Since posting on my parking lot escapades (see here) I have been considering a posting series on a topic that has become of significant concern to me. The sin of Idolatry. This sin has always been prevalent in my life; it was the conviction of this sin that brought me to the arms of grace; and this sin continues to be a battle with my own flesh and especially, my mind. Often I discover that I have exhaulted something above where it rightly belongs. I have exchanged the glories of the invisible God for something visible, something like myself or my desires, another person (spouse, children, family, friends) or something to which we have attributed some characteristic of God (I do not mean an unspecific God--I mean Specifically Yahweh, God of the Old and New Testaments-the Trinity).
Idolatry is such an insidious sin, since it creeps up and out of us in such seeming unaccountable way. Our nature fosters it naturally, our eyes are blinded to it easily because it is rooted in self. I find it most clearly set in my mind, coming to the surface in thoughts and then words and actions. My thoughts often reveal so much more of my idolatrous heart then anything else. And so often I am at the center of those self congragulatory murmurings, or the complaints of lack that flood my thoughts, the discontent, the comparissons, the wicked critisicms, and the endless one ups. Focus and worship offered to anything or anyone apart from God is idolatry.
In what ways are you harboring an idol? What do you go to first whenever You make any decision?
Your idol may be so hidden, or so peculiar, that all our attempts to touch it, have left you and it unscathed. Will you therefore conclude that you have none? Search deeper, look closer; it is not too deep for the eye of God, nor too hidden for the eyes of a tender conscience anointed with divine eye-salve. Hidden love is the deepest of all love; hidden diseases the most incurable of all diseases. Search every fold of your heart until you find it. It may not be so big nor so ugly as your neighbor's; but an idol is still an idol, and an image still an image, whether so small as to be carried in the coat pocket, or as large as a gigantic statue.
Every man has his idol; but it is not every man who sees it. Few groan under it.
"Dear children, keep yourselves from idols." 1 John 5:21
"The dearest idol I have known,
Whatever that idol be,
Help me to tear it from my heart,
And worship only Thee."
-The History of an Idol, its Rise, Reign and Progress
J. C. Philpot, October, 1855
Over the next several weeks I hope to define and broaden my own understanding of Idolatry and hope to post some of my finds here along the way. I hope it is as pertinent to you as it is to me at this time in my life.
Blessings,
Larissa
1 comment:
Great post, Larissa. And, I look forward to reading what follows! This is a sin that wars within us all, I think, and to deny its existense, is to remain willfully blind.
Thanks!
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