Is God Your Idol?

“O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water. So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory” (Ps 63:1–2).

That’s a funny question, isn’t it? Is God your idol? Can God even be an idol? Isn’t God God? Therefore, by definition, he can’t be an idol? Isn’t that correct?

Well, here’s the thing. What is an idol? The dictionary says that an idol is, “an image or representation of a god used as an object of worship.” Technically, an idol is anything we set up as a god and worship it, or pay homage to it, or pray to it (expecting it to respond in some way), we give our time to it and treat it with respect and awe.

Biblically, people did things like cut a log in half, use one half to cook their meal with, and worshipped the other half, praying and saying to it, “Deliver me, for you are my god!” (Isa 44:15). You see an idol isn’t really anything, it simply sucks our time and attention, keeping us from worshipping the true God. In addition, because it isn’t really anything, it isn’t something that can do anything. This is why, when Elijah had his confrontation with the priests of Baal, nothing happened when they prayed to them, even though they cut themselves, danced around, cried, begged, and cajoled. The text says, “There was no voice; no one answered, no one paid attention” (1 Kings 18:20-40). There was nothing and no one to answer. The idol was something the people made, first in their imaginations and second in their experience.

Ultimately, idolatry is self-worship. We create a god in our image and then worship it as if it really existed. We talk to it like it can hear us. We make petitions to it like it can do something for us. We bow down to it like it enjoys our company and our accolades. But at the end of the day, it is just something we’ve invented in our own minds as something worth giving ourselves to. Because we’ve given it it’s power and majesty, it is really ourselves we’re thinking is so important. Idolatry is really the height of self-worship. We’re really worshipping ourselves.

What kinds of things do we worship? What kind of things do we turn into idols? We worship movie stars, sports heroes, sports teams, religious leaders, religions, money, work, business, politics, political leaders, parents, siblings, you name it, it can be turned into a god and we can give it the homage due to the true and living God.

And here’s the thing and the point of this post. We can make the true and living God into an idol by the way we approach him. If, for example, we go to him, asking for him to fix us in some way and we view him as our sugar daddy in the sky, we’ve missed him and are talking to our favorite idol. I do a lot of counseling and I see counselees going to God in prayer, asking for God to heal them of their sinful hearts in one area while fully happy to live in sin in another. I see Christians singing worship songs, but when the song is over, they wonder why their life hasn’t changed one bit because of the singing.

I recently read a book that was all about renewing our minds. At first, I thought It was a really good book. It talked all about how the science said the brain worked and didn’t work. The author came up with all sorts of ways to reprogram the mind so that we might do what we know is right to do. But something about the book began to bother me. As I pondered what was making me uneasy, it became clear that when the author referred to God or told us to go to God for help or healing, it was always as someone who was expecting God to be there to help us or to heal us. In other words, the approach to God was the same kind of approach we would have if God were an idol. Let’s do a dance, cut ourselves, pray a prayer, stand on one foot, say it right, do it right. At the end of the day, there wasn’t any true worship of God for who he is. It was worship God so we can get what we want from him.

Here’s the thing. All of the verses the author quoted were in the Bible. They were. For example, after his battle with the priests of Baal, when Elijah was depressed about Jezebel wanting him dead, God came to him in a “still small voice.” He did. So, we should go to God and wait for him to come to us and speak to us in a still small voice. And what the still small voice means is that God loves us and is very near to us. He wants to help us and encourage us, just like he did for Elijah. But this isn’t what happened with Elijah and it isn’t something we should expect to happen to us. God isn’t in our lives to make us happy. We are in his life to make him happy. And that’s the problem.

If we think he exists to make us happy and to give us what we want or think we need, we are thinking of him like he is an idol. If all the passages of scripture that we have memorized are those “he loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” kind, you have made him to be an idol in your heart.

And having done so, you have and are breaking the first and second commandments,

“You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments” (Ex 20:3–6) 

How should we proceed? What if you’ve been reading this, and you realize that you’ve made God into an idol, and you are convicted that you’re in trouble. Now, what do you do?

The first thing you need to do is to confess your sin. Confess to God that you have been thinking about him as if he is a big sugar daddy in the sky. You have been thinking of him lightly. You’ve believed the lie that he exists to make you happy and safe and secure and whatever else you have thought important. He doesn’t exist for your pleasure, tell him that you’ve finally figured that out and want to change. 

Then get your Bible out and notice how he speaks about himself. Go read Job and notice how God speaks to Job at the end of the book,

“Who is this who darkens counsel By words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:2–7).

Go anywhere in the Bible and notice how God represents himself and how the Biblical characters, who are godly, treat him. And imitate them. Notice that no one is flippant with God and lives. No one is informal with God and stands. No one brings coffee to church. Everyone dresses up to meet with the Creator of the Universe. Everyone falls on their face before the presence of God and begs him to let them enter his space. God is always revered and worshipped by people who know they don’t deserve to be there. He is constantly lifting people up because they know that unless he lifts them up, they are toast.

All the passages that talk about God blessing us are in contexts where we are worshipping with truly repentant hearts, humble hearts, knowing that we don’t deserve anything and if we got what we deserved, we would be mush. God is God and we are not. Everything comes from that context. Anything less is idolatrous. Anything other is worshipping a god that we have created in our own minds. And it is sinful.

Then, when we have the right attitude, we begin to notice that God is a gracious, kind, loving, and merciful God. We see verses like this, “But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night” (Ps 1:2). Followed by this, “He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper” (Ps 1:3). There is blessing, but it is following an attitude toward God of true submission and delight in who God really is.

Here’s another of my favorite passages, “Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart” (Ps 37:4). Bow down and worship the true and living God, make your thoughts conjoined with his thoughts, learn to think like he thinks, love what he loves, have the same attitudes he has, and when you ask him for anything, because he loves you and knows you, he will grant your requests. And this is because what you ask for will be things you know he wants to give you because you think like he thinks.

The primary passage that got me thinking about all this was Romans 12:1-2, 

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Rom 12:1–2). 

I intend to write more about this later but let me just say this in closing. God renews our minds after we have offered our bodies to him as living, holy, and acceptable sacrifices. Our new minds come because we have given ourselves lock stock and barrel to the God of all creation and he has accepted our offering.

But this isn’t simply an act that has nothing to do with reality. It isn’t something “spiritual” and not real at all. It isn’t a transaction only. The whole point is that when we come to the throne of God, in the robe of Jesus, God accepts us and gathers us in and rejoices with us and gets to know us and lets us get to know him and as this happens, we become like him. This becoming like him means our minds change, we stop sinning, we start reflecting who he is to others. We talk about him all the time. We talk to him all the time. We know him, and more importantly, he knows us.

Don’t let God be an idol in your heart.

Photo by Chapman Chow on Unsplash