Many of the judgments over Israel, Judah, and their surrounding countries that were pronounced through the pen and mouth of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah had to do with two things: self-reliance instead of reliance on God and idol worship instead of worshipping the One True God.
It is the latter that pierced my heart this morning as I meditated on Isaiah 40:18-20 during my morning devotions:
“To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? An idol! A craftsman crafts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains. He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move.”
Idols are manmade, with an outer appearance of beauty, value, and power. They are crafted from stone, wood, or precious metals. They are the expressions of human imagination about what a deity would look like, and as such gods of their own making, either as an attempt to explain phenomena that are greater than human understanding and control or as a personification of wishful thinking. Thus there are weather gods, fertility gods, and every imaginable diety beside. Hindusim alone has 300 million of them!
That is why God expressly forbids making a graven image of Him. It was the second commandment He gave to Moses (see Exodus 20:4-6). A humanly crafted image of Him would confine Him to the imagination of a craftsman and cause people to place their trust in what they can see rather than rely on the eyes of faith, which is the God-given way of seeing Him, trusting Him, and communing with Him. He has chosen to reveal Himself, His mind, His heart, and His design for the human life He created in His eternal, holy, transforming, infallible Word – not some sort of picture of Himself, which is far too limiting.
But idols can be more than just a statue in a shrine or temple. Most of us do not erect statues of stone, wood, or metal in our homes to worship. But we do erect abstract ones in our hearts. Anything we spend more time, money, effort, or attention on than God should be considered an idol. Some of us may worship food. Others sports teams or pop icons. Yet others may worship games and entertainment. A lot of us worship money and wealth.
Whatever activity, substance, object, person, or people that have a greater place in the affections of our hearts.
Our human nature is more readily drawn to such visible things than to spending time in the company of an invisible God. We are conditioned to enjoy and trust things that we can see, taste, hear, touch, or small.
For that reason, keeping your heart’s affections free from idols is not easy. It takes consistent work to commune with our invisible God, to learn to hear His voice speak to us, to take in His truth that sets us free, and to develop a notion of His presence so strong that He could be there in person. To trust Him, rather than the tangible reality around us. But when we do, the perception of His glory, the understanding of His love, the reliance on His faithfulness to help us in all things, the depth of wisdom and understanding that come from Him, and the peace and joy that stem from knowing Him far exceeds the pleasure we can derive from the material things we hold dear in our hearts – whether they be people, animals, money or hobbies.
It is not wrong to like these things. After all, God has provided us richly with everything for our enjoyment (1 Timothy 6:17). But when the things He has provided give us greater joy than our joy in the Provider, we are turning them into idols.
Isaiah 40:18-20 was a poignant reminder for me to “cleanse the temple” on a regular basis. Just like a house needs regular cleaning from the dust that keeps returning, my heart, the house of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit, needs cleaning too.
Especially from those subtle idols. Am I more excited about playing games on my phone or watching a movie than opening my Bible? Am I doing ministry so I can get ego strokes from appreciative people than simply because my Lord Who paid it all is worth serving? Do I turn to sweets and carbs when I feel stressed rather than restoring my peace of mind through prayer?
Fill in the blanks for yourself. If you can’t think of any off-hand, ask the Lord to reveal your hidden idols to you. Then confess them and smash them by proclaiming Christ as the captain of your heart and asking the Holy Spirit to help you keep Him uppermost in all your thoughts and affections.
A good preventative to erecting idols in your heart is to start your day by making God the first one you speak to when you wake up. I have learned to pause on the edge of my bed when I first get up and say: “Today is the day that you have made. I will diligently seek Your presence, and give you the place of supremacy that You deserve in my thoughts and affections.”
It immediately directs my focus to Him, rather than, say, coffee, to which I happen to be addicted. (I have made no attempt to conquer that addiction because it gets my body going in the morning, but I am careful to not love or need coffee more than I love or need Jesus.)
I encourage you to pause today and search your heart. What idols are lurking there that need smashing and replacing with wholehearted devotion to the Lord? Then make a habit of letting God be the first One you set your mind on when you wake up, and the last One you speak to when you go to bed. And don’t forget to clean your spiritual house at least once a week!