“And when we allow the temptations of the world to embrace us, we begin to sink deeper and deeper into our sinful nature falling into a realm where we soon discover that we are lifeless, blind, mute and deaf. We become like the idols we have created.”
Psalm 135: 15-18; “the idols of the nations are silver and gold, made by the hands of men. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see; they have ears, but cannot hear, nor is there breath in their mouths. Those who make them will be like them and so will all who trust in them.”
The great peril for life in the midst of any culture, whose idols are pleasure, and comfort rests the fact that people harden their hearts and become egocentric. Our idols may not necessarily be silver and gold but they can surely be the pleasures and the comforts that we so dearly hold to. Finding ourselves buried in the epicenter of our idols can and will lead to our destruction. When we are dictated by our desires and pleasures we can easily become influenced by our surroundings. Go ahead, test it. Ponder upon your truest desires and pleasures and see if your surroundings don’t influence you. See if the competiveness, the pride, the actions of those around you drags you into their realm of thinking. Whether it be singing, teaching, playing sports or even writing, whatever it is that you gladly do, if you position yourself in a vulnerable situation amongst the enjoyments of your hearts without inviting God to partake fully in your engagements, you can so easily spark the creation of an idol. And by creating the attractions within the heart without implicating God, one can soon find themselves learning to trust in something that is lifeless, blind, mute and deaf… and with time they will eventually become like their idols. Helen Keller once said; “the only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”
An idol worshipped within the mind is as odious to God as an idol made by hand. From the moment we are born every one of us become a slave to idols, and the intrinsic objective of living a triumphant life is to allow the God of the universe to invade us in fullness to where we no longer live for godless idols but for the one true God. And when we accept Christ Jesus as our Lord and savior we no longer belong to our sinful nature of idolatry... Because everyone born of Christ Jesus is free and free indeed!
Clearly we can see that Man's mind is filled with idolatry and false notion; so much so that if a man conceives or allows the sinful realm around him to enter within his core, it is assured that at that very moment he will forsake God and forge some idol in his own mind. When your thoughts and opinions become rebellious against the Word of God, breathless, lifeless idols are born. But the day will come when you will quickly find your idols shattered in Gods dust. For even Gods dust is superior to your idols. What happens is, the idol which you create today will push you out of the recollection of the one and only God whom you are planted into, thus supplanting who you were created to be with who you are creating too become. Every time we inwardly submit to the strongholds of pleasure, comfort and pride, we ignite the birth of an idol. And each of these idols must be smashed, splintered, and obliterated from the milieu of our hearts. The only way pleasure and comfort are accepted is if they are inundated with God so much so to where everything that we do, even though it pleases and comforts us, brings praise and honor to God Almighty.
The good news is that idols are manmade, and no matter how intimidating they may be, they are always inferior to us, and that is why we will always have it within our power to destroy them.
So where does God fit into all of this? Though we are born to a sinful nature we must learn to live an “idoless” life. We can only do so by allowing the love of God which flows abundantly throughout us to rejuvenate our being. We must annihilate our manmade idols and we must come to the conclusion that God doesn’t judge us by our good deeds but by his magnificent love, His immaculate grace which inundates the heavens and all existence making a way for us to live. I believe that Worship is a man’s answer to God’s grace… and if we learn to worship God through all of our actions his love will guide us to an intimate relationship where manmade idols cannot and will not exist.
“The difference between grace and works is the difference between worship and idolatry. The man inebriated with the thought that all he has is God's gift finds himself repeatedly on his knees, adoring, thanking, and praising Him. But if we do not grasp grace we plummet into idolatry, for that is the inevitable corollary of self-sufficiency.” Dale Ralph Davis. God’s Divine Grace will not be assisted in the performance which merely belongs to Him, by the imperfect performances of men. For man to attempt in the completion of what grace began, offends the Lord. Therefore, let everyone know, that grace is either absolutely free, or it is not at all: and, that those who profess to look for salvation by grace, either believes in their heart to be saved entirely by it, or they proceed inconsistently believing that they must earn their rights to salvation through their deeds.
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