When I was growing up, whenever we went out to dinner as a family, and the possibility of ordering dessert came up, my father would say to me, "Don't order the apple pie."

Now, my father was not a cruel man; he was not trying to keep me from ordering dessert. He wanted to protect me from disappointment. You see, my mother makes the best apple pie in the whole world, and my father had learned from experience that no apple pie could ever compare to Mom's apple pie.

In the same way, we do ourselves a disservice by substituting anything for Christ himself.