It has been ten days since Tim Keller passed away, his books helped and still helping me a lot. I have read The Reason For God and Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering a long time ago, now I am reading his Counterfeit Gods.
His writing is challenging and most importantly, liberating and life-saving.
Some very insightful quotes from the book Counterfeit Gods that made me rethink life.
- We may not actually burn incense to Artemis, but when money and career are raised to cosmic proportions, we perform a kind of child sacrifice, neglecting family and community to achieve a higher place in business and gain more wealth and prestige.
- As the years go by they come to the sickening realization that “their grandeur is not enough and that they are lonely.”
- They had sacrificed everything to the god of success, but it wasn’t enough. In ancient times, the deities were bloodthirsty and hard to appease. They still are.
- We think that idols are bad things, but that is almost never the case. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes. Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life.
… a great political or social cause, your morality and virtue, or even success in the Christian ministry. - There are also idols, non-negotiable absolute values, in every vocational field. In the business world, self-expression is suppressed for the ultimate value, profit. In the art world, however, it is the other way around. Everything is sacrificed to self-expression, and it is done in the name of redemption. This, it is thought, is what the human race needs above all. There are idols everywhere.
- The only way to free ourselves from the destructive influence of counterfeit gods is to turn back to the true one. The living God, who revealed himself both at Mount Sinai and on the Cross, is the only Lord who, if you find him, can truly fulfill you, and, if you fail him, can truly forgive you.
Counterfeit Gods by Pastor Timothy Keller
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