My heart - or emotional core - is an idol factory. And so is yours. This is the reason John warns "Little children, keep yourself from idols" (1 John 5:21). This stern command comes after over 100 sentences in which he is teaching about who God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are, who we are, and how we should scurry to believe in Jesus and follow Him. John knows we are prone to wander from God and craft and worship our own created gods. You may wonder "What is an idol anyway?" An idol is anything that occupies the place due to God, in other words, a God-substitute. Idols are illusions, counterfeits, unreality, fakes; I call them spiritual implants. John, in writing from Ephesus, no doubt had in mind the Temple of Diana, the center for false worship in his day. It was a place filled with immorality, temple prostitution (live porn), criminal activity, sorcery, incantations, astrology, and the list goes on. In sum, it was a cesspool of vile debauchery and devil worship. That following Jesus in Ephesus was dangerous is an understatement.
Paul is similarly alarmed and grieved in Athens. He sees there a vast cultural, social, and spiritual landscape enmeshed and devoted to idols, most identified with a stone carving. He addresses idolatry in Romans 1 saying it is exchanging the truth of God for the lie and worshipping the creature and created things rather than the Creator.
Frankly put, we also live amid a dangerous cultural landscape; we do the same thing. This is how it works then and now: we take something created, like jobs, families, hobbies, power, money, sexuality, sports, medications, food, hope, beauty, dreams, churches, motherhood, treatment plans, or healing and devote ourselves to it so much that little by little, it begins to occupy the place in our lives that belongs to God alone. We worship and serve created things rather than our Creator. Not one of us is guiltless; we've all fashioned and worshipped God-substitutes and taken pleasure in it.
Let's stop doing it!
Let's call others to worship the One, true God.
And that is our motive for raising up a new community of Jesus followers: for God's honor and glory, to call His wayward children back into vital relationship with Him.
But before that can happen, God must first deal with my heart and yours. I pray that the Holy Spirit will mine my inner space for idols and do a spiritual crap clean.
God says that if we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us. I've been wondering how that looks. How can we draw near to God? You mean, there is something I can do to make this happen? Yes, I believe there is.
First, we must acknowledge Him as the One, True God. Those on Mount Carmel in Elijah's day wavered between opinions about who God is. After they saw God chuck down fire from heaven, opinions were burned up too. There were no questions about who God is. Read 1 Kings 18:39.
Next, have you ever pulled a Joshua? Have you ever chosen God for your own? Now, I'm not saying that our choosing God is the beginning of our relationship; but it is a part. Check out Joshua 24:14-15. There he says he and his family are choosing God and committing to do life with Him.
Further, God cuts a covenant with us and says "I will be your God and your children's God." There is much richness and depth to God's covenant that I won't get to here. But for now it is enough to say there is a 'response' side to what God promises. Will we also covenant with Him and commit to being His?
There is also our response of praise and adoring God with emotional affection. Nehemiah and Ezra, along with all the people, pressed their faces to the ground, bowing and worshipping Him. We ought to do the same. (See Nehemiah 8:6)
Another aspect of relating rightly to God is having a healthy fear and awe for Him. Do we fear Him with a holy awe that we dare not sin against Him? Isaiah speaks of a day when people will fear His name and revere His glory (Isaiah 59:19). Let's start today.
Trust God in everything and for everything, not just in easy times. We must rely on His power as Creator and on His love as Father. To trust God as His kid is necessary for us and pleasing to Him (See Psalm 62:8).
Love God with your whole self. Jesus talks about doing this and says it is the best thing we can do (Mark 12:29-31).
Finally, obey God without backtalk. We are prone to disrespect and question God on various levels. But how often do we simply obey what He asks and commands? A favorite verse of mine on this idea is 1 John 2:3-6.
Crafting idols is safe and comforting; it makes us feel alive and in control. But it never dulls the raw emptiness and ruggedness of our inner soul life. It is like digging a cistern to store water and watching the water slowly drain out; idols do not last, they do not satisfy.
Cultivating a relationship with the living God is terrifying, risky, and unsafe. It requires that we actually trust something outside of ourselves, it means giving up our demand that life make sense, it means surrendering our lives and laying down our dreams and letting Jesus live through us, it means being content with our brokenness and relying on God's repair to bring wholeness. It means we are willing to feel again and trusting that God is enough no matter what chaos the world, the flesh and the devil may bring.
