Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Idols. What comes to mind when the word idols are verbalized? We don’t use this word in our everyday vocabulary so it is a foreign word to us. But in the old and new testament, God used it on various occasions to denote something we needed to stay away from. He talked about idols in the ten commandments where He said, “Thou shall not have any gods before Me; Thou shall not make any graven images” (Exodus 20:3-4). It is clear that the Lord was concerned with the Israelite nation that they worship Him and Him alone. In the dictionary an idol is defined as an image or other material object representing a deity to which religious worship is addressed or any person or thing regarded with blind admiration, adoration, or devotion. It can be a person or representative of a person. It can be an object that we admire or devote our attention to.

In my reading this morning, I came across a passage that the Psalmist wrote regarding idols that I spent some time pondering. He said, “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, made by human hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, nor is there breath in their mouths. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them. (Psalm 135:15-18 NIV) In this passage, he begins by saying that idols are made by human hands. It can be things that we have made or it can be things that someone else has made. He likens an idol with mouths, eyes, and ears. Idols though are anything that get our attention, our devotion, our free time. It could be the computer that I am writing this jlog on right now. It could be the golf clubs that I use on the weekends. It could be the shopping malls that I spend countless hours in to find just the right shoes or outfit (well maybe not me, as this is not something that demands my attention, but you get the picture) It is important to be alert to anything that diverts my attention away from the Lord onto man made objects that can cause me to worship them.

On this journey, there are many things in life that can grab our attention and cause us to become idol worshippers that we need to strip from our minds in walking