The Power Over Idolatry

[HKHaugan]

The Power Over Idolatry

       Idolatry has many forms.  It is a wandering vagrant begging for a handout, a siren luring the unsuspecting on the reefs of social acceptance, a trophy promising inner fulfillment, a false hope dressed in a lottery ticket, a beard offering the look of masculinity, the diet to be more attractive, the gurus offering inner peace and self-worth. 

       At idolatry’s base lies a spiritual deceiver, the author of sin, whose strategy is finding a weakness and offering a tempting immediate fix.  Every individual has one or more vulnerabilities he can sense.  They dwell in our fragile secretive heart surrounded by aloneness and its fears of judgment by others.  In a moment he subtly tempts and meets internal desires with an external fix, but the moment passes.  However, the moment becomes more moments, and their end is emptiness and despair.  The vagrant remains, the siren still lures.  The deceiver stays in the dark on his endless journey to manipulate the images of our Creator God.  

       Those moments are the pressure of choices that have to be made. Idolatry is a spiritual virus infecting our economic, social, relational, emotional and intellectual choices.  And it is constant.  We all have those moments every day.  Survival in their midst is the goal.  Is it any wonder that God would take the action He did in sending His Son Jesus to live and die for us?  To live a lifestyle, a spiritual lifestyle where every choice He made was to please His Father, our Father?  To die on the Cross to reveal a power that is available to every one of us?  The power of faith, the power of His love, the power of His grace?  The relationships He fostered, the people He healed, the evil He challenged, the sacrifice He became to save us?  The Holy Scripture He proved to be Holy and unchangeable, complete and perfectly functional for each of us?  He did it all overcoming every idolatrous temptation thrown His way and that way is His Way freely open to us.

       Not only overcoming the Tempter, but bringing Himself as the Way for the heart, the Truth for the mind and the Life for the spirit.  Then by His Cross and Resurrection making them the only Way to find our way forward from the aloneness that sin has brought.  Now we are into something brand new.  That ’new’ is a perfect relationship with Him that lasts forever and changes the spiritual  and relational landscape in which we operate.  

       The new spiritual landscape is the means to seeing human relationships through the lens of our relationship with Jesus.  It’s spiritualizing every moment we live on this earth. That’s exactly what Jesus did.  When each moment (by moment I mean the events, the occasions in which we find ourselves and the people we meet while we are on our way), is preceded by our spiritual awareness of it, that’s when faith is our sight and the Holy Spirit is our guide.  That is always a new experience.  Everyday then is a new experience.  We are not merely surviving by some religious technique or secular wisdom (the ‘how-to-be-in-control’ strategy).  It’s not about making it through the tough times but spiritually engaging the moment to see where it will take you.

       Spiritualizing our day-to-day life is when we begin to see everyone and treat everyone as an image of God whether they believe it or not.  It’s using and praying Holy Scripture to give us spiritual discernment as we go from place to place.  The Word gives new meaning to “I’ve got things to do, places to go and people to see.”  It’s a new lifestyle.  No need for quick fixes or pithy platitudes.  It’s real life, spiritual life, where one size fits all.  We grow in the Spirit while the Tempter and his idolatry lose traction as he slides into the oblivion which is his end.  That doesn’t mean he stops trying.  It’s putting him on hold through our sin awareness and repentance that neutralizes his power over us. Thank you Lord Jesus!  Idolatry, where is your sting?