Life Journal: What's Hiding Under Your Tree?

Genesis 35:4 NIV
So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem.

Luke 14:33 NIV
In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.


Jacob had a difficult time severing the connection between his families idols and gods. Such was the connection between them that he hid them under the tree at Shechem — with the obvious intent to return and retrieve them at some point in the future.

But he hid them because he was going to worship the living God who he knew was not happy with these things.

Jesus presents us with a similar challenge — to leave all items of worship that are not "true God worship" behind and to sever the connection we have with them.

It is no easier for us to leave our stuff then it was for Jacob and his family to leave theirs. Yet if we do not, we are simply demonstrating our unwillingness to truly follow Him. We are in effect saying, I'm leaving an exit plan for the future just in case I want to go back to my old ways.

What Jacob should have done, and what we must do, is to destroy all that which is not worthy of Him in our lives.

So we must ask ourselves:
- What am I hiding under my tree?
- What things do I bury and then plan to return to after cleaning myself up to visit with God?
- What exit plans have I made that are simply setting me up for a future fall?