Our Idols Betray Us

“For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea.” I Corinthians 10:1

We believe in the Lord and the Word. We have experienced firsthand and witnessed the Lord’s intervention in our lives and the lives of others. When the Lord answers our prayers, He answers them through His promise and blood. But we may wonder, “He answered my prayers in the past, but will He answer them now?” Why do we lack the confidence God will answer our prayers? God answers our prayers when they are in line with His will and guidance. The Lord never changes. Yet, when we meet critical moments when God tests our faiths, we fold and abandon our faith. Rather than repent and believe, we focus on complaining and being resentful.

When we encounter challenges, we place more importance on what is in front of us, which causes us to betray our faith. Why? We create idols and mistakenly value them more than the Lord. Our faith in the Lord no longer directs our actions. Instead of stopping and considering the Lord’s will, we first attempt to deal with the situation through our efforts and devices. Just like the Israelites and their golden calf, we meet our destruction.

When Moses comes down from Mt. Sinai, he finds the Israelites celebrating, beating drums, and worshiping a golden calf which they requested Aaron to make. They experienced the power of the Lord through many miracles before and during the exodus out of Egypt. Still, they needed something they could physically see to believe and worship. Because they could see the golden calf, they believed it would save them. This seems ludicrous, but we do the same thing! We believe money, a successful business, or fortunate events are the answers to our prayers.

The Lord blesses and saves us, but we often seek what we have made when God tests our faith. When we are not one with the Lord, we start believing and seeking what we can see. That is when we lose sight of our faith. We look at what the Lord gives us when He answers our prayers, and we believe in the Lord because we can see how He has blessed us. But this should not be our focus. We must focus on what we see with our hearts, not what we can see with our eyes.

The Holy Spirit brings revelation to our hearts through our conscience. Our hope must be placed in the Lord whom we cannot see and is ONLY visible to our hearts if we connect with him. Anything we put ahead of serving the Lord or following his commandments are idols. 23,000 Israelites died that day because they worshiped the golden calf. How foolish does it look when the Israelites worshiped a golden calf and sought guidance from it? Yet, we do the same thing!

When something urgent happens at work or our business, we run to it even if it means interrupting our prayer or worship. Those who have idols can never really have true faith, nor can those who have true faith worship any idols. Dedicating yourself to the Lord on Sundays but focusing on yourself and the world for the rest of the week will lead you down a path of destruction. At church or work, inside or outside, the Lord must be the king of our hearts at all times. We must live according to the Lord’s direction. However, it is so easy for us to enjoy worldly things. We take small short cuts in our faith, and little by little worldly desires become our idols. We end up worshiping those idols above the Lord.

Faith is the only way we can overcome worldly desires. Some people will say, “Why must you be do dedicated? Live comfortably!” We must not abandon our faith and lose connection to the Lord. We must live according to the Lord’s Word regardless of the situations we face. Like Daniel, we must never abandon our faith! Faith in the Lord is the only way for us to conquer the world and to achieve eternal salvation. This is why the Lord put us in this world! We must live each day following the Lord’s direction and purpose. We must follow His commandments to achieve our full reward, whether we face good times or hardship.

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