To everyone who has been praying for our family — thank you. Those two words aren't enough but they're all I have right now.
Our oldest daughter has been dealing with an acute health issue for the past five or six days. I woke up this morning suffocating with worry. There's a particular kind of helplessness that comes from being far away when your child is hurting and you can't do a thing about it but pray.
So that's what I'm asking you to keep doing. Please continue to lift her up. Your support — both financially and prayerfully — means more to this family than you will ever know.
I'll be posting from the archives today and tomorrow. Wednesday I'm getting to work on the beginning of a week-long series I'm genuinely excited for you to read.
For now, here's one that hit hard the first time. It'll hit harder the second.
Originally published November 22, 2025
There's a false god sitting on the throne in most churches.
It's not money.
It's not sex.
It's not politics.
It's your own will.
We don't bow at a golden calf.
We bow at the altar of "I'll do better this week."
You've heard the slogan:
"Discipline equals freedom."
There's some truth there.
If you never tell your flesh "no," you will be a slave.
But here's the quiet heresy:
We start trusting discipline more than we trust Christ.
We build liturgies around:
Routines
Habits
Productivity
Self-improvement
Then we sprinkle "for the glory of God" on top and call it holy.
We don't worship idols made of wood and stone.
We worship a more respectable idol:
Our own resolve.
Paul said:
"All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any." — 1 Corinthians 6:12 (KJV)
"I will not be brought under the power of any."
That includes:
Other men
Systems
Addictions
And his own religious flesh
Paul refused to become a slave to anything—
even to his own sense of performance.
We can't say the same.
Most of us are either:
Proud of our willpower
Or addicted to hating ourselves for not having enough
Either way, self sits at the center.
Ask the average Christian man how he's doing and you'll get one of two lies.
Lie #1: "I'm doing pretty good."
Family at church.
Bible in hand.
Bills paid.
No public scandal.
Secret thought: "God must be pleased with me. I'm not like those other people."
Lie #2: "I'm trash."
"I'm the worst. I can't get it together. God could never use someone like me."
Secret thought: "My failure is more interesting than Christ's victory."
One sounds proud.
The other sounds humble.
They're both self-worship.
In both, you are the point.
Your performance.
Your failure.
Your will.
Christ becomes a background character in a story starring you.
We sense something is off, so we try to "fix it" by adding holiness to the flesh.
We decide:
"I'll be more consistent."
"I'll pray longer."
"I'll get strict with myself."
We still haven't left the altar of our own will.
We're just bringing God better-looking sacrifices from the same polluted heart.
We're like dough that refuses to admit it's flat.
So we knead in religious yeast:
Church clothes
Nice Bibles (if you still carry a physical one)
Christian lingo
"We're doing life together"
We puff up and mistake rise for righteousness.
"A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." — Galatians 5:9 (KJV)
The yeast can be sin.
The yeast can also be respectable religion.
Both swell the flesh.
Apart from Christ, we are nothing.
Not "rough around the edges."
Not "a work in progress."
Nothing.
Before salvation, your best day was worthless without Him.
After salvation, your best day is still worthless if it's not woven into Him.
"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." — Philippians 1:21 (KJV)
Anything else you quietly plug into that sentence is an idol.
"For to me to live is discipline…"
"For to me to live is proving myself…"
"For to me to live is finally becoming the man I think I should be…"
That's will-worship.
Jesus Christ—the only perfect Man who ever lived, did something in Gethsemane that should terrify our self-help culture.
He said:
"Not my will, but thine, be done." — Luke 22:42 (KJV)
If anyone had the right to trust His own will, it was Him.
Sinless.
Holy.
Steady.
And yet He laid His will down.
He didn't flex it.
He surrendered it.
Paul, the most disciplined man you'll ever meet outside of Christ, wrote:
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me…" — Galatians 2:20 (KJV)
Crucified.
That's what has to happen to the altar of your own will.
Not polished.
Not optimized.
Crucified.
God has more for you than a life of white-knuckling your way through spiritual to-do lists.
More than the endless cycle:
Fail
Hate yourself
Vow to "do better"
Run on discipline fumes
Get proud
Fail again
Your will is not the Savior.
Your discipline is not the Deliverer.
Your consistency is not the Christ.
They make a cruel god.
They will take everything and give nothing back but exhaustion and pride.
The most worshiped false god in modern Christianity is not Baal or Mammon.
It's the self-improved, dialed-in, disciplined version of you that you're always chasing and never reaching.
The version of you that, if you could just become him, would make Christ's cross feel… unnecessary.
God will not share His glory with that man.
He loves you too much to let you become your own savior.
So what do you do?
You stop bowing at the altar of "I'll fix this."
You get honest and pray the most dangerous prayer in the world:
"Not my will, but thine."
Not:
"Here's my plan, bless it."
"Here's my grind, use it."
"Here's my discipline, count it."
But:
"Here's my body.
Here's my mind.
Here's my will.
Put it on the altar."
"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." — Romans 12:1 (KJV)
A living sacrifice doesn't stay in control.
It doesn't negotiate terms.
It doesn't worship itself.
It just burns.
If this hit you, don't turn it into another "I'll try harder."
That's the idol reaching for the incense again.
Instead:
Confess the ways you've been trusting your will more than Christ.
Ask Him to expose every place "discipline" has replaced dependence.
Lay your plans, your grind, your self-improvement projects on the altar and say:
"Not my will, but thine."
Less self as project.
More self as offering.
Less worship of your will.
More worship of the One who bled for it.
Everything else is just yeast.
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Thank you for reading. Thank you for praying. God bless every single one of you.
—Adam
