Quotes about Idolatry

There still remains only God to protect man against man. Either we will serve him in spirit and in truth or we shall enslave ourselves ceaselessly, more and more, to the monstrous idol that we have made with our own hands to our own image and likeness. Etienne Gilson, 20th century

If awesome things in creation become your god, the God who created those things will not own your awe. Horizontal awe is meant to do one thing: stimulate vertical

The question is not if we worship, but what we give our hearts to worship.

The spiritual reality for many of us is that the one thing is not the Lord. And the danger in that reality is this: your one thing will control your heart, and whatever controls your heart will exercise inescapable influence over your words, choices, and actions. Your one thing will become that which shapes and directs your responses to the situations and relationships of your daily life. If the Lord isn't your one thing, the thing that is your one thing will be your functional lord.

An idolatrous heart will produce idol words, words that serve the idol that grips us.

Spiritual adultery occurs when I give the love that belongs to God alone to something or someone else.

3. We replace vertical awe with horizontal addiction.

Remember the biblical principle of idolatry, desire for a good thing becomes a bad thing when that desire becomes a ruling thing.

We're all spiritually promiscuous, running from lover to lover, giving the loyalty of our hearts to things other than God.

Often we make the mistake of thinking we have a heart for the Lord, when really we're just thankful for him because at that moment he seems to be delivering to us what we have truly set our hearts on. Often we reduce God to just the deliverer of good fits, rather than recognizing him as the ultimate heart-satisfying gift.

Perhaps we commit vertical larceny much more than we realize. Perhaps we quest for personal glory more than we think. Perhaps we take credit for what only God can do more often than we think we do. Perhaps, in subtle idolatry, we give credit to places and things when it really belongs to God.

When good things become controlling, they command the affection of our hearts and then shape our words and behavior. When this happens, they take the place in our hearts that only God should have.