Detoxing LifeSample

Detoxing Idols

What comes to your mind when you think of an idol? Probably a big statue with a bunch of people bowing around it. But in reality, the things in life that we tend to idolize are a lot more subtle—and can be a lot more insidious.

An idol is anything in our lives that we put in a higher position of importance than God. Intentionally or not, we can let things like wealth, a job, a diamond, a muscular body, technology, a celebrity, an ideal, become more valuable to our lives than God is.

It’s not wrong to enjoy such things. In fact, a lot of the things we tend to idolize can be great things — things God intended for our enrichment, like goals, exercise, and activism in our community. We just shouldn’t place them at a greater importance than our Creator. That’s when they become idols.

In a book called Remember Death, the author Matthew McCollough compares the good things of this world to appetizers at a banquet. They’re not meant to satisfy our hunger. Only stimulate it for the better things to come. The idols that this world encourages us to raise up to number one in our hearts destroy the opportunity for eternity with God — the best that is yet to come!