Counterfeit Gods: When the Empty Promises of Love, Money and Power Let You Down

by Timothy J. Keller

idols.” God was saying that the human heart takes good things like a successful career, love, material possessions, even family, and turns them into ultimate things.

Idols are spiritual addictions that lead to terrible evil, in Tolkien’s novel and real life.

We think that idols are bad things, but that is almost never the case. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes. Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life.

What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.9

A counterfeit god is anything so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living.