I admit it. For many years I had clumped the word adultery and idolatry together. They sound very similar. Before I started getting more serious about my faith, I had heard only priests and pastors saying the two words, so in my mind they were one. When I did start reading more, I realized they were two completely different words with two different meanings. My bad. When I started getting it, I thought it only meant something similar to the golden calves from Moses’s story.
I never really understood it. I haven’t built any golden calves, so I’m good. When it comes to idolatry, I thought, that’s not me. I’m good in that area, or am I? Am I too quick to dismiss?
1 Peter 4:3
For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.
Okay, but what does the word idolatry mean? When I looked up the definition on dictionary.com, I read:
- the religious worship of idols.
- excessive or blind adoration, reverence, devotion, etc.
As I started to get clearer on its meaning, I realized that it hits much closer to home than I had thought. Due to some big challenges in my business over the past year, I prayed more for God’s help, but I found things in my business getting worse, not better. Why?
I don’t know anything for sure; I’m just sharing my journey. I have concluded that considering my business and financial struggles, something must be off. The more challenging things got, the more my personal life suffered as well. The more I found myself saying affirmations about what I wanted to bring into my life. I also started seeing that my faith was suffering a little because I was thinking that God wasn’t hearing me or had forgotten about me.
I have also realized that I was getting frustrated with friends who needed and asked for my help. I justified my actions or non-actions by telling myself I was in survival mode. I was not being a great friend, not being very Christ-like.
I’ve learned from sermons and talks with my pastor that anything we put before God or before acting in a Christ-like manner could be considered an idol. Whatever is a priority in your life needs to come after God: another person, sports, sex, health, heroes, awards, designations clients, or money. The Bible says that if we seek God first, all other things will be added to us.
I realized that my own ambitions (affirmations I have been doing that have not come to fruition) needed to change. I have rewritten them and now have different affirmations.
Matthew 6:33
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,
and all these things will be given to you as well.
I needed the reminder, and I feel like I have recently gotten clear on that. I’m also still learning that God loves me no matter what. I just need to realize that I need to be better because He loves me, not to earn His love. FYI, He loves you, too.
Thank you, God, for Grace, Truth, Love, and Laughter,
Darren
(Reminder, this is just a journal of my mistakes, experiences, and thoughts along my journey to having a closer relationship to God. I do not claim to be an authority on the subject. If you want to know The Way, read The Bible.)
P.S. Thank you, especially, for grace.
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