Category: Idolatry

Overcoming Idolatry

On By BrianIn Heart, Idolatry1 Comment

Other gods call us to bow down and worship them, to treasure them before God.  How can we overcome this idolatry?  How can we leave behind empty things and serve God alone?

First, we need to receive a new heart.  Since the Fall, our hearts are given over to evil (Genesis 6:5), and we need to receive new hearts (Ezekiel 36:26-27).  Put another way, we are dead in our sins and need to be made alive with Christ (Ephesians 2:1-5).  Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead that we might have new hearts.  And all we need to do to receive a new heart is trust in Jesus as our Savior.  It come by faith apart from works (Ephesians 2:8-9).  This is the foundation to overcoming idolatry.

Second, we need to continue to look to God.  God gives us a new heart for him, and God will help us overcome idolatry.  Psalm 86:11 is a cry for God to give us undivided hearts.  This needs to be our cry.  We need his help.

Third, we need to identify, guard, and run.  Through Scripture and prayer (Hebrews 4:12 and Psalm 139:23-24), we identify our gods.  Once we know the idols that call our name, we can guard against them – and we must, for our hearts can easily be led astray (Deuteronomy 11:16).  And when the tempation comes – run.  I Corinthians 10:14 tells us to flee.  If an otherwise good thing has become an idol in your life, you may need to just walk away for awhile.  That’s defensive – identify the enemy, guard against it, and retreat.  But we need to go further:

Fourth, renew your mind.  Romans 12:2 tells us not to be conformed to world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  If we think in our minds that an idol is better than God we will serve the idol.  We need to have our thinking changed – what we believe.  This too is a work of God, but we can cooperate with him as we immerse ourselves in his Word, spend time communing with him in prayer, praise him, and participate in godly fellowship that encourages us to treasure God above all else.

When we really believe that God is the best, we will desire him more than anything else, and we will then live for him.  But the world parades false clues leading to false treasures before us, so we must be discerning lest we be conformed to the thinking of the world rather than transformed by the renewing of our minds.

Finally, we must cherish Christ.  This is the goal of mind renewal.  The more we cherish Christ, the more idols will lose their appeal.  As the great hymn reminds us, when we survey what Christ has done for us on the cross, “all the vain things that charm us most” simply lose their appeal.

(For more thoughts on fighting idolatry, see the Three Passions Idolatry page.)

Behind the Curtain

On By BrianIn Heart, Idolatry1 Comment

In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her three strange companions come before Oz.  They see the lights and the smoke, and they tremble before the great Oz – this god.  Only Toto the dog has enough sense to ignore the show, and pull back the curtain that reveals a mere man.

Behind the smoke and lights, glamor and glitz, of our gods is just a person or thing that God made for us to enjoy but not worship.

Don’t waste your awe on what isn’t awesome.

Don’t waste your worship on what isn’t worthy.

At the cross, another curtain was opened that revealed the one true God.  Go in, fall down, and worship Him.

Empty Things

On By BrianIn Heart, Idolatry1 Comment

God provides us with many good things.  He showers blessings upon us daily.  Our problem is that we twist his blessings into idols.  We try to make these good things into gods – something God never intended for us to do.  We treasure the gifts before the Giver.  We live for things rather than God.  Yet the gifts God gives us to enjoy make pitiful gods. They are empty.

Samuel warns the people of Israel of this in I Samuel 12:21 – “And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty.”

What are some of these empty things that we serve as gods.  Consider just some of the pantheon.  Which ones call your name?

  • Relationships/Family/Friends
  • Wisdom/Knowledge
  • Food
  • Entertainment/Media
  • Control/Power
  • Reputation/Popularity
  • Health
  • Sports
  • Work
  • Material Things
  • Retirement Fund
  • Government
  • Technology/Gadgets
  • Beauty/Fashion
  • Sex
  • Tradition
  • Change
  • Convenience
  • Comfort
  • Shopping
  • Independence

Good things, but empty gods.

In the movie Cool Runnings, the coach of the Jamaican bobsled team tells the captain of the team that gold medals are wonderful things.  But if you aren’t enough without one, you won’t be enough with one.

Wise words.  Gold medals are good, but they can’t satisfy the soul.  The list above are all good things, but they can’t satisfy your soul.  They are empty.

The Scriptures point again and again to the emptiness of other gods.  In Isaiah 44, we find a man who cuts down a tree.  He cuts most of it up for firewood to keep him warm, but some of it he carves into an idol which he bows down to worship. What a fool, we may think.

But then we go to work to make money which we use to buy fuel to keep us warm, and then we add to our retirement fund or savings account which we are trusting in as gods.  Or we use some money for fuel and another part for material things or entertainment or food which we chase after, live for, bow down to as a god.  We too can be fools.

Psalm 135:15-17 tells about other gods – they have mouths but can’t speak, eyes but can’t see, ears that can’t hear.  Why would we trust in these things, live for these things, treat them as gods?

