By Pastor Dr. Aggrey Soyekwo.
Exodus 20:3-5 “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me…."- NIV
Idolatry is love, adoration and worship of anything else apart from God. Because worship is exclusively for God Almighty, He utterly detests idolatry. He gave specific commandments against idol worship. In nothing and nowhere else is God’s jealous anger expressed than in idol worship. He shares His glory with no other. We are to worship God the Creator and not the things He made.
An idol is anything which takes the due glory, praise, attention and the place of God in ones life, such as material things, self love, a sport, position, etc. It’s more than a physical image of an idol people worship. It is an attitude of the heart. Consciously or not, people have so many idols in their lives. This manifests when, rather than honor God, people divert the honour due only to God, to those things.
God calls us to love Him with all that we are and have. Out of love, we submit in loyalty and sacrifice to the object of our worship. Watch where, and on what you spend your most treasured time, money and company. That’s an indication of where your heart is and what or whom you worship. If it is anything apart from God, then it is an idol. Let everything we do arise from a foundation of our love and worship of God.
Mark 12:30-31 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Shalom children of God