UNASHAMED: What Are You Worshipping?
God • Family • Country
Reject modern day idols, and focus on Christ.
God designed us to worship. It is evident in Scripture that we were created to worship God and give glory to Him in all we do. After the Fall, however, something inside us shifted. No longer did we have pure hearts that longed to honor and worship God; we began to desire the passions of the flesh and the things of the world.
The question is not whether we will worship, but what we will worship. If we do not worship God and place Him above all else in our lives, we leave an emptiness in our hearts that must be filled.
Throughout the Bible, we see accounts of people falling away from God to worship idols. While there may not necessarily be golden calves or similar idols in today’s world, we are all still susceptible to making idols of things that we place before God.
One of the greatest idols of our age is the self. It is easy to slip into a routine where we put ourselves first. School or work can fill our daily schedules, and it becomes difficult to find time to read our Bibles or pray. Everyone is guilty of this, myself included. It is important to make time for God in our daily lives, even when we have tight schedules. While we are called to work hard and excel in all we do, nothing is more important than our relationship with God.
In addition to the self, politics has turned into something that many people idolize. Politics is important, and Christians should seek to influence society for good. It is honorable to love and care for our nation and communities and strive to help them; I wish everyone did. Politics becomes an idol, however, when we place our ultimate hope in a political party, candidate, or election instead of God. Your candidate of choice may never win another election. The people we elect may fail every test that comes their way. Politics can leave us feeling as though all hope is lost. But we can still have hope because God is always in control. As Christians, we should be involved politically, but our hope must never rest in anyone outside of Christ.
Sports have also become something that has filled the God-sized hole in people’s hearts. Coming from a former Division I athlete and a huge college football fan, this one hits home. There is no shortage of sports coverage or content in the media. There are channels dedicated to sports 24/7. You can place bets for nearly every moment of a game. In a culture where games are broadcast seemingly every hour, athletes are treated like gods, and entire weekends revolve around sporting events, it is easy for sports to consume our attention and affections. When we care more about our team's success than our relationship with God, neglect worship or spiritual disciplines because of a game, or allow wins and losses to determine our joy, sports have become an idol.
Of course, sports themselves are actually a good thing. They provide an escape from the harsh realities of our world and a place where people come together to root for a common goal in a world that is so divided. They also teach us valuable life lessons, including work ethic and teamwork. The same can be said of politics.
This demonstrates that not all idols are inherently bad. Thus, anything we place before God in our hearts has become an idol. Jesus said in Matthew 6:21, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” He also says in verse 24, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” We cannot place earthly things before God in our hearts without expecting them to become an idol.
We must be on the lookout for anything in our lives that might become an idol. Scripture tells us in Romans 13:14 to “make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” and in Galatians 5:16 to “walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” In order to fight our flesh and reject the idols in our hearts, we must fully trust in Christ and abide in Him daily.
All Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version (ESV) unless otherwise noted.