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“the incomplete joys of this world will never satisfy [the human] heart.”
while traditional idol worship still occurs in many places of the world, internal idol worship, within the heart, is universal.
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
If anything becomes more fundamental than God to your happiness, meaning in life, and identity, then it is an idol.
European intellectuals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries became largely convinced of Rousseau’s view of the innate goodness of human nature, that all of our social problems were the result of poor education and socialization. World War II shattered this illusion.
Idols capture our imagination, and we can locate them by looking at our daydreams. What do we enjoy imagining? What are our fondest dreams?
Idols give us a sense of being in control, and we can locate them by looking at our nightmares. What do we fear the most?
we can locate idols by looking at our most unyielding emotions. What makes us uncontrollably angry, anxious, or despondent? What racks us with a guilt we can’t shake?
Whatever controls us is our lord. The person who seeks power is controlled by power. The person who seeks acceptance is controlled by the people he or she wants to please. We do not control ourselves. We are controlled by the lord of our
Idols dominate our lives.
there is a big difference between sorrow and despair, since despair is unbearable sorrow. In most cases, the difference between the two is idolatry.
Though we think we live in a secular world, idols, the glittering gods of our age, hold title to the functional trust of our hearts.
The living God, who revealed himself both at Mount Sinai and on the Cross, is the only Lord who, if you find him, can truly fulfill you, and, if you fail him, can truly forgive you.
that one of the worst things God can do to someone is to “give them over to the desires of their hearts” (Romans 1:24).
Every human being must live for something. Something must capture our imaginations, our heart’s most fundamental allegiance and hope. But,
Two Jewish philosophers who knew the Scriptures intimately concluded: “The central . . . principle of the Bible [is] the rejection of idolatry.”19 The Bible is therefore filled with story after story depicting the innumerable forms and devastating effects of idol worship.
when God told the Israelites that the firstborn’s life belonged to him unless ransomed, he was saying in the most vivid way possible in those cultures that every family on earth owed a debt to eternal justice—the debt of sin.
People who have never suffered in life have less empathy for others,
God saw Abraham’s sacrifice and said, “Now I know that you love me, because you did not withhold your only son from me.” But how much more can we look at his sacrifice on the Cross, and say to God, “Now, we know that you love us. For you did not withhold your son, your only son, whom you love, from us.”
you don’t realize Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.
Sometimes God seems to be killing us when he’s actually saving us.
we know a good thing has become a counterfeit god when its demands on you exceed proper boundaries.
To practice idolatry is to be a slave.
Now that we think we are here by accident and not made for any purpose, how do we instill a sense of significance in our lives?
addicts always make foolish, destructive choices.
the Bible repeatedly shows us weak people who don’t deserve God’s grace, don’t seek it, and don’t appreciate it even after they have received
If you get married as Jacob did, putting the weight of all your deepest hopes and longings on the person you are marrying, you are going to crush him or her with your expectations. It will distort your life and your spouse’s life in a hundred ways.
But why do we deify and demonize political causes and ideas? Reinhold Niebuhr answered that, in political idolatry, we make a god out of having power.
Even the people at the top of the world’s hierarchy of power, wealth, and influence are really “lowliest”—they are no better than anyone else.
Pride makes you a predator, not a person.
If it is truly grace, then no one was worthy of it at all, and that made all equal.
In the end idols can make it possible to call evil good and good evil.
“though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord shall take me in” (Psalm 27:10),
When people say, “I know God forgives me, but I can’t forgive myself,” they mean that they have failed an idol, whose approval is more important to them than God’s. Idols function like gods in our lives, and so if we make career or parental approval our god and we fail it, then the idol curses us in our hearts for the rest of our lives. We can’t shake the sense of failure.
“many make even their enemies their god
idolatry is always the reason we ever do anything wrong.
the fundamental motivation behind lawbreaking is idolatry.
We never break the other commandments without breaking the first one.
the true god of your heart is what your thoughts effortlessly go to when there is nothing else demanding your attention.
what do you habitually think about to get joy and comfort in the privacy of your heart?
angry enough to die.
set your hearts on things above,
If you uproot the idol and fail to “plant” the love of Christ in its place, the idol will grow back.
Repentance without rejoicing will lead to despair. Rejoicing without repentance is shallow and will only provide passing inspiration instead of deep change. Indeed,
Fear-based repentance (“I’d better change or God will get me”) is really self-pity.
Fear-based repentance makes us hate ourselves. Joy-based repentance makes us hate the sin.
until it relaxes its grip on anything else it thinks that it needs.
The gospel asks, What is operating in the place of Jesus Christ as your real, functional salvation and Savior?
What his boss said to him was more real and affecting to his heart than what the King of the universe had said.
