Understand Your Fear and Expose Your Idol

We don’t worship idols in modern-day America. Not wood and stone idols anyway. But everyday, Christian women are living under the harsh rule of an idol in their lives, and they are so ensnared that they can’t see clearly to get help for themselves.

Idol-living views life through a fish-eye lens, distorted and dark, and your idol, the thing you desire more than God at that moment, is BIG, CENTRAL and in FOCUS.

It rules your every thought, action and motive.

I must have _____________ to be happy.

I will do anything to get _____________.

If I could change ______________, things would be okay.

And you’ll know you are ruled by an idol when you are not loving God first and your neighbor as yourself.

Remember our post about walking humbly with our God? Walking humbly is not an option when you ruled by an idol.

Identifying an idol so you can “displace” it can be difficult because we are often deceived into thinking that our desires are justified or good, but here are some helps:

1. You think about and serve your idol.

Be it food or fame, appearance, money or comfort, you think about ways to get it. You manipulate to get it. You work overtime behind the scenes to satisfy your idol.

2. You fear the “opposite” of your idol.

If you must have control, you fear losing control and unpredictability.

If you must have acceptance, you fear rejection.

If you must have recognition, you fear being overlooked or forgotten.

If you must have food, you fear hunger or limited choices.

If you must have a perfect appearance, you fear gaining weight or old clothes.

If you must have all A’s, you fear poor grades or mediocre performance.

If you must have comfort, you fear hard work.

If you must have money, you fear poverty.

3. Sinful responses expose our reigning idol.

If God were reigning, we’d live like he commands. We’d rest in his sovereignty and trust his goodness.  But when an idol is reigning, we cast all of that aside and turn our allegiance to our own idol. There is no end to the sin we will commit when Christ is not Lord of our every action and thought.

Breaking down the high places in our lives is not a weekly thing. It is a daily thing, an hourly thing. We need to constantly humble ourselves before the Lord and search his word…tremble at his word, when we realize how utterly weak we are without him.

Do you find yourself vacillating between loving God and loving your idol? Do you also find that you have a divided heart? Knowing the battle is raging is HALF the battle.

Keep this in mind: The big thing in life is to love the Lord thy God. That simplifies life for us, doesn’t it? (tweet this)