"You shall have no other gods before me." Exodus 20:3
I think for a lot of us, we would say that we of course don't have any 'gods' and that we only worship the true God, Jesus Christ. No, we may not go make an idol of gold that we bow down and worship, but that is not the only type of idol.
Some idols that could be in our life may not be something we think of as one, yet it can be. Look at this definition of 'idol': any person or thing regarded with blind admiration, adoration, or devotion.
See? It's something that we are blindly devoted to. Something we may not even think of as something we are devoted to.
Yes, idols are bad. But you know what? We make them bad. They are not inherently bad in themselves. Just like the gold calf. When you think about it, gold molded into a shape is not bad in itself.
But, I think we often forget about some other things.....our secret idols....our not so obvious idols and 'gods'.
Alright, so now that we have that clear, maybe you will think of this from a different angle. What in our lives are we really devoted to?
Let me throw out a few that may be a struggle:
TV
movies
music
phones
computers
work
shopping
school
sports
hobbies
power
money
fame
sleep
friends
boy/girlfriends
None of these things are bad. It's not wrong of us to have or do any thing on this list. In fact God even encourages some of these things....some we can't live without. It becomes bad and an 'idol' when it comes before God. It isn't even wrong to love a lot of these things.
When I think of it this way, I realize I have a lot of idols. Sometimes which I put before God. That makes me so sad. Somethings which I would say are my biggest struggles to not let be more important than God to me would be friends, music and the computer. There are so many times when I push off reading my Bible or praying to do something that brings me temporary pleasure. Then later I feel empty...like I just wasted time. Or when I 'hanging out' with friends, I decide to goof around instead of talking about uplifting, meaningful things.
I take something God made that was good and turn it into something wrong. I take something that was supposed to be a gift and turn it into something harmful to myself.
I think God can use things that you love to help you grow in Him. Like for me, my friends have helped and encouraged me in Christ so greatly, or music with some amazing lyrics or stuff like this blog. But we still need to spend time with God....it's impossible to have an intimate relationship with Him if you don't spend time with Him often and put Him first.
I want someone to look at me and their first impression to be 'wow she loves Jesus so much... and music and her friends too'. Not 'she loves music and her friends ....oh, and Jesus too'.
Can anyone else relate? What are some of you struggles in this area? Does anyone have anything to add to this? Other thoughts?
3 months ago
6 comments:
My biggest struggles would probably be "idolizing" friends. I try to keep God at the center of all my relationships, but sometimes I, as you said, just, "hang out," and forget about having fellowship. This tends to be particularly so, surprisingly, on Sunday mornings. You would think that after hearing God's word, I would be more likely to talk about it. That's not usually the case, though. I tend to just "hang out" then, but I tend to fellowship more during the week or on a Sunday afternoon.
I thought that what you said was kind of interesting, too, that even some things that we need, we can idolize. Like sleep.
I think that those are all of my thoughts. =P
I feel exactly the same way about friends and our discussions. Normally on Sunday mornings, our family never hangs around very long so I never feel like I get a chance to talk very long to anyone. It's more of a 'hey, how was your week', shallow discussion.
Thanks. Yeah, I can idolize sleep sometimes too.
Thanks for them =P
Hello!
I found this very insightful!
Good job, Emily!
I'm glad. Thanks :)
Last paragraph: sooo true.. I want that.
I love both of your blogs!
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