1 John 5:21 (ESV) — 21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
NOTE: I feel this has been a particular emphasis of mine over the last two years. I like D. Edmond Hiebert's comment:
"Since an idol was anything that represented or took the place of God, it is held that the term here need not be restricted to literal idols but includes any false conception of “the true God” as set forth in the apostolic message." (Hiebert, D. E. (1990). Bibliotheca Sacra, 147, 328.)
This has been my point for a few years now. An idol is not just fashioned out of wood or rock or any other material -- an idol can be fashioned in the mind. I can still remember a class that I was teaching (many years ago) where a woman (with little bible knowledge) stood up and asserted, "well, my God is not like that, He is a loving God." It has happened many times after that, and it usually concerns some action that God takes against sin that the individual disagrees with. The person's error is that he/she fashions an idol out of what he/she believes God to be and not from the Word of God. There are a lot of things that take our attention from the true God. There are a lot of things that have primacy in our life over God. There are a lot of things we love more than God. We have a lot of idols, but the greatest idol is the one we fashion in our mind of who we think God is because we have refused to get to know the true God in the scriptures.
PRAYER: Father, expose our false concepts of who we believe you to be. May we turn to the scriptures daily and see you there. May that be the real love of our life.
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