Idolatry: Whom Will You Serve?

The idols of our day and society may not be images made of wood or stone. They are far more likely to be our own lusts or desires, money, power, position, security and relationships. Perhaps the easiest way to identify our idols is to ask what we serve. Idols are often those things we are tempted to trust instead of God. What are those things for which we strive, those things we look to in order to achieve security or a sense of well-being? “Elijah, can’t I serve God and Money?” No. “How about God and Job Success?” No. “Just a little?” No. There can be no wavering between two opinions: “If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal [or Money, or Power, or Security] is God, follow him” (1 Kings 18:21).

— Raymond B. Dillard
Faith in the Face of Apostasy

Making a Jesus Out of Your Faith

From ideliglog

William Romaine (18th century English Anglican Evangelical) was a great man. His Letters are spectacular and in fact the great Thomas Chalmers said that Romaine’s letters are the best book to read to heal you of a legal spirit (i.e. legalism.) In Letter 37 of the Select Letters (kept in print by Old Paths Gospel Press and sold by Dr. Beeke at http://www.heritagebooks.org) he writes about the problem of making a Jesus out of our faith and how this robs us of our comfort. Here is an excerpt:

“For you are looking, not at the object of your faith, at jesus, but at your faith. You would draw your comfort, not from Him, but from your faith. And because your faith is not quite perfect, you are as much discouraged as if Jesus was not quite a perfect Savior… But, besides this mistake, I can see one of the greatest sins in your way of reasoning, and yet finely cloaked under a very specious covering. I pulled it off; and behold there was rank treason under it, against the crown and majesty of my Lord and God; for you are kept looking at your act of believing. What is this for? Why, certainly, that you may be satisfied with it. What then? No doubt you will then rest in it, and upon it, satisfied now that Christ is yours, because you are satisfied with your faith. This is making a Jesus of it, and is in effect taking the crown of crowns from his head, and placing it upon the head of your faith. Lord grant you may never do this any more!

"I observe… how, by this mistake, and by this great sin, the sin of sins, you are robbed of the sweet enjoyment of the God of all comfort. You lose what you seek, and lose it in the way of seeking. You want comfort, and you look to your faith for it. If faith could speak it would say, ‘I have none to give you, look unto Jesus, it is all in Him’ Indeed my friend it is. The Holy Ghost, the Comforter, will not glorify your faith. he will not give it the honour of comforting you. he takes nothing to comfort with but the things of Christ - and His things, not as used by you, but as given by Him, who is all yours… I grant you, and I know it well, that much faith brings much comfort from Christ, and carries much glory to Him; but the way to get much faith is not to look at it, as you do, but at the Savior; not to look at your hand, but at Jesus; not how you hold Him, but that He is yours , and holds you, and your faith too, and therefore you shall never perish, but shall have everlasting life.”

CS Lewis: We are far too easily pleased...

Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. We are far too easily pleased.

C.S. Lewis

Augustine on Sin & Idolatry

Sin comes when we take a perfectly natural desire or longing or ambition and try
desperately to fulfill it without God. Not only is it sin, it is a perverse distortion of the image of the Creator in us. All these good things, and all our security, are rightly found only and completely in him.

St. Augustine
Confessions