In our educated and scientific western mind set when we hear the phrase "idol worship" our minds turn to wooden statues surrounded by archaic tribal people bowing in allegiance and devotion. Our emotional response is often one of pity. We are the high more evolved society and they are just still bound to such superstitions. Yet the bible makes no division between cultures for all cultures are subject to sin's curse. Thus all are by nature selfishly sinful following the dictates of an idol making heart. One Man's idol maybe another Man's Tiki trinket but all stubble into bowing something.
This is not just a pagan issue, Christians can be idolaters as well. God, through the prophet Ezekiel, tells the elders of Israel they have idols of the heart. The faithful can also be idolators. Believers, like the elders of israel, can live from the hidden idols in their hearts.
So what is an idol of the heart. God is to be our ultimate concern and when anything takes the place of him, it is by definition an idol. Idolatry then is when we wants something to much, when our want for something moves us to give it our full allegiance and devotion.
Problem is most idols are not bad things. They are good things we want to much. Excluding the wooden ones in Africa, our modern idols are such things as approval, fame, money, work, food, a spouse, children, even sports or the need to feel safe. The most common triad is American are money, sex, and power, but comfort, entertainment, and security round out the top six. An idol is "anything" we love to much.
Because of the fall, we all have fallen misguided hearts. The place in us that cries "no" when The holy Spirit says "go" or "mine" when jesus says "mine" or "me" when the father says "me". All idols of the heart rise from our own self-directed authority and are lifted to the place of a ultimate concerns by our self-sufficient disposition. We will even baptize them by saying things like "god want me to have _______." or "god gave me ______ or created _____ so it is ok for me to obsess a little. What we don't see is how ______ has pushed God from the center of our life and relegates God to the role of blessing our endeavors. God become the figurehead CEO who no longer runs the company. He still appears on the bill boards and is talked about at the meetings but he is not the man in charge. We can praise God with our lips, but in reality idols are what we live for. Ultimately they are only expressions of our deepest idolatry, we love ourselves to way much and love God far to little, if at all.
An iconoclastic kind of life
Christian are redeemed but it is a process of savage mercy excavating the heart that brings about the actuality of that redemption in everyday life.The Christian life is an iconoclastic life. A life of grace driven idol smashing. Where we deconstruct the longings of our heart to find the hidden idols of our heart.
We have made good things our gods. We have wanted certain things to much. We are our worst problem yet change begins by knowing what idols guide our behavior. This can be harder than one might think. Mike Anderson, at resurgence, writes " Idols are sneaky. They tip toe past our brains, set up shop in a corner of our heart, and begin to grow. Most of the time we don’t even notice because we’ve fallen in love with the idol—it’s become part of what drives us and makes us (momentarily) happy."
X-rays for our Heart.
To get at the problem we must uncover those idols that drive our hearts. Mike gives a list of David Powlison's 11 diagnostic questions that help people get at discovering their idols.
Here are the questions:
What do I worry about most?
What, if I failed or lost it, would cause me to feel that I did not even want to live?
What do I use to comfort myself when things go bad or get difficult?
What do I do to cope? What are my release valves? What do I do to feel better?
What preoccupies me? What do I daydream about?
What makes me feel the most self-worth? Of what am I the proudest? For what do I want to be known?
What do I lead with in conversations?
Early on what do I want to make sure that people know about me?
What prayer, unanswered, would make me seriously think about turning away from God?
What do I really want and expect out of life? What would really make me happy?
What is my hope for the future?
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