What are you most scared to lose and what would you be most unwilling to give up for the sake of following Christ.
Idolatry is something we all have struggled and do struggle with.
So what is idolatry, John Piper describes it as this, he says “Idolatry starts in the heart: craving, wanting, enjoying and being satisfied by anything that you treasure more than God”
I want you guys to really think about what Piper is saying here.
When we begin to examine our own lives, the idols we have slowly begin to show their ugly faces. Tim Keller, a bible teacher from the US, explains that we can define idols as: anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.” If you look at something and say “If I have that then I’ll know I have value, then I’ll feel significant and secure.” You see, we place our thoughts, our hopes, our dreams on these idols and we ignore the fact that God defines our worth purely because we are his children, we can not find our worth in things of this world, or in other people, because we will always end up disheartened, insecure and self-conscious, we must turn our eyes onto Jesus to see where our worth lies.
It is great to have dreams and aspirations, especially if they are to do with serving God and you have sought his will throughout the formation of them. Now often when we hope for something in particular we spend a lot of time and energy on that one goal and potentially we can become so consumed by this one hope or wish that it easily becomes an idol in our lives. An amazing example of one individual who held nothing back from God is Abraham, he hoped and prayed to have a child with his wife Sarah so that they may have descendants. When Abraham was 100 years old, his wife miraculously gave birth to a baby boy named Isaac, they were overjoyed. For so long Sarah and Abraham had been unable to have a child and yet despite their old age the Lord blessed them with one. Now this is when it starts to get relevant to what we are talking about, in Genesis chapter 22, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son as an offering to Him. In one of the most famous tests in history, God asks Abraham to do one of the hardest things imaginable to see if Abraham truly feared God. If you know the story, Abraham binds his son and is about to kill him when an angel of the Lord stops him, now that Abraham had shown he wouldn’t even withhold his son from God. God provided a ram to be sacrificed instead and Issac lived on. You see Isaac could very easily have become an idol in Abraham’s life, Abraham dreamed of having a child and finally he had the son he had always dreamed of. We know that Abraham loved his son, the bible tells us so and yet despite how special Issac was to Abraham, Abraham recognised that even his own sons life wasn’t worth more than his obedience to God.
So you see, an idol can be anything, a boyfriend, good grades, approval of others, sport, the list goes on.
What are you most scared to lose and what would you be most unwilling to give up for the sake of following Christ.
Paul, in the book of Romans, puts it like this;
“they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served what has been created instead of the Creator”
All of us are guilty of this, making gods of the earthly things we love instead of thanking our heavenly father for them. Every good gift is from above and nothing is more worthy of our time, energy, praise or worship than our Creator himself, God.
Now, hopefully at this point you realise that idols aren’t a good thing, they in fact are a sinful thing and God demands that we have none. But what are the consequences of having these idols in our lives. Idols can be good things, but when we make them into Ultimate things it destroys us, when we put something in the place of God it never will live up to expectations and satisfy us. When Christ is rightfully the centre of our lives we will never be disappointed and then we can enjoy these others things properly and thank our heavenly Father for them.
And the wonderful thing about this all, is that for those who trust in God, who give their lives to him and become children of God they will not have to see Gods wrath, again Paul says as he writes to the church at Thessalonica,
“You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.”
Jesus saves us, when we turn from the idols in our lives, when we fully commit to Jesus he saves us. In our study on Wednesday you may have read the verse from Hebrews 7v25 : “Therefore, he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, since he always lives to intercede for them.”
Jesus saves us completely, he saves us from God’s wrath that will come.
Nothing on this earth can satisfy, sustain us and complete us the way God can, he is the only one worthy of our complete devotion, honour and praise and when we begin to make others and objects into idols they will always disappoint us. Give God the rightful place in your life, hand everything over to him because idols will always let you down.
By Rachel Bruce.
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