Preparing for Easter: Breaking Free From Our IdolsSample

After Abraham demonstrated his willingness to sacrifice Isaac, God renewed His Covenant with Abraham in even stronger terms: "By myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore."

God's Promised Blessing now came with divine certainty: "By myself I have sworn." Abraham's willingness to surrender his idol positioned him to fully receive God's Blessing.

This pattern reveals a profound spiritual principle: freedom from our idols leads to experiencing God's Blessings as He intended. When we hold God's Gifts loosely, recognizing them as Gifts rather than gods, we can enjoy them fully without being enslaved.

The story of Abraham and Isaac foreshadows an even Greater Sacrifice and Provision. Centuries later, God would provide another sacrifice on that very mountain range - not via a ram caught in a thicket, but His own Son. As Paul writes in Romans 8:32, "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?"

Unlike Abraham, who was stopped before completing the sacrifice, God the Father offered His Son. Jesus died on the Cross, becoming the Ultimate Sacrifice that frees us from sin, death - and our idols.

This is the Freedom Paul speaks of in Galatians 5:1: "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." Christ set us Free when He died on the Cross and forgave our sins. Yet many of us have chosen slavery again. We're Free, but we don't live like it. We're Free, but we choose to enslave ourselves to idols.

Breaking free from our idols is often a brutal process. It requires identifying, surrendering, and replacing them with a deeper trust in God. As I found when trying to break my dependency on caffeine and energy drinks, the process isn't usually quick or comfortable. When we decide to be Free, we should expect resistance—both from within ourselves and from others who benefit from our enslavement.

But God promises to provide what we need as we pursue Freedom. The same God who provided the ram for Abraham offers all we need to break free from our idols - primarily through the Sacrificial Gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. His Death is why we call it “Good Friday.”

As we celebrate Christ's Resurrection this Easter, let's celebrate the Freedom He offers us from our idols. Through His Death and Resurrection, we're no longer slaves to money, success, approval, comfort, control, or any other created thing we've elevated to Ultimate Status.

Preparing for Easter means embracing all the Freedom Jesus made possible through the Cross and the Empty Tomb.

Thank you for completing this Plan! If you want additional resources on identifying and breaking free from the idols in your life, I've created a special Preparing for Easter Action Plan that offers practical steps for experiencing the Freedom Christ died to give you. Click here to get access to this complimentary resource.