"You Worshiped Your Way into this Mess"...

“The Puritan preacher Thomas Chaimers, in his sermon The Expulsive Power of a New Affection, said that desires for God and desires for sin cannot coexist in the human heart. They are two opposing “affections”—one will always push out the other. So, he said, “the only way to dispossess [the heart] of an old affection, is by the explosive power of a new one” (see Gal. 5:16-17). You can’t just “stop it,” because the it is always more than behavior. It is always rooted in your affections, in what you love—what you worship. Chalmers points the way forward: we worshiped our way into this mess, and by God’s grace, we’ll worship our way out.”   Mike Wilkerson, Redemption page 38.

I had dinner with a couple of very good friends.  The husband used part of the quote above to encourage us all.  "We worshiped our way into this mess and we can worship our way out."  Man is created to worship. Some people claim to be atheists but even an atheist deems that some person's opinion to be supreme even if it's himself.  Romans 1 tells us that the unbeliever suppresses the truth revealed about God through creation and ends up worshipping the creature instead of the Creator.  Idol worship leads to a mess every time. But worshipping the true God in the way He has revealed in His Word is indeed the way out of the mess.  That brings those of us who struggle against habitual sin much hope.