Idolatry: Too Close To The Boiling Point

Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.

1 Corinthians 10:14

There is nothing wrong with nice things. “For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Timothy 4:4).

It would be a rare person indeed who had no desire for something which is beautiful and lovely—I’ve never met anyone like that. God created us to notice what is “pleasing to the eye” (Genesis 2:9). Wanting a nice thing is a normal, healthy human desire.

On the other hand, we each need to know the limit of our ability to handle nice things. Any nice thing—a possession like a car or an affiliation like a country club—can become an idol. When grateful enjoyment of a thing becomes blind devotion to the thing itself, the roots of idolatry find moist, fertile soil.

Webster’s Dictionary defines idolatry as, “blind or excessive adoration or devotion.” How can we know when our enjoyment has become blind or excessive? The enemy does not want you to see that moment when your enjoyment evolves into idolatry. That is why our excessive devotions are often blind.

One day I purchased a new car, one of less prestige value than the European import I had driven for six years. I traded down because I wanted to change my image. What I discovered was another of the countless pinholes in my character. As always, hindsight is 20-15.

Driving my prestigious European import always produced ambivalence. I loved that car, but when I drove it, I constantly fought the temptation of pride. When I would ease to a halt at a traffic light, I would notice the inferior brand X next to me. Because my car was nicer, the temptation to think more highly of myself would sink its tenacious talons into the soft, flabby flesh of my conscious thoughts.

But God is faithful, and I would resist this temptation—nine times out of ten. But with such a dull, constant, repetitive assault directed at my sinful nature, obviously I couldn’t be fully armor-coated every time pride came knocking.

That one time out of ten, when my spirit had already been pummeled by the weakening blows of other trials and tribulations, I would glance over to the fellow waiting at the light next to me. I would observe his inferior auto and feel a cauldron of smugness begin to boil inside me.

Pride is always there in each of us; pride doesn’t enter from the outside. It preexists in our sinful nature. The capacity for pride (and other sins) always simmers just below the boiling point in each of us. Satan’s task is to bring sin to full boil. Our task is to cool things down. The most effective way to cool things down is to take the pot off the stove. Flee from idolatry, and idolatry is any devotion other than Christ.

I drive my new car in total peace and relaxation, free from the temptation to wrongful pride. Now I have a car which does not lure me to the pride which comes from material idolatry. On the other hand, it is not such a humble car that I am tempted in the reverse direction to have “spiritual” pride because I drive overly modest transportation.

Now here’s the big idea. While I drove the expensive car to which I was excessively devoted, I was blind to how consuming pride’s cycle of temptation and sin was in my life. I was blind and excessive, but I did not see how deep the vein of idolatry ran.

Only after the temptation was removed, did I understand how dominating its rule over my thought life had been. Whereas I did not comprehend pride’s grip when I lived so close to the boiling point, when I got away from the stove I saw it clearly.

What is the thing that tempts you to pride? That is the very idol which Satan employs to bring your pride to a boil. His goal is to separate you from the love of Christ. Here is the rule: No matter what level of material life you enjoy, if your created things tempt you to think more highly of yourself than you ought, it has become your idol. "Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry” (1 Corinthians 10:14).

Money, and what money buys, is the greatest idol. Its lure attracts us most convincingly. “Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1 Timothy 6:10). In what way has money molded your mind?

Has the thing which you adore become your temptation? Has your devotion become blind? Are you living too close to the boiling point? Remove the temptation from your life and live in the shadow of His wing.

I SURRENDER

Lord, I have embraced too much of this fallen world and my thought life is a battlefield. Show me the things to remove from my life so that I may live more simply. My excessive devotion to my things has made my life boil over with temptations and sins. I confess that I must surrender not only my spirit but also my lifestyle to Your Lordship. I will. Amen.