American Idol is usually back with a new panelist and an endless list of hopefuls, wanting to be America’s next pop star each year. Each one competes before the judges, who will decide the winner of the top prize.
I suggest the same is true for us as Christians too. We decide who our God or idol will be.
Make no mistake about it, idols are alive and well in our culture today. We may not call them Dagon, Ashtoreth, Baal, Zeus, or Thor, as people of ancient times did. They may have different names, but we still bow before them.
Everybody has a god
Paul tells us then when we believe in Jesus, we turn away from idols to serve God. The apostle John wrote, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols“ (1 John 5:21).
So, what exactly would an idol be today? An idol is anything or anyone that takes the place of God in our lives.
And know this: everybody has a God. Even atheists have a god. It is not the true God, but nonetheless they have a god that they worship and serve.
Believe it or not, idolatry comes naturally to us all. Why? Because we must worship,and we will worship.
Even as nature abhors a vacuum, so does the human soul. The human soul will find an object of worship, either on the shelf, on the altar, in the mirror, or in heaven.
Why? Because we are born idolators.
Why would we trade the living God for some fake one? Because it gives us control!
Albert Mohler, in his book Hearing the Voice of God in the Ten Commandments, wrote this:
We can pick an idol up and we can put an idol down. We can move an idol to this place, and then we can remove it to another place. The idol is at our disposal. We can hide it from our sight, or we can put it in the center of the room. We will devise our own worship because we have devised our own God.
To that, I might add to that we feel we can then live our own way.
So, my question to you is, who or what is your God?
What gets you excited? What gets you out of bed in the morning? What do you think about, dream about, plan for, or perhaps scheme for.
What are you really passionate about? Because that is your God.
I hope your answer is the Lord God and not a false one. Because the Lord can save you, but false gods can’t.
