Breaking the Idols

The moment that we accepted Jesus Christ into our hearts, many things started to change. Our lives have been renewed and will continue to be transformed by the Holy Spirit so that we might become Christlike.

At that moment, our sins were forgiven and washed by His blood, we received salvation and eternal life through our faith in Jesus.

We gain the right to be called a child of God and a joint heir with Christ, and much more benefits have been bestowed upon us.

That said, we also become Jesus' followers or disciples and being His follower means that we must strive to live the life that He modeled for us and to obey the commands He gave us.

Jesus told His disciples that, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." To be a Christian or a Christ follower, we must surrender our lives to Him and make Him not just our personal Savior but our Lord as well who would take control over our lives and direct our paths.

Now, I would like to bring you to the concept of idolatry or idols which hinder many Christians from experiencing the full and abundant life with God.

Idols hamper our spiritual growth because we tend to be divided and distracted that we fail to focus on God and spend time with Him through prayer, reading and meditating on the Word, and even in worship.

Idols can also lead us away from God and make our hearts unresponsive or insensitive to His voice and make us lose the burning desire to serve God wholeheartedly.

These idols that we have are not necessarily those statues or figurines that some people worship or any mystical item that some people claim give them mystical powers.

But they may be ordinary objects or activities or people that we love more than we love God and you would know when you love something more than God if you find yourself placing that thing before and above God. When you become so obsessed with that thing that your life begins to revolve around it.

When your heart starts to crave it more than anything else and your mind is filled with nothing but that, it becomes an idol in your heart.

Jimmy Needham's "Clear the Stage" makes it clear what idols are and the lyrics go like this:

"Anything I put before my God is an idol.
And anything I want with all my heart is an idol.
And anything I can't stop thinking about is an idol.
And anything that I give all my love is an idol."

I am not saying that it is bad to have a hobby or take interest in worthwhile activities or to admire someone or to have gadgets or to earn money because those are good things but a wise man once said that we should never let the good things distract us from the getting the better, or really, the best things.

What I am saying is that God should always be first and our top priority.

There are times when we should just shut all the noise of the world and turn off every distraction and focus on God. Then make that a habit until such time that we start to desire more of God and desire less of worldly things.

I know that this is quite a difficult thing to do especially to let go of the things that we have worked hard to get but I think we have to understand that everything we have came from the hands of God and not by the works of our own hands.

Breaking the idols of our heart is very difficult especially if the roots run deep but if we lift these up to God and ask Him to change us and strengthen us to choose the best things that He has in store for us, then I believe that God will come and help us to break the idols and set the stage of our hearts for God.

It is not an easy thing to deny our wants, ambitions, and aspirations but we can take everything to God in prayer because with God, nothing is impossible. He can and will break the idols of our life if we submit them to Him.

God Bless!