You asked me about idols and I am so glad you did...I truly believe idols are one of the core issues within all of us. Every day potential idols surround us hoping to entangle us in a terrible web of lies. All sorts of things are potential idols: physical objects, people, property, jobs, roles, a hope, an image, an idea, pleasures,... As soon as our loyalty to anything leads us to disobey God, we are in great danger of making it an idol.
In the beginning, we were made to worship and serve God and rule over all created things in God's name (Gen 1:26-28). Instead we fell into sin. We refused to give God glory and instead chose certain parts of creation to glorify instead: "They exchanged the glory of the immortal God...and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator." Romans 1:23-25 Whatever controls us becomes our lord...the person who seeks power is controlled by power; the person who seeks acceptance is controlled by the people they want to please. We do not control ourselves as much as we think we do, we are always controlled by the "lord" of our lives; whatever we may make that to be. Desire for Jesus was intended to shape all our other desires. But we have to be so careful not to let anything take precedent to our desire for him in ALL things and through ALL things.
"What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." James 4:1-4
"Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul." 1 Peter 2:1
Its so important for us to daily check ourselves and ask ourselves at this point, right now, "What are the things in my life I could not live without?" When I start there, I begin reevaluating and remembering who I am again and who I want to become. Idols are something besides Jesus, we feel we have to have to be happy; something more important to our heart than God, something enslaving our heart through excessive desires. We change and get rid of these idols when we begin to identify them in our lives. We have to go much deeper than the tangible things...for example, if I say money is my idol there is so much more than just idolizing money, the real idol is my desire for more control of my life or to be liked by other people. We will never get rid of our innate nature to desire, but we can redirect the sweet gift of desire back to Jesus. I think idols simply display our constant misdirection and they should continually lead us back to the cross...when we rejoice and remember and dwell on who Christ is and what he has done for us, that is when we lose our idols and remember where we started.
"Sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace." Romans 6:14
We create idols because we want to control our lives, even though we know we owe God everything. We take created things and settle our hearts on them and build our lives around them without even realizing it most of the time. If anything but Christ is our source of salvation, we are falling into idolatry. We were created to worship and desire God, but so often we skew our desires and "exchange the Truth of God for a lie" Romans 1:25. The more we seek power through idols, the more they drain us of strength. They blind us to the reality of our own desperate need for Christ to save us from ourselves. "For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 2 Corinthians 4:6
SOO all that to say, keep yo eyes on those sunrises and sunsets and always remind yourself daily of who God is and he will keep you from idolizing anything too much. When we seek Him daily, when we remind ourselves who He is whether through scripture or even just enjoying nature, or seeing Him in people...we remind ourselves, "How could we ever love anything or anyone more than Jesus?" Sometimes its hard to see Him beneath it all, I struggle with it all the time, but when things get complicated I just feel my heart beat and know. Use anything you might find as an "idol" as a perfect venue to channel desire to God. For instance, I go through dumb seasons where I idolize having this "perfect body image" like every other girl, but I have to be thankful for it now because whenever I feel inadequate I immediately direct my attention to God and pray about it and remember who I am in Christ cannot ever be changed by my physical appearance...by trying to redirect my desires I address Jesus and naturally turn my attention to Him instead of myself.
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