Are your idols higher than God?

When we think of worshipping idols, our minds automatically go to metal statues of false gods in the Old Testament. We may not be bowing to the feet of man-made statues today, but idol worshipping hasn’t disappeared from the 21st century. It’s just taken on a new form.

Today, we worship idols in the form of–

Money.

Jobs.

Entertainment.

Pleasure.

The list goes on and on. 

These idols don’t just aspire to take the place of God. They do take the place of God. When we let the idolization of earthly and fleshly desires take the throne, we become slaves to their reign over our lives.

I’ve been guilty of letting my career and the desire for money precede my relationship with God. I gave more time producing better results for my employer than having intimate conversations with God. I chose the love of money over the love of prayer. I clung so tightly to the money I was making that it began infiltrating my time and priorities.

The more we idolize something that isn’t God, the less we begin to see its hold on our hearts. Our idols have invisible barriers that act as fortresses and strongholds that prevent us from letting go easily. The deeper we are in the worship of our personal idols, the harder is to escape their restraints.

In Exodus 20, starting in verse 3: “You shall have no other gods before Me.”

 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything in heaven above, the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.”

We are reminded again of the ten commandments as given in Exodus in Deuteronomy 6:13–

“You shall fear the Lord your God and serve Him, and shall take oaths in His name. 14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are all around you.”

Not only is the worshipping of idols ordered against in the great ten commandments, but it’s clearly mentioned several times throughout the Bible as high-importance to God.

God knew that things in our lives would threaten to remove us from our closeness and intimacy with Him. But make no mistake, the idols we’ve chosen to turn our attention to don’t threaten God. They threaten us.

These silent threats directed towards us come from the one who preys and profits off our separation from God– the Devil. It may sound extreme, but when we choose to worship areas of our life that don’t originate from God, we undeniably appoint the Devil over our true worship. 

If God isn’t stealing your heart today and every day, Satan will rob your heart of all of your tomorrows.

God doesn’t hesitate to express that when we direct our worship outside His promises, He becomes jealous. Jealous of how much of our time fills all-consuming commitments to Satan. Jealous of the binding contracts of our hearts to things that hinder us from knowing the covenants of hope that can only be found in Jesus Christ. Satan’s sole agenda is to exploit our emptiness, victimize our loneliness, and turn our natural need for Godly comfort into desperation for secret desires.

Our idols are powerful, but not more powerful than God. We can render Satan’s grasp on our souls useless when we cling to the gravity of who God says He is.

In Psalms 73:25-26, we are reminded of who we are in God’s presence and what we can have when we choose Him.

25 “Whom have I in heaven but You?

And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.

26 My flesh and my heart fail;

But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

God knows we’re human and that we will fail. That’s why His strength is always within reach for us when our desperate measures turn into ungodly affairs. 

Idols risk our salvation, but God renews our strength for the battle.

Satan can detain our hearts, but God can liberate our souls.

When our desires match the desires of God, we find an abiding thirst for the fountain of forever Truth.