If you're anything like me, memorizing the first of the ten commandments was easy peasy, and obeying that commandment seemed even easier. I recited "You shall have no other gods before me" in Sunday school and at church camp thinking, "No wooden statues. No bowing and praying to a golden calf. Got it. Easy."
Even now, I often think of idolatry as worshipping statues and images of the heads of false religions. Because we don't face God's consuming wrath for worshipping false gods the same way the Israelites of the Old Testament did, I tend to distance myself from the idea of idolatry.
However, idolatry is still rampant. We dedicate our time, love, admiration, and means to the created rather than the Creator. The wrath and judgment God poured out on the people of Judah is what we deserve. God is the same God, and is still jealous for us. By His grace, we don't have to face that wrath because Jesus took it for us. But that doesn't mean the modern church is free from idolatry or its consequences. Christians constantly demonstrate idolatry in idolizing celebrity preachers and worship leaders, materialism, entertainment, earthly prosperity and worldly wealth. According to Pope Francis, “Idolatry, then, is always polytheism, an aimless passing from one lord to another. Idolatry does not offer a journey but rather a plethora of paths leading nowhere and forming a vast labyrinth.”
We pollute the Gospel with our own desires. We prioritize our own needs over our pursuit of God. When our pursuit of our own desires detracts from our pursuit of God, then our priorities have become our idols. Not only do these idols distract us from our jealous God, they leave us empty by promising fulfilment that they cannot return. And when we're left feeling empty and discontent, we come to God frustrated for not filling the void that we've been shoving our earthly pursuits and desires into, leaving no room for Him.
Even our most well-intentioned priorities can, and often do, become our idols and distract us from God's will for us. When our obligations to church outweigh our pursuit of Jesus, or when our relationships with others are more important than their relationship with God, then we have made idols of things that will distract us from Him. We make idols of our families, our careers, our education... And while in the eyes of the world, these are acceptable and often commendable priorities, they easily become our idols. When these priorities become our joy, our purpose, our primary influence in how we view ourselves, then we have idolized them. When you find yourself "squeezing God in" to your schedule because you are allowing other things to consume your time, perhaps it's time to take a look at your priorities.
