Idolatry in Christianity

By Alexandra Copeland

I hear from a number of Christians that are disillusioned by what they see happening on the world stage, and from what is occurring in their own faith communities. I, too, am concerned by what I see in the news and from the actions of those that are in greater roles of Christian leadership. One of the things that I believe separates me from many others is that I have never looked to human beings in any role as a go-between when it comes to my relationship with God. Don’t get me wrong, I value those in authority, and I am very grateful to God for their continued stand. I am also very discerning regarding a person’s deep-seated and sometimes unrecognizable quest for power. Sometimes this quest is dominating their heart’s intent, rather than a genuine desire to see people grow into their full Christ potential.

God tells us in Proverbs 4:23 to vehemently guard our hearts. We have to pay attention to what goes into them, and what comes out of them. One of the things that we have to guard against is idolatry and people worship. We can become so consumed with pleasing others and putting people on a pedestal that we forget our whole purpose for existing is to have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  

Looking for individuals to save and rescue us rather than looking to Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, is another way in which we might dabble in idolatry. Idolatry in Christianity is sometimes seen in single Christians that are looking to partner with a compatible mate. They are looking to do so out of desperation, and not from a heart of wanting to share God’s love and be a blessing.  They have not used their time as a single person to get close to God and to learn to walk in the Spirit masterfully. 

The soul requires nourishment from the Spirit to grow and develop, so that we become the men and women God has called us to be. This need for nourishment becomes greater and more pronounced as we mature physically and mentally. 

Our need for things increases because we require them for a fuller expression of who we are. God is not in the business of giving us blessings of which we have not demonstrated the maturity and wherewithal to handle them. He is an Excellent Giver, and has designed things in such a way that a diligent effort to seek Him is rewarded. When we have not pressed into God through Jesus Christ, we will find that our well has run dry. We will not have learned to tap into spiritual strength in a way that causes us to meet and overcome the challenges of life. The end result of this is the surfacing of remnants of fear—remnants like desperation, obsession, impatience, loneliness and lack. 

Another area where we might see idolatry in Christianity is in the worship and idolization of politicians. This trend has been on the rise in recent years and needless to say, God is not pleased. We’re almost like the Children of Israel in the Old Testament that begged for the leadership of a king because they would not humble and submit themselves to the sovereignty of God. Our responsibility is to pray for those in governmental positions of leadership and authority, but we are not to depend on them to control our fates. 2Corinthians 3:5 (KJV) affirms, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;” Heavenly Father is our Source of everything. He oversaw the past, oversees the present, and will oversee the future. Nothing slips by Him, and He is totally in control. 

Sometimes it is a very subtle mindset and a slight attitude change that causes us to veer off the path of God’s love and into one of idol worship. We don’t recognize it until those occasions when we might pray for a particular issue, and either we don’t receive the answer we expect or it takes longer than we think it should to come into fruition. It is important we understand that Heavenly Father never withholds blessings for any reason. When we have positioned ourselves according to His Will and Word, we step into the flow of all good things. Anything in our lives that is entangled with idolatry will most certainly prevent us from stepping into the flow. 

We see this clearly in the record of Gideon in the Old Testament. The Children of Israel were being constantly terrorized by the Midianites, so much so that they had no peace. The Midian people were like giant grasshoppers that devoured everything in sight. They destroyed the produce from their crops, consumed their livestock, and forced the Children of Israel to live in caves in order to survive. They cried out to God for help, and the Lord chose Gideon as the instrument by which He would rescue them. At the time, Gideon was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide from the Midianite hoarders. He felt himself an unlikely hero, but this greatly aided his humility before the Almighty God. God assigned Gideon with his first task, and it was to destroy the statute of Baal, and replace it with an altar to worship the One True Living God. Judges 6:25 (NLT) tells us, “25 That same night the LORD said to him, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven years old. Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. 26 Then build a proper kind of altar to the LORD your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering.” The symbol of their idolatry had to be eradicated before deliverance could be ushered in.

God did not leave the Children of Israel in the dark about why the devil was able to land a curse of this magnitude on them. He sent a prophet to let them know that their disobedience of idol worship had caused their predicament. Again, idolatry in Christianity is a very subtle thing and can slip into our hearts under the radar. We must guard our hearts, and many of us need to seek God’s forgiveness. We need to repent from the sin of idolatry, so that our fellowship with Him is restored; and we can continue to worship Him, and Him only, in Spirit and in truth.  ■ 
 

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. 

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.