What is idolatry? What are you idolizing? How is it harmful to you and to your relationship with God?
I am infuriated that Satan has tempted me and hurt me for 24 years. For telling me that I’m not smart enough, that I’m not pretty enough, that I’m not dedicated enough, that I’m not mentally strong enough to achieve anything in my life he told me to deem worthwhile. He told me that I should be trying to please my fellow humans before God himself. Satan had me believe that I am to value becoming thin before serving God. Satan told me I’m not worth anything if I am not attractive to the best men. He told me I’m stupid, and that I shouldn’t even bothering studying; it would be futile. He told me that I’m tired and should rest instead of working. He told me I’m not ready to take my EMT exams, that I just shouldn’t go and take it another time. He wanted me to wait, and then put it off, and then not go at all to take the exam and to go back to wallowing in my inability to finish anything. He wanted me to hate myself. Why does he want that? Why did he want me to idolize physical beauty and mental sharpness and math ability and being cunning and coy and being physically comfortable?
Hating myself, and taking my focus from God and putting it on other idols prevents me from worshiping God. I can’t thank God if I’m working towards achieving some other idol. I can’t worship God and thank Him and love his creations including myself if I hate myself. Satan wanted me to hate myself because I am indeed capable of loving myself in the way God loves me. I am without a doubt capable of knowing God. I am positively capable of worshiping God and serving Him and bringing Him glory. I can bring and will bring peace to the lives of my brothers and sisters.
This is Satan’s first and oldest trick. Idoltry is the sin. You shall have no God but God. Don’t search for anything but God. It won’t satisfy you. You’ll be left empty further from God. Satan has been playing this game with men since he realized he could with Adam and Eve. He takes people from God by distracting them with shiny pleasures. In those moments distracted and not focusing on God, evil slips in. He knows how to do it, and he’ll do it time after time and in various multiple ways. If he knows you’ll crack and be distracted from glorifying God and bringing peace to His people if he tempts you with a vice, he’ll keep throwing it in your way until you realize what he’s doing and call on God to fight the vice and temptation. He’ll try again in another form over and over again through your life to rip you from God and from doing His work, but know that with God on your side, Satan and the values and idols he wants you worship are easily overcome. We all have grace through Jesus’ redemption for us. God won’t ever ever leave us. He forgives us our trespasses always and forever. He forgets them as soon as we repent. He’ll help. He always does.
I have swept away your offenses like a cloud,
your sins like the morning mist.
Return to me,
for I have redeemed you.”
We are strong with him to fight these idols.
Isaiah 6-23
“This is what the Lord says—
Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty:
I am the first and I am the last;
apart from me there is no God.
7 Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it.
Let him declare and lay out before me
what has happened since I established my ancient people,
and what is yet to come—
yes, let them foretell what will come.
8 Do not tremble, do not be afraid.
Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago?
You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me?
No, there is no other Rock; I know not one.”
All who make idols are nothing,
and the things they treasure are worthless.
Those who would speak up for them are blind;
they are ignorant, to their own shame.
10 Who shapes a god and casts an idol,
which can profit nothing?
11 People who do that will be put to shame;
such craftsmen are only human beings.
Let them all come together and take their stand;
they will be brought down to terror and shame.
12 The blacksmith takes a tool
and works with it in the coals;
he shapes an idol with hammers,
he forges it with the might of his arm.
He gets hungry and loses his strength;
he drinks no water and grows faint.
13 The carpenter measures with a line
and makes an outline with a marker;
he roughs it out with chisels
and marks it with compasses.
He shapes it in human form,
human form in all its glory,
that it may dwell in a shrine.
14 He cut down cedars,
or perhaps took a cypress or oak.
He let it grow among the trees of the forest,
or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow.
15 It is used as fuel for burning;
some of it he takes and warms himself,
he kindles a fire and bakes bread.
But he also fashions a god and worships it;
he makes an idol and bows down to it.
16 Half of the wood he burns in the fire;
over it he prepares his meal,
he roasts his meat and eats his fill.
He also warms himself and says,
“Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.”
17 From the rest he makes a god, his idol;
he bows down to it and worships.
He prays to it and says,
“Save me! You are my god!”
18 They know nothing, they understand nothing;
their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see,
and their minds closed so they cannot understand.
19 No one stops to think,
no one has the knowledge or understanding to say,
“Half of it I used for fuel;
I even baked bread over its coals,
I roasted meat and I ate.
Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left?
Shall I bow down to a block of wood?”
20 Such a person feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him;
he cannot save himself, or say,
“Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”
21 “Remember these things, Jacob,
for you, Israel, are my servant.
I have made you, you are my servant;
Israel, I will not forget you.
22 I have swept away your offenses like a cloud,
your sins like the morning mist.
Return to me,
for I have redeemed you.”
23 Sing for joy, you heavens, for the Lord has done this;
shout aloud, you earth beneath.
Burst into song, you mountains,
you forests and all your trees,
for the Lord has redeemed Jacob,
he displays his glory in Israel.
Romans 1:18 – 23
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
I’ll fight. I’ll call on God. He’ll help me. Then I will win and glorify God and bring His peace to my brothers and sisters, who are God’s sons and daughters.
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