Counseling: Idols of the heart

Question 1

The most important location in People

Answer 1

The heart

Question 2

The most important activity of people

Answer 2

worship

Question 3

Who wrote the book of proverbs

Answer 3

King Solomon

Question 4

Why should we target the heart in counseling

Answer 4

The heart is the wellspring of life – the Mission Control Center (Prov. 4:23)

(NET2) 23 Guard your heart with all vigilance, for from it are the sources of life.

(ESV) 23 Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

Question 5

What does the bible mean by ‘heart’

Answer 5

The heart is our immaterial essence, our souls, our inner man.

Question 6

What is the difference between the inner-man and the outer-man

Answer 6

Outerman: behaviour
Innerman: Soul/heart

Question 7

Activities of the heart

Answer 7

Controls EVERYTHING

Question 8

How can we know what is going on in the heart?

Answer 8

The heart is revealed through the behavior (What we say and do)

Mark 7:20-23

20 And he said, What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.

Luke 6:43 - 45

43 For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, 44 for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. 45 The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

Question 9

What must occur for real change to be possible

Answer 9

The heart must be addressed

God is not honored if all we do is simply just stop DOING evil, like stopping yelling at and cursing people who anger us, instead God wants our hearts to be transformed so that we show more patients and kindness to those who anger us.

Mathew 23: 25-26

25 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

Question 10

What is worship according to the bible, and why is it so important?

Answer 10

It is not merely singing, praising or dancing, these can be expressions of worship, but worship is more than this, It is the activity of ultimate submission

exodus 19

3 You shall have no other gods before me. (exclusive allegiance)

It deals with our: love, loyalty, allegiance, the object of our ultimate affection, our greatest desire

Who or what we worship governs our life

Anything that we worship other than God, becomes an idol that governs us

Question 11

What exactly is an idol?

Answer 11

Not a carved statue, it is anything that is esteemed higher than God. Anything that we worship that takes up residence in our hearts

Idols in the heart set up false worship

Ezekial 14

1. Then certain of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me. 2 And the word of the Lord came to me: 3 Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? 4 Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Any one of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols, 5 that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me through their idols.

With addictions, like alcoholism, the visible idol is the bottle, but the real idol is the invisible idol within the heart, the false worship of the heart.

Rom 1:18-25 tells us that Idols are anything that replaces God. It is anything that we use to exchange God.

Rom 1:18-25

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Question 12

What did John Calvin say about man’s nature

Answer 12

Man’s nature (Our hearts) are perpetual factories of idols

Question 13

What is Gods attitude towards the idols in our hearts

Answer 13

God sets his face against those with idols in their hearts.

In Ezekiel, we see that on the Israelites, He brought famine, beasts, war and disease (pestilence), and more

Question 14

What does Rom 1:18-25 say about the spiritual reality of problems like sexual immorality, homosexuality, unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Answer 14

It is at it’s very core a false worship problem, and is the result of “idols of the heart”

Question 15

What is the lie that humans exchanged for the truth for in Rom 1:18-25?

Answer 15

That there is something better and more satisfying than God.

Question 16

What question can we use to reveal the idols in our hearts?

Answer 16

What is it that I really have to have, in life, to be ok?

If your answer is not King Jesus then you are an idolator

Question 17

What are some common idols or God-replacements in people’s lives?

Answer 17

Pleasure
Control
Power
Money

Question 18

What are some common idols or God-replacements in people’s lives?

Answer 18

Anything can become an idol

Pleasure
Control
Power
Money
Respect
Sport
Recognition
Being loved
Being needed
Wellness
Shopping
Wanting to be liked
Substances

Question 19

What was Luther’s definition of a god?

Answer 19

Whatever we put our faith in

“A god is that to which we look for all good and in which we find refuge in every time of need. To have a god is
nothing else than to trust and believe him with our whole heart. As I have often said, the trust and faith of the heart
alone make both God and an idol…. That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is, I say, really your God.” -
Martin Luther on the “First Commandment” in Luther’s Large Catechism

Question 20

The problem with psychological diagnosis

Answer 20

When someone has an problem with wanting acceptance, psychology says they have a “low self-esteem” problem, when in fact they have an acceptance idol problem. Their problem is really a worship problem

The psychological label and misdiagnosis of low-self esteem might very well culminate in treatment such as guided imagery aimed at improving the “ideal” self, or developing a better “self-image”. This in itself does not solve the person’s problem but exacerbates it, by “enlarging” the idol in their heart, so that it becomes even deeper entrenched and the person even more enslaved to sin.

Therefore we need to call sin sin, if a person is to be liberated.

Question 21

What is the progression found in Rom 1:18-25?

Answer 21

Think - want - worship -behavior

Think: It starts with what we think, “Do I want the truth or do I want the lie”

want: “Do I want God, or do I want something else”
worship: “What am I looking toward for allegiance and love, and satisfaction”

Behavior:

Question 22

How to deal with Idols?

Answer 22

Idols needs to be repented of and replaced with the living God

Paul describes the conversion of the Thessalonians like this “They turned to God, from idols”

Question 23

Can sin cause physical problems or illness?

Answer 23

Psalm 32:3-4

3 For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.

4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

Question 24

What does Jer. 17.9 say about the heart?

Answer 24

9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Question 25

What is needed for the removal of idols?

Answer 25

A change of heart. A heart that worships the living God.

Ezekiel

25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. 28 You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.