Idolatry

“Do not be afraid,” Samuel replied. “You have done all this evil; yet do not turn away from the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. Do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless. 1 Samuel 12:20

My definition of an idol is anything that drastically and irreversibly changes your moods overshadowing  your relationship with God it could be a  relationship, money, career, family, sex, self, your need for comfort, unforgiveness, fear, reputation even your calling. Modern day idolatry in my thinking is the number one root cause for other sins, if you figure this one out, others sins are easy to identify and uproot.

The role of God

With the advent of humanism the role of God in our live and societies has been watered down. Ancient civilizations however, had their lives revolve around their gods. The God of the Hebrews also required this, He required the children of Israel to love him with all their hearts and souls, to make Him the most important thing in their lives. This was to be demonstrated by obedience to his commands, voice, trusting him unconditionally and also a deep heart desire to follow his ways fully. In return the God of Israel promised that he would protect, provide and bless them.

 Before blessing them he would first test their genuineness to obey Him

And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. Deuteronomy 8:2

What is in our hearts

What is constantly in your heart is your God, and you are going to live for it or against it. If it is not God, you will create commands and rules in order to meet its expectation or not to meet its expectations. Your world will revolve around it knowingly or unknowingly, unfortunately the most powerful idols are the things that God has given us. The children of Jacob built their first idol with the gold that God had supernaturally provided for them in Egypt, they used the materiel they valued the most i.e. gold the currency of that day. This is the most common god of our generation, and its love is the root of all evil. If people could make carvings of gods using paper currency, they would.

There is a spiritual law I have discovered “whatever you idolize will torment you, or will always be elusive”. The enemy of our souls knows how to manipulate and move around idols so that thing never fulfills that urge that you are looking to fulfill. The heart of the matter is this – only God can fulfill that core need that we think an idol will meet.

A Temple for God

The heart of the New Testament believer is meant to be the temple/altar of God, a place of worship. The condition of our temple is a reflection of the relationship we have with God, the Old Testament stories of the temple in Jerusalem are metaphors of the conditions of our heart.

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways.Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord. “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house. Hosea 1:7-9

The temple was the place where God and man met and had a conversation, a place for rituals, for forgiveness, atonement, thanksgiving and seeking for guidance. Whenever the temple was taken care of and this rituals observed as in the days of Solomon Israel prospered, when the temple was in bad condition Israel struggled. Solomon reflected on this

Proverbs 4:23 Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.

The god’s or God in our hearts will determine the course of your life, you become what you idolize

Our God is in heaven;he does whatever pleases him.But their idols are silver and gold,
    made by human hands.They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see.
They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell.They have hands, but cannot feel,
    feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them,  and so will all who trust in them. Psalm 115:3-8

This verse is especially true for people who have left abusive relationships and have not forgiven, by dwelling on the past. They unknowingly idolize the perpetrator by continuously thinking about them, over time they start to exhibit the same abusive habits.

Your Walk with God

Our walk and relationship with God should be the most important thing in our lives, our greatest responsibility is to protect it, by making sure nothing else overshadows it. This can only be achieved if we have a reverence and fear of God i.e. we avoid anything that grieves Him. We make him a priority when making big and small decisions by asking ourselves ‘will this be ok with God ?’

We constantly remind Him how much we love him, and demonstrating it with our actions.

Idolizing Child Stars

There is an intentional push by the entertainment industry to create idols for our children, a good example is Miley Cyrus a.k.a Hannah Montana. They take a talented child, create a false child centered princess kingdom world, around her and pump that narrative in every child media tv show. In real life this child stars have a huge following and have the hearts of our children, our daughters want to be like them. There is a lot to be said about the distorted view of reality in this shows… I will save that for another day, however the greatest danger is that this stars end up to be train wrecks in their teenage years. Drugs, illicit sex and media publicized rebellion, all this while our emerging teenage children are following them on social media.

