Judgment is hanging over America. The day may come when we are forced to live like so many in the third world countries, our children playing in the mud with the chickens and goats. Would this affect our worship of God? Let us hope not for many dear Christian people worship God in such an environment.

All we have mentioned are idols. They are worshiped in America.

Each of us has many idols residing in our personality. Your idol is something you would have a terrible time letting go of if the Lord should call for it.

Much of our Christian discipleship consists of the Lord putting these idols beneath our feet. The process is painful. The Lord Jesus will have nothing between us and Him just as there is nothing between Him and the Father—no other relationship, circumstance, or thing.

If we refuse to come to God unless we can carry our idols with us, not permitting Him to remove them from us today, we will be "turned back in utter shame" when the Body of Christ appears with the Head to bring justice to the nations.

"I am the Lord. You shall have no other gods before Me!"

"Hear, you deaf; look, you blind, and see! Who is blind but my servant, and deaf like the messenger I send? Who is blind like the one committed to me, blind like the servant of the LORD? You have seen many things, but have paid no attention; your ears are open, but you hear nothing." (Isaiah 42:18-20)

Perhaps the greatest battle we have in becoming part of the Servant of the Lord is that of turning away from our own thoughts, our own "sight," and learning to look to Jesus for everything.

During the two thousand years of Church history tremendous emphasis has been placed on doctrinal correctness, on believing what the authorities desire we believe about God, Christ, and the Christian religion. However, what we believe has little or no bearing on our salvation except as our belief leads us to Jesus.

There is no salvation in belief itself.

The Pharisees were orthodox in their belief but murdered Christ.

Yesterday a young man wrote me asking about the Godhead. It seems he has been a Christian for a month or so and already he is being confronted with people who want to argue about the relationship of Christ to the Father.

I wrote back that such spiritual truth cannot be fully comprehended by the physical brain and to avoid the discussion. I exhorted him to follow Jesus closely and in time Jesus would bring him to the Father. Then he will understand that he is in Christ and Christ is in the Father. That is all we need to know about the Godhead.

It is so difficult to direct our mind constantly toward Jesus instead of relying on our thought processes, but it becomes easier as we practice looking to the Lord for everything. Of course we have to be practical and observant in the world. But all the decisions we are making continually need to be addressed to the Lord in prayer.

The Lord's servant is blind. The Lord's messenger is deaf. Do you remember the young prophet who listened to the older prophet and was killed by a lion? The Lord told him to return immediately but he listened to someone else. He still could have ignored the older prophet and gone on his way but he began to reason.

To be continued.