Kingdom Men Rising: An 8-Day Reading Plan Sample

Dry Bones Dancing

A few years ago I received a phone call from a friend who felt hopeless. His life had taken a turn for the worse, and he saw no way out. I tried to remind him about God’s ability to make a way out of no way and encouraged him to keep his eyes on Christ. But the more we talked, the stronger the resolution to remain hopeless came through in his voice. The next day I learned my friend had taken his life.

This wasn’t the first person I knew who had taken their life, but this one hit me particularly hard. I wondered if I could have said something different to make him change his mind. The weight of his words and the faintness of his voice hung heavy over me for a very long time. Hopelessness is a terrible thing because it means you have given up on the future. You’ve thrown in the towel. Far too many men today are living in hopelessness.

You see this hopelessness when men walk away from their responsibilities to their families, to their communities, or to their church. You see this hopelessness when they no longer believe that God can make a difference in history. This hopelessness manifests itself in a culture rife with conflict and division. You may wonder “Why?” Why did God allow this to get this bad? I have discovered that God has a way of letting life get so low until the only way you can look is up. In Ezekiel, we see God’s judgment poured out on a culture filled with impurity and idol worship.

In Ezekiel’s day and in our own, the world is filled with idols. Simply explained, idolatry is intimacy with an image. It’s not necessarily bowing down to a carved statue stuck on a pole. An idol is anything that usurps God’s rightful rule in your life. Idols come in all shapes and sizes. What’s more, they can even be found in the church. Idolatry centers on alignment—you align your thoughts, words, and actions under what you value most.

Clinging to idols is forsaking the faithfulness of God. When the pendulum of our hearts swings towards idolatry, it slides away from God’s love and power. However, the opposite is also true. When we forsake idols, our heart swings into alignment with God’s grace, faithfulness, power, and love in our lives. To embrace God’s will and activate the flow of His love and power into our lives, we must turn away from idols. God has made it clear, through His Word, how to activate the flow of His love and power into your life as well as how to deactivate it.

God has given us the means and the method for removing the idols that grip our hearts. Through the Holy Spirit, He has given us new life in the Spirit which provides the means to diagnose and dismiss our idols. Prayer and self-evaluation provide the methods for us to begin uprooting idols and casting them aside.

Prayer lets us communicate directly with God. As we bring our requests, God begins to direct the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. We hear from Him and invite Him to put to death what is earthly in us. Let’s take advantage of God’s means and method for dealing with idolatry.