Author’s note: If you are new to my blog and are interested in reading the 23.xx series, please first read the 23.01 through 23.09 in order to best get the idea of what I am attempting to communicate. They are built like chapters in a book, one building on the previous one. Consider the points made in each article to help you understand where I am coming from in hopes I can make a connection with you on your spiritual journey.
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Adopt idolatry is like being connected to an assembly machine.
Why is it that people will try everything they can think of to rule their hearts before they ever allow God that honor? In part, we are given free-will, we are free to choose and make all kinds of decisions but in this brief article we look at how we succumb to the temptation to place all else above God.
Idolatry is anything we offer greater servitude to when compared to God.
Considering the Ten Commandments. Being sensible, you may think it is beyond reason to do such a thing as positioning your whim at a higher ranking of God in your life, but then ignore the realities of that fallacy.
The First Commandment states: “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Deuteronomy 5:7).
Anything that you spend time focusing on and giving precedence to in lieu of God, is a breaking of this first and greatest Commandment.
The Second Commandment states: “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them…” (Deuteronomy 5:8-9A).
In today’s world, we can create virtually anything beyond a simple statue and spiritually bow down to worship it. There is a teaching from Isaiah that aptly cuts to the chase. For the purpose of simple illustration, a simple carving can be the surrogate for the most sophisticated invention of today.
Behold:
“Then [a tree] becomes something for a man to burn, so he takes one of them and warms himself; he also makes a fire to bake bread. He also makes a god and worships it; he makes it a graven image, and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire; over this half he eats meat as he roasts a roast, and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says “Aha! I am warm, I have seen the fire.” But the rest of it he makes into a god, his graven image. He falls down before it and worships; he also prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for thou art my god.” (Isaiah 44:15-17).
Does that help you see the folly of worshipping things you create yourself, or that the world creates for you to worship? People are given a divine gift to create and then they turn around and worship the created rather than the Creator. To add more color to this, people don’t even need to create a heavenly image, they can put just about any whim upon their hearts and it will artificially placate their innate need to connect with their God and Creator.
Nowadays, thanks to the ever present messaging and advertising, the process of “try me” idol worship is as though we are connected to a conveyor belt that is loaded with every lure or temptation known, with your heart and soul as its target. Remove the existence of the Creator and God from one’s conscience and you have an open and fertile field to attract anything you could possibly lust for, idolize or covet.
Why is it we are willing to give the reins to every idol, creations of human imaginations, to direct our hearts and to lead our way? I believe humans are made to worship. But without the due reverence to God, the Creator, anything and everything can arbitrarily fill that void. However, like a key, only God manifested through the Lord Jesus Christ fits perfectly.
Finally, a passage from 1 John 2:15-15
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”
CKY
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