The dictionary defines an idol as ‘an image or other material object representing a deity to which religious worship is addressed or any person or things regarded with admiration, adoration or devotion.’1 Perhaps when you hear the word idolatry you think of people bowing to statues thousands of years ago. Fair assumption…but idolatry is far from a problem left in the past.
We may not bow down in front of a TV, an iPhone or Taylor Swift, but that doesn’t mean we are not worshipping them. Idol worship in the lives of most Christians is subtle and can remain hidden from the outside. They’re in the heart.
Is there anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God?
John Calvin writes that ‘The human heart is a factory of idols…Everyone of us is, from his mother’s womb, expert in inventing idols.’ We are constantly searching for things that are not God to worship. The problem arises when we take a man-made thing and make it more important than the man maker. What God has given us for good and for pleasure, we have made ultimate. Anything can be an idol—material possessions, love, family, children…the list is endless. Anything we raise above the authority and position of God in our hearts is an idol. We turn to them for wisdom and ultimately our identity and security. Their original purposes have been distorted. We deify these things because we are convinced they give us significance, satisfaction and security.
So how do we respond to this problem?
Pray
Pray that God will identify and reveal the idols in our hearts that we are not aware of. I kid you not, while I have been writing this I smashed my phone to smithereens. The guy in the phone shop laughed at me the damage was that bad. It’s been less than 24 hours since I haven’t had a phone attached to my hand and I’m already feeling convicted about how much I use my phone and what for.
Repent
Turn away from our sin. Smash your idol (not literally like I did with my phone) but acknowledge the created for what it is and worship the creator once again. Put God in his rightful place as number 1 in your life. Jonah 2:3-9 says ‘those who cling to worthless idols forsake faithful love, but as for me, I will sacrifice to you with a voice of thanksgiving.’2 Idols are worthless and when we cling to them for happiness, one way or another we realise they cannot satisfy. Matt Chandler writes that:
The idolatry that exists in a man’s heart always wants to lead him away from his Saviour and back to self-reliance no matter how pitiful that self-reliance is or how many times it has betrayed him.3
Let’s not forsake faithful love. Once again let Jesus Christ captivate your hearts. Let him be the thing you think of before you sleep and when you rise. Not your perfectly filtered Instagram. Not your exam results, your dream wedding or your new diet plan. Things cannot love us back. And no human being can love us like Christ does. ‘But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’4 There is a love greater than anything else imaginable. This love is relentless and pursuing us even when we neglect it. Undeserved.
I am convinced (more importantly the Bible makes it clear) that it’s only in knowing our identity in Christ where we are truly satisfied. Only in him do we recognise our true purpose.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks: What is man’s chief aim?
To glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
This is our purpose. This truly is what we have been created and designed for.
1. dictionary.com.
2. ESV.
3. Chandler, Matt. 2014. The Explicit Gospel.
4. Romans 5:8, ESV.