Idolizing Mentors

A good mentor always teaches you about the ways of God and the principles of life and allows you to make decisions. The exception is for someone who is not in their right mind because of trauma, sickness or children below the age of 20, although as children grow they should progressively be given the chance to exercise making decisions by hearing God for themselves. The bible is clear about this

“But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people. No longer will each man teach his neighbor or his brother,saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know Me,from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD.For I will forgive their iniquity and will remember their sins no more.” Jeremiah 31:33-34

God through the Holy Spirit will put the law in our hearts and teach and guide us. Any person above 20 should never have decisions dictated to them; parents can intervene to correct bad decisions from age 0 – 20, but only advice and stand by and watch after that. Any one above the age of twenty should be allowed to have a relationship with God and thus be accountable to God

Because they have not followed me wholeheartedly, not one of those who were twenty years old or more when they came up out of Egypt will see the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—Numbers 32:11

God requires us to follow him wholeheartedly, we are to idolize his son who is the way, the truth and the life. Social media has conditioned us to follow, flesh and blood. The word warns us

Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing. Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God. He is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them— he remains faithful forever. He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, and the Lord loves the righteous.  The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked. Psalm 146:3-9

Idolizing Marriage and Relationships

Today’s society has seen an increase in singles’, divorce and marital strife. I believe the main reason is because this generation idolizes marriage. Singles spend their life searching for the right one, married people spend their time regretting they did not marry the right one.

Are you single

The culture around us and media have lied to us that we are not complete unless we fall in love and get married. It has also set the bar so high for our spouses that it looks like everyone single is not looking for a life partner but looking for a god. Let me explain.. men have been conditioned through porn to want a beautiful, submissive, sexually thrilling blonde at the same time they have to be smart, educated and have the same motherly extinct their mothers had. Women have been conditioned through soaps to want a strong bad boy, who is faithful God fearing, athletic, father figure, romantic rich and so on..

The reason most are yet to settle is because they are looking for a false ideal that exists only in tv shows,fairy tales, play boy magazines and their imagination. Remember the spiritual principle “an idol is always elusive”, God only gives it to you only after you have surrendered it.  The lucky ones who settle for ‘something less’ and get married spend their first few years of marriage trying to manipulate and change each other to meet those ideals, but only find disappoint and heart ache.

“The Kingdom of God celebrates uniqueness and diversity, the kingdom of darkness creates a false ideal and manipulates and conforms everyone to become it”

They will divorce or look for a plan b only to find the same disappointments camouflaged differently, and so the cycle continues. Marry and remarry, until you come to the realization that marriage can’t complete you, that it is only God who completes us, he is the one who meets all our needs. That marriage is an institution that calls us to serve one another and not to be served, that two becoming one is a painful process that requires endurance, forgiveness, sacrifice and prayer, rather than a fairy tale perpetual honeymoon. That you married a sinner with issues, just like yours and not a god.

Family and relationships are good, but they are to be surrendered to God. Only God can establish a family and only his word can be the foundation that sustains a family generation after generation.

Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain;unless the LORD protects the city,its watchmen stand guard in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for bread to eat—for He gives sleep to His beloved. Psalm 127:1-2

Idolizing Careers, Work and Calling

We are not defined by what we do, or how much money we have. We are defined by who God says we are, another spiritual principle ‘the thing that defines you and you obey and believe becomes your god’.

“Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey?” Romans 6:16

If you choose to obey your career more than your relationship with God  and his commands you become a slave to it. Passion for the work God has given us, should never overshadow our relationship with Him. He should come first, we should work from a place of overflow and abundance, working with him and not for him. Ecclesiastes 2 and 3 gives a sobering insights about work.

What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.

A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Ecclesiastes 2:24

Solomon is saying that you can work hard and make a lot of money, but you are not guaranteed to enjoy the fruits of your work. Only God can ensure that you enjoy the fruits of your work and even pass it on to the next generation.