We think we don’t have idols. I mean there are not any little carved, distorted, gold-plated men on my shelf that I worship every morning. Oh no, I don’t do that; I must be home free. No we are not.
What do you have in your life that you treasure--your wife, your husband, your children, your reputation, your land, your money? Yes, we should be good stewards of them but if asked by God, could we live without them and not be angry with God?
In Genesis 22 we have the account of the proposed sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. Isaac was the son of promise; the son of Abraham’s old age. Isaac must have become the center of Abraham and Sarah’s lives. A life of drudgery, hard work, old age, and routine was thrown into disarray, happy disarray, with the presence of a baby boy who grows into a lad. Isaac had become an idol in their life.
God asks Abraham to sacrifice his own son. Any man would have to be angry with God, especially Abraham who had his son of promise in his old age. Why Lord? Why now? Isaac had pushed God out of the center of the life of Abraham.
The question we need to ask ourselves is this, “Would I be willing to sacrifice my _______________ (fill in the blank) who has become the center of my life, my idol?” Could we still praise God without our “idol”?
Oh, how the thought of this hurts. Timothy Keller in his book “Counterfeit Gods,” Dutton 2009 says in part: “Something is safe for us to maintain in our lives only if it has really stopped being an idol. That can happen only when we are truly willing to live without it when we truly say from the heart ‘Because I have God, I can live without you.”
The mere thought of this makes the back of my arms get goose bumps. Forgive me, Lord.
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