Idols

"You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments."

Exodus 20:3-6

I've been thinking a lot about idolatry and not having other gods besides our Lord. In our modern world there aren't a lot of obvious, bow down and do homage to, type of idols. I haven't seen a temple to Molech or Baal around, but we have different types of idols.

Idolatry is more than building something that we call a god. Idolatry is putting something ahead of God. One of the easiest things to put ahead of God is ourselves, what we want over what God wants. This can be manifested in a multitude of ways, some of which are so subtle we don't realize they are becoming idols.

Here are a few things that I see as possible idols:

• Ministry - putting what you do for God as more important than Him.
• Family - putting the people around you, and their needs ahead of God.
• Finances - worrying about how to pay rent, what the future will bring, allowing money to control you life instead of God.
• Friends - Spending too much time with them, obsessing about issues, the lack of friends, etc.
• Relationships - Allowing that special someone to take all your time, effort, and thoughts.
• Appearance - Being concerned about what others think about how you look to the point of excess.
• TV - Time waster galore. What is more important than sitting in front of the tube?

Now you'll notice that none of these things are bad in and of themselves. It's the excess, the priority of each of these things that make them idols. Really, anything can be an idol. What matters is where God is in all of this stuff.

I've said so much about surrender and letting God be in control of your life. He truly is the owner of our lives and we should live like that.

If there is something that is getting in the way of God being the purpose and the ALL of your life, please, please, please, get rid of it! Yeah, it's hard, and yeah, there is no easy fix when something is an idol, but remember, with God nothing is impossible.