In I Kings 18, Elijah calls the prophets of Baal to a contest.  Each will build an altar to his god, which ever god answers by fire – he is the true God.  The prophets of Baal dance around all morning calling upon Baal to answer with fire.  Nothing happens.  They trust in a god that can’t answer.  They worship a god that can’t satisfy, provide, or help.  Yet there we go again dancing around our own Baals that cannot answer, satisfy, provide, or help.

That afternoon, Elijah prays a simple prayer to his God, and fire falls from heaven engulfing the entire altar.  The people bow down and worship the true God.  Isn’t it time we left behind our empty things and did the same?

What’s in your Wagon?

On By BrianIn Heart, Idolatry1 Comment

In an old Little House on the Prairie episode, Laura and her friend are fishing in a creek when they see something shiny on the bottom of the creek.  They stop fishing to investigate – and it is gold dust!  They secretively begin to collect the gold dust after school and on the weekends.  They begin to dream of what they might do with their new found riches.

After a few weeks, they have so many bags of gold, that they decide to take it to the bank.  So they fill a small wagon with their treasure and pull the wagon to town.  With excitement they show the banker what they have.  But their smiles soon fade, as the banker shakes his head and tells them it’s not gold.  It is fool’s gold.  It looks like gold, but it is not.  Their treasure isn’t worth anything.  They have wasted hours, days, and weeks collecting something without any value.

What is in your wagon?  What are you spending hours, days, weeks, months, and years of your life on?  What treasure have you given your life too?  When you bring your wagon before God, will he shake his head and tell you your wagon is filled with worthless dust?  Will he tell you that you wasted your life?  Or will he see that your treasure was God, that you gave your life to him?  Will he tell you well done good and faithful servant?

What is in your wagon?

Life is a treasure hunt.  Choose your treasure carefully.

Treasure Hunt

On By BrianIn Heart, Idolatry

Life is like a treasure hunt.  The big difference is that while a typical treasure hunt has clues that lead to a single treasure, life has many clues that lead to numerous treasures.  We have to decide which clues to follow, which treasures to seek.

Jesus used the picture of a treasure in Matthew 6.  He reminds us not to lay up treasure on earth, but rather to lay up treasure in heaven.  Verse 21 reads: “for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

So what is your treasure?  There are lots of clues leading to lots of treasures.  What is your treasure?

The Psalms give us clues to what our treasure should be.  Psalm 63 tells us that God’s love is better than life; that God satisfies.  Psalm 27 tells us to seek God’s face.  In Psalm 73, the writer tells us that he desires nothing in heaven or earth but God.  In Psalm 16, David says that God is his chosen portion.  Out of all the possible treasures life offers, David has chosen God.  These psalms and many more are clues that point to God as the true treasure we should seek.

Is God our treasure?  The quick “Christian” answer of course is God, but is he really?  Do our lives prove that God is our treasure?  Or do our lives point to other competing treasures, other gods that we bow down to and serve?  Is God our treasure, or is it God and ________ (you fill in the blank)?

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  So where is your heart?  Whatever your heart is set on is your treasure.  So consider your heart:

What do you love more than anything else?

What to seek, desire, long for more than anything else?

What to you praise and talk about all of the time?

What do you trust in for security and satisfaction and meaning?

What do you serve no matter the cost?

What determines your words and actions and relationships with people?

Are the answers to these questions – God, or some other things, or maybe God and other things?  Where is your heart?  That is your treasure.

Life is a treasure hunt.  What is your treasure?

Heart of Trust

On By BrianIn Heart, Idolatry2 Comments

Proverb 3:5 is a well known verse – “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”  A well known verse, but not so well applied.  Trust God with my family?  Trust God with my job and my finances?  Trust God with my relationships?  Trust God with my health?  Trust God with my country, the economy, the two wars?  Trust God with my trials, sorrows, and struggles?  Trust God with all my life?

Sometimes this is less than easy (an understatement!).  When I don’t understand, it can be hard to trust.  When life doesn’t make sense to me, it can be hard to trust.  In the midst of the struggle, it can be hard to trust.  I cry out, “Why, Lord?”  He answers, “Trust me.”

And God calls me to trust him with all my heart.  My heart is to be completely bent towards trusting him.  Having a heart for God means I will trust him with my life.

Yet other gods call us to trust in them.  I might trust in my job to get me through a bad economy.  I might trust in my savings to make me financially secure.  I might trust in my spouse or a friend to make me happy.  I might trust in the government to solve my problems.  I might trust in the church to save me or help me.  All of these things are good things – unless I turn them into gods, unless I place my trust in them instead of God.

How do I show my trust in God?  We show our trust as we bring our problems to God in prayer (Psalm 62:8).  Prayer is an act of trust.  We trust him as we wait on him to act, even when we want immediate answers (Psalm 27:13-14).

And as we trust in him, he offers us peace (Isaiah 26:3-4).  Peace in the midst of the storm as we keep our gaze on him.

And this trust leads to praise (Psalm 28:7).  As we trust him and he helps us, we have reason to offer up praises to him.

God, pour out your grace upon us today that we might trust you with all our hearts.

