Idolatry
A devotional thought from George Robinson for “Numb to the Word”
Romans 1:25: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator.”
Idolatry often looks different than you might think. A friend of mine from India visited me in the States a few years ago, and one of my American friends asked him, “How can you, as a Christian, tolerate living in a place where you are constantly surrounded by idols?”
My Indian friend replied, “Since I have come to the USA, I have seen many things. I have sat in people’s homes where all of the furniture is facing a glowing box in the corner of the room and people sit mindlessly gazing at it. I have been taken out to eat at places where there is an endless supply of food and people line up going back for more again and again. I have witnessed stadiums filled with people out of their minds over a game. In India, our idols are plain to see. People either worship them or they don’t. But here it seems that your idols are disguised and you’ve been fooled into thinking they are something that they are not. Which is more dangerous?”
One pastor describes idolatry as when we take a good thing, make it a “god” thing, and thus it becomes a bad thing. Jesus died and rose again for brazen idolaters like you and me.
Pause & Reflect
• Do you have any “disguised idols” in your life?
• What good things that God made have you turned into “god things” by becoming consumed with them rather than their Maker?
• How might you bring those idols to Christ so that He might crush them with the power of the gospel?
• Pray: “O God of the highest heaven, occupy the throne of my heart, take full possession and reign supreme, lay low every rebel lust.” [Arthur Bennett, ed., The Valley of Vision (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), 47.]
WOW! What an amazing devotion and so very true! Thank you for your ministry!