This week the Agape Moms Community is unpacking the theme of Idolatry of the heart, especially as it relates with motherhood. “Idolatry” might sound like a weird, outdated, Bible-y word, but I promise you it’s something each of us struggles with every day. Idolatry is when we adore, place value, trust or worship in anyone or anything instead of God. Idolatry has been humanity’s problem since the beginning. Let’s take a look.

Eve chose the allure of wisdom and freedom in the fruit over the face-to-face relationship she already enjoyed with her Creator in the garden.

The Tower of Babel shows each of us our lust for glory and to be seen, instead of worshiping God in all His glory. “They said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves.” Genesis 11:4

The Old Testament is full of stories of how God’s people continued to give up their favor with God for fleeting pleasure and silly idols that were made with human hands. It’s easy to feel like we can’t relate with these crazy, idol worshiping people, until we realize that we actually do this everyday when we:

Put our faith in flawed people, political parties, the behavior of our children, our performance as a mother, our stuff, accomplishments, our picturesque image on social media, or even that cup of coffee, glass of wine or mama-break.

When we identify the things we tend to cling to instead of Christ, it shouldn’t make us yawn, it should scare us. In order to be rescued, we have to realize we’re drowning first.

“This is what the Lord says: “What fault did your ancestors find in me, that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves. My people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols. Be appalled at this, you heavens, and shudder with great horror,” declares the Lord. “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” Jeremiah 2:5, 11-13

We HAVE the Spring of Living Water, Jesus Christ, as our ultimate joy and hope, but instead we foolishly run to broken vessels to quench us that are incapable of holding water for more than a couple minutes, and then we’re left desperate for water again. This is a metaphor for many of our frantic mom lives, panting for help, and looking in all the wrong places to fill our holey-cups when Jesus is right there offering an endless supply, and our thirst quenched for good. This is how tragic our idolatry of the heart is. What are the cisterns that you dig instead of running to the Spring of Living Water?

Before we can talk about the good news in Jesus, first we have to let the bad news of our idolatry in our hearts sink in. We should be specific with the Lord about the ways we turn from Him, but we should not stay in a place of despair, instead we should turn to God, the only remedy for our terminal heart condition. He has always been the answer, even in the Old Testament. It was always GRACE upon GRACE! Listen to God speak in Isaiah next.

“Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow. “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Isaiah 1:16-20

God reasons with us! What sweet mercy! He says, “Let us settle the matter, though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” WOW. They didn’t deserve this, and we don’t deserve this either. He promises to give us new hearts in Christ so we can worship Him properly, and therefore live rightly, and in that order.

In Ezekiel the Lord also gives us this picture of dead bones lying in a field and has Ezekiel call them to life. This is to show us a picture of us. Apart from Christ we are hopeless, we are no more than a pile of dead bones, but in Jesus the impossible happens, we’re given His spirit and a new heart. We come to life, so that we can beat our patterns of heart idolatry and addiction to running to broken cisterns, again and again.

Listen to what the LORD says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” Ezekiel 36:26-27

Rejoice that God has not left us in a hopeless state but that He rescues us in Jesus! As we unpack the idolatry of our hearts this week as it relates to motherhood with an amazing guest blog post tomorrow, and book GIVEAWAY, I hope you will already be turning from the pull of idolatry and towards Jesus, who promises to give us the ability to worship Him with our lives!

Lets allow these truths to sink down deeply so that they affect the ways we raise our children and the ways we expect them to obey God’s rules, and our rules too. Let’s show our children Jesus as their only hope, as the Spring of Living Water that their souls are longing for, or I fear they will be prone to run after empty cisterns too.

Laura DiLeonardi Founder of Agape Moms

Laura is married to her Bible-college sweetheart of almost 10 years, has three kiddos, and is a self-professed "hotmess rescued by Jesus." Laura's passion is seeing lives continually transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus radically transformed her life in high school, and sent her on a wild ride of loving God and others ever since. Since graduating from Moody Bible Institute with a BA in ministry in 2008, she's been part of various ministries, served in multiple leadership positions, and most recently, took the vision that God gave her for her local Agape Moms and put it into website form. Her mission here is equipping moms to make disciples as they live on mission in everyday, messy mom-life.

Jesus is Living Water for The Thirsty & Frantic Mom