How to Detect an Idol

An idol is “anything or anyone that so captures your attention that steals the preeminence of God in your life.” An idol is someone or something other than God that brings satisfaction and serves as a substitute for the sufficiency of God. The Puritans called idols “inordinate desires.” The word “inordinate” means something that is made to be larger than it really is. Idols are God-imposters.

Defining idols isn’t too challenging but detecting what they specifically are can be painful and humbling. How can we detect our own idols?

First, follow the M.A.T. – money, affections, time. You can track your idols down by looking at how you spend your time, how you spend your money, and what makes you happy. You see, we will sacrifice for idols, we will re-arrange our schedules for our idols, we will spend our money on our idols. Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matt 6:21). What are you trying to protect? What do you think you cannot live without? Your daily planner and bank account will likely give you answers to those questions.

Second, ask the right questions. Are you willing to sin for your idol? Do you run to your idol for refuge? Does your idol often take the place of a means of grace that God has given for spiritual growth? Does your idol often come up in my conversations? Where does your mind go when it has the opportunity to wander or meditate?  

What do your idols look like? What are they? Who are they? They can be inherently bad or created good and we have made them the “all or nothing” in our lives. An idol could be “bad” (e.g., debt, greed, materialism, self) or it could be “good” (e.g., achievement, approval, books, career, circumstances, comfort, control, entertainment, exercise, family, food, friendship, health, hobbies, house, image, independence, intelligence, marriage, money, a pain-free life, perfectionism, performance, physical appearance, pleasure, politics, power, respect, romance, sex, shopping, social media, sports, success, traffic, travel, work).

Jonah warned us in his prayer in the belly of a fish that choosing an idol over God will put us in jeopardy of experiencing God’s grace – “Those who pay regard to vain idolforsake their hope of steadfast love” (Jon 2:8). To be a candidate for God’s grace, your hands have to be empty, because grace is undeserved and idolaters think they are deserving.

Idols are snares that will destroy our lives, but…

Here is the good news: there is hope for killing those idols. Idols can be destroyed. Throughout the O.T., righteous kings literally destroyed the idols in their land, but victories can be achieved internally as well. And how we do that is the subject of our next blog – next Wednesday. Come back!