually deceptive masters that rule our hearts. They control us because they seem plausible. They don’t seem so bad on the surface and it isn’t sin to want them. However, I must not be ruled by the “need” to feel good about myself, to feel loved and accepted, to feel some sense of accomplishment, to have financial security, to experience good health, to live a life that is organized, pain-free, and happy.
8) What are your plans, agendas, strategies, and intentions designed to accomplish? What are you really going after in the situations and relationships of life? What are you really working to get?
9) What makes you tick? What sun does your planet revolve around? Where do you find your garden of delight? What lights up your world? What food sustains your life? What really matters to you? What are you living for?
10) Where do you find refuge, safety, comfort, and escape? When you are fearful, discouraged, and upset, where do you run? Do you run to God for comfort and safety or to something else? (To food, to others, to work, to solitude?)
11) What do you trust? Do you functionally rest in the Lord? Do you find your sense of wellbeing in His presence and promises? Or do you rest in something or someone else?
12) Whose performance matters to you? This question digs out self-reliance or self-righteousness. It digs out living through another. Do you get depressed when you are wrong or when you fail? Have you pinned your hopes on another person? Are you too dependent on the performance of your husband, wife, children or friends?
13) Whom must you please? Whose opinion counts? From whom do you desire approval or fear rejection? Whose value system do you measure yourself against? In whose eyes are you living?
14) Who are your role models? Who are the people you respect? Who do you want to be like? Who is your “idol”? (In our culture, this word is used for role model.)
15) What do you desperately hope will last in your life? What do you feel must always be there? What can’t you live without?
16) How do you define success or failure in any particular situation? Are your standards God’s standards? Do you define success as the ability to reach your goals? The respect and approval of others? Is it defined by a certain position or the ability to maintain a certain lifestyle? By affluence? By appearance? By acceptance? By location? By accomplishment?
17) What makes you feel rich, secure, and prosperous? The possession, experience, and enjoyment of what would make you happy? The Bible uses the metaphor of treasure here.
18) What would bring you the greatest pleasure? The greatest misery?
19) Whose political power would make everything better for you? Don’t just think in a national sense. Think about the workplace and the church. Whose agenda would you like to see succeed and why?
20) Whose victory and success would make your life happy? How do you define victory and success?
21) What do you see as your rights? What do you feel entitled to? What do you feel is your right to expect, seek, require, or demand?
22) In what situations do you feel pressured or tense? When do you feel confident and relaxed? When you are pressured, where do you turn? What do you think about? What do you fear? What do you seek to escape from? What do you escape to?
23) What do you really want out of life? What payoff are you seeking from the things you do? What is the return you are working for?
24) What do you pray for? The fact that we pray does not necessarily mean we are where we should be spiritually. On the contrary, prayer can be a key revealer of the idols of our hearts. Prayer can reveal patterns of self-centeredness, self-righteousness, materialism, fear of man, etc.
25) What do you think about most often? In the morning, to what does your mind drift
instinctively? When you are doing a menial task or driving alone in your car, what captures your mind? What is your mindset?
26) What do you talk about? What occupies your conversations with others? What subjects do you tend to discuss over and over with your friends? The Bible says it is out of the heart that our mouths speak.
27) How do you spend your time? What are your daily priorities? What things do you invest time in every day?
28) What are your fantasies? What are your dreams at night? What do you daydream about?
29) What is your belief system? What beliefs do you hold about life, God, yourself, others? What is your worldview? What is the personal “mythology” that structures the way you interpret things? What are your specific beliefs about your present situation? What do you value?
30) What are your idols or false gods? In what do you place your trust or set your hopes? What do you consistently turn to or regularly seek? Where do you take refuge? Who is the savior, judge, controller of your world? Whom do you serve? What voice controls you?
31) In what ways do you live for yourself?
32) In what ways do you live as a slave to the Devil? Where are you susceptible to his lies? Where do you give in to deceit?
33) When do you say, “If only…”? Our “if onlys” actually define our vision of paradise. They picture our biggest fears and greatest disappointments. They can reveal where we tend to envy others. They picture where we wish we could rewrite our life story. They picture where we are dissatisfied and what we crave.
34) What instinctively feels right to you? What are your opinions — those things that you feel are true?
Tripp and Lane go on to say:
These questions can help you to think more clearly and deeply about why you do the things you do. They can give you a better idea of which things typically morph from good to god in your life. These discoveries are a blessing because they help you to see how truly lavish the grace of God is.
So perhaps you might take some time and go over these question slowly and prayerfully. I know I will.
What We Might Learn
We might learn that having children who obey is more important than pleasing God by being patient and kind. We might find that having a husband who remembers birthdays and anniversaries is more important than having a quiet and gentle spirit that is precious to God.
We might find that instead of running to God in prayer, we run to TV or food or friends or a dozen other things. Or that instead of trusting in the sovereignty of God we attempt to take control by nagging or becoming sinfully angry. Perhaps you will come up with entirely different possibilities.
Whatever we learn, let’s remember God’s love and mercy in showing us those areas where we need to repent and change. And let’s remember the grace of God and His willingness to forgive and help us to change and grow.
Here Is What Has Been Happening this Past Week at Soul Survival:
“One Step Forward, Two Steps Back”
“Responding to Rebuke & What It Means”
“Paranoia! Could Sin Be the Cause?”
“Is It Godly Sorrow or Worldly Sorrow?”
And in case you missed it, our last newsletter:
“Questions, Politics & Flawed Men”
Coming Up in the Daily Posts:
In the coming days, we’ll look at what to do when you’re at your wit’s end, how to respond to imperfect authority, discuss the cost of losing God’s restraining grace and look at answers to life’s toughest questions. We’ll also talk about the questions: Do your kids know you LIKE them? And who is Jesus?
Be sure to sign up here so you won’t miss any of these upcoming daily posts.
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Blessings,
Donna
I sometimes LINKUP with these blogs.
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Today’s Featured Resource:
How People Change by Paul Tripp & Tim Lane
What does it take for lasting change to take root in your life? If you’ve ever tried, failed, and wondered why, you need How People Change. This book explains the biblical pattern for change in a clear, practical way you can apply to the challenges of daily life. But change involves more than a biblical formula: you will see how God is at work to make you the person you were created to be. That powerful, loving, redemptive relationship is at the heart of all positive change you experience.
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