COMMITMENT;
IDOLS

“The dearest idol I have known, Whate’er that idol be, Help me to tear it from Thy throne, And worship only Thee.”

We sing this glibly enough, but we cancel out our prayer by our refusal to surrender the very idol of which we sing. To give up our last idol is to plunge ourselves into a state of inward loneliness which no gospel meeting, no fellowship with other Christians, can ever cure. For this reason most Christians play it safe and settle for a life of compromise. They have some of God, to be sure, but not all; and God has some of them, but not all. And so they live their tepid lives and try to disguise with bright smiles and snappy choruses the deep spiritual destitution within them.

Matthew 6:24–33; 1 John 5:21

Keys to the Deeper Life, 54, 55.