Lent Day 2: God’s Red Line-Our Idols

God understands the challenges we face in proving our love by obeying him; from time to time, we will fall, seek forgiveness and start all over again. We will be forgiven if we are truly repentant and willing to make an effort again. But God may not always be so compassionate when we set up idols in our lives that take priority over “loving Him with all our hearts, and all our souls, and all our might”.

Interesting to note that in His warning to the Israelites in Deut. 30:15-20 (see below) – God singles out idolatry and the renunciation of belief in Him as the choices that will cause personal ruin. It is evidence of His being slow to anger and rich in mercy, that we are all not facing the punishment threatened. It is because He understands that we are failing to identify and recognize idolatry as it is today that He withholds His wrath. As we grow in knowledge and wisdom, and we begin to identify our idols, it behooves us to make changes that put God first in everything.

So, as we journey into lent, may our eyes be open to any way of life that puts a habit, practice, object or person before God in our personal lives. Most of our idols are very subtle: a) Ourselves: Materialism; ego/pride/self-esteem; image/reputation; hunger for applause/recognition; indulgence-food/substances; Recreation/exercise; gadgets/tech. equipments etc. 2) Others: Spouses, children, parents, siblings, best-friends, bosses – all can become gods when we look up to them and love/serve them excessively or more than we love God – giving them all our hearts, an exclusive privilege that should be reserved for God alone.

Deut.30:15-20: See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob