American Idol

Some time ago, I came face to face with my own idolatry, and was completely shocked. I've always known idols weren't necessarily made of gold. Sometimes, I knew, it could be a car, or a job, or even another person.

In fact, an idol is anything you put before God. For me, that idol was politics. I was what you might call a political junky. I blogged politics. I went to rallies and became an activist. And, if I may say so, I was pretty doggone good at it, too. And on its face, there wasn't anything wrong with that. It wasn't that I worshiped at the Altar of Washington DC. Nothing nearly so obvious. It was far more insidious. I realized I was putting politics ahead of people. I got to a point where I cared more about whether somebody was Liberal or a Conservative than I cared about whether they knew Jesus Christ.

And just like that,  my idol of politics had taken place in my heart where my grace, mercy, and love should have been.

I read a book yesterday which asked a particularly tough question: to take a look at the God I am serving, and to ask myself: am I following the God of the Bible, or have I crafted a god in my own image?

Like politics, or cars, or jobs, or any number of idols, we can create a false image of Christ, and worship that instead of the true Jesus of the Bible. Take a look at who Jesus is, in the words of those who walked with him on Earth. Read through the Gospels, and ask God to reveal His son to you... and then ask: is that the Jesus I am worshiping now?

This post is an extrapolation and oversimplification of a theme developed in Matt Mikalatos's My Imaginary Jesus. I cannot recommend this book enough. The above post is, like most of the posts here, stripped into bite-sized chunks for radio consumption.