Serving Other Gods

On By BrianIn Idolatry, PASSION Quotes1 Comment

John Frame in his forward for the new book, You Are The Treasure That I Seek: *But there’s a lot of cool stuff out there, Lord by Greg Dutcher writes these words:

“So when we find ourselves going against God’s Word, it is helpful to ask the question: “What idol am I worshipping?”  That is a powerful question, because it exposes the heart.  It asks us to inspect our motives.  When I am unkind to my wife, for example, it’s not a mere slip.  It shows that my heart is not right with God, that I love myself more than my wife….  My own convenience, my own preferences, my own comfort have become my idol.”

Behind every sin is an idol.  Too often behind every good act there is an idol too.  I might serve in ministry for my reputation or another’s praise rather than for Christ.  I might work hard at my job longing for a raise or promotion rather than in service to Christ.  Again and again the Scriptures call us to serve God with all of our hearts (I Samuel 12:24, etc.) , but our hearts are too often divided.  Our hearts are bent on serving other things – other gods.  Here are a few thoughts to begin fighting idols.

1. Prayerfully examine your heart. Ask God to search your heart (Psalm 139:23-24).  Evaluate why you do what you do.  Is it for Christ or is there an idol in your life?  Begin to identify your gods.

2. Confess your sin of idolatry to God.  As you identify your gods, confess these idols to God.  The first commandment tells us to not have any gods before the one true God.  We are all guilty of breaking this command – confess your sins.

3. Celebrate the gospel.  John Frame again writes: “Thinking about idolatry helps us measure ourselves accurately, to see how far we fall below God’s standards.”  We could easily get depressed by how sinful we are.  But we come to cross.  We claim his forgiveness.  We celebrate the glorious truth that Jesus died FOR EVERY TIME we sin.  In Christ, we are clean and pure in God’s sight.

4. Seek to serve God with all your heart.  The truth of the gospel – what Christ did for us, should motivate us to press forward to serve God alone.  Turn away from the gods you identified.  Ask God for help to serve him alone.

May God help us overcome our idols and serve him alone!

More thoughts on idols and fighting them in future posts….

Passion for Things

On By BrianIn Idolatry1 Comment

Yesterday, I mentioned the need to overcome our passion for things and replace it with a passion for God.  At root is the question of what we value most and where we place our trust – in things or God.  If the answer is things – then we commit idolatry.  Consider the words of the Psalm 135:15-18:

“The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands.  They have mouths but do not speak; they have eyes but do not see….  Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them.”

John Piper, in his book, When I Don’t Desire God, comments on these verses with insightful words:

“Make and trust a blind idol, and you become blind.  Apply that principle to the modern world, and think of the idols of our own day.  What do we make and what do we trust?  Things.  Toys.  Technology.  And so our hearts and affections are formed by these things.  They compress the void in our hearts into shapes like toys.  The result is that we are easily moved and excited by things….”

And yet these things never satisfy.  For as Augustine wrote, speaking of God: “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”  When we delight and trust in things, our hearts are formed towards those things, but are hearts remain restless.  We need to redirect our gaze on Christ, reset our desire upon him, place our trust in him.  If trusting in idols makes us like idols, if looking to things makes us like things, then looking to God will make us like him – and we will find rest for our souls. May God help us reset our gaze upon him.

Persecution Coming?

On By BrianIn Idolatry

One of the most provocative statements at the conference I attended Monday was the suggestion that within 15 years the church in America would face persecution.  In a world with many ways to God, many “truths,” and many lifestyles, how long will our culture tolerate our message that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life?  In many ways, we are back in the world of the early church with many gods, many spiritualities, and many ways of life.  And when the early church’s message rubbed against another way of life (think of Paul in Ephesus in Acts 19), there was persecution.  What to do?

One answer is simply to do what Jesus told us to do and “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).  While persecution may come from our message, our actions of love may reduce that persecution.  (I should stop here, and say that we should love others because they are made in the image of God and we were created to love.  Receptivity to the gospel and possible lessening of persecution are primarily results.)

Another answer is to start seasoning our message with love.  Not that we compromise the message, but too often our approach to speaking the message seems to be arrogant and in your face.  There is a humble way to share the message, and this is the path of Jesus.

But what to do when persecution comes?  Jim Grier, who suggested that persecution was coming, also suggested that the church wasn’t ready.  To get ready, he said, we need to give up our addiction to material wealth, our idolatry to consumerism.  It reminds me of Achan in Joshua 7 who by his testimony saw and coveted.  And there is a lot to see today, and hence a lot to covet.  And so we see, we covet, and we buy.  This is the American way of life.  But our desire is to be set on God and his Kingdom, not on material things.  Again in the words of Jesus, we are to lay up treasure in heaven, not on earth.  Ask yourself this question: if you had to choose between a comfortable life with your material things and a persecuted life with God, which would you choose?  We know the right answer, but would we really make that choice?  Now is the time to end our passion for things, and start living with a passion for God, so that if persecution comes, and that choice is forced upon us, our hearts will be bent to make the right choice.