Alright, so we’re back as promised! Today, I’ve come with a gift: the solution to idol worshipping! YESSS! It’s taken forever to get here, but we’re here now so let’s waste no time. I’m ready to hop right in there and get to the goods, guys. If you’re not caught up, please go back to the blog. Look at January’s post, and the February post of this year to get all caught up.
How to Overcome Idolatry:
Let’s get the basics out of the way: we’ve got to recognize that we’re idol worshipping. Then figure out what the idols are, and the root of why we began to worship these things. Finally, we get to the best part: how to get rid of the idols in our life and overcome idol worshipping for good.
I’ve got three simple steps for you that are rooted in the scripture from the last post:
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:1-2
Step 1: Be Not conformed
Paul tells us to be not conformed to this world. That’s step one, do not be conformed to the world !!! People so easily give into the temptation of the world, and it’s because of their mindset. People want to have a good time, and when you’re fed through social media and television, books even, what a good time is, then that’s what you’re going to believe equates to a good time.
We often see people hanging out with friends, going to parties, and it is made to look so fun and enticing. But we forget that firstly, reality is quite different from social media and television. But secondly, this is someone else’s opinion! Television and social media sways us to have the opinion of what the world believes is fun. It’s a pattern of learned behavior. We grow up watching shows about friends hanging out all the time or every Friday, and that creates a social pattern in our mind to achieve when we get the chance.
We grow up reading books about rebellious teens or angsty teens that overturn the government. We may be able to disassociate ourselves a little from this because we can’t take over the government, but we pick up that behvior. We try to imitate the character we love by becoming angsty. By becoming a ‘cool’ kid. But these are all just opinions from the creator of that show, of that content on social media, of that movie, the write of that book. But what’s God’s opinion of a good time?
Worship! Fellowshipping with Him. With God, you don’t need a celebration to have a good time because we are promised joy (Gal 5:22-23). Joy that has no beginning or end. No start time or run time, no end date, because God gives joy, and God has no beginning or end. So we don’t need parties of the world, we can be entertained through the festivals God has set up in His Word for us. We can be uplifted through reading the Word and going to church services. Now to some, that won’t sound fun, but that’s because that’s what you’ve been told. So many people write off church before they even go because it’ll be boring, but you don’t know that. The Holy Spirit is never boring. How can He be if God brings us joy? Joy is available because of Christ, and joy comes to us as a fruit of the Spirit! So, I’ve said all this to say, that we cannot allow ourselves to be conformed to the world’s opinion of things.
Side note: if you’ve been to church and find it boring, then you must refocus on the message. You have to want to be there, you must want to be present. Don’t go to church with a negative mindset, go believing that you’re not coming back home the same way you left. Believe that the Word and message will change you, and you’ll find service is not boring at all. Don’t let the devil steal blessings from you by missing service! You could be missing your breakthrough!
Step two: Renew your mind
Take a look at the next part of that verse: be transformed by the renewing of your mind. RENEW YOUR MIND! The only way not to conform is by renewing your mind. We have the mind of Christ, and we can maintain the mind of Christ by reading His Word. Jesus is the living Word, and the Bible is the written Word. Which means, to renew our mind (the mind of Christ), we must read the Word (the written version of Jesus). It’s like renewing a club membership, you usually have to pay a fee, however in our case, there’s no fee. Jesus paid all the fees. All we have to do is read about it.
Read over and over, every day about how Jesus paid our debt. About Paul, about Joseph and Peter. We need to read about the prophets and Moses and Abraham. Read King David’s story, and Deborah and Barack’s story. Have you ever wondered why there’s only one Bible, with sixty-six books in it? Ever wondered why that was the only book left to all of humanity to last through eternity? Because every word of the Bible represents Jesus. It is Him in the physical, dwelling with us day in and day out. Jesus is all we need, and that’s why the Bible is all we need to maintain our mind, to renew it.
Side note: don’t ever let anyone tell you the Bible doesn’t have solutions to the problems we have today. There’s not a single problem we’ll ever have that the Bible doesn’t cover. Why? Because the Bible is to last eternity, and it was written by people under the influence of the Holy Spirit who knows no time. He can see the future and the end because He is God’s Spirit. So every problem, before humanity began, had a solution.
sTEP THREE: pROVE THAT gOD IS GOOD
Step three ties to step two and step one. To avoid conforming to the world, we renew our minds through the Word. But why? Step three, we renew our minds to PROVE what the will of God is, which good and acceptable or well please and PERFECT! That’s right, every time you walk up righteously and you renew your mind, every moment your heart is pure, you prove that the will of God is perfect. And what is proving that the will of God is perfect?… Faith.
Faith is the evidence of thing unseen (Heb 11:1). Which means faith is the proof that God is real, that God’s will for us exists, that the plans of God are perfect. And this is an example to other people that there’s a will from God for them, with a perfect plan. Our faith gives hope to the onlookers that there’s a path planned out perfectly for them. Faith proves that perfection exists. So you want to know the real solution to stop idolizing things? Faith. Believing in the perfect will of God for your life, and you can only have faith if you believe in God and set Him first and foremost.
That’s wild isn’t it? The way everything just boiled down to faith. I loved that. Because when we idolize something, we believe in that person or thing. We bring life to it. Faith brings life to things. It allows us to walk on water. Faith allows us to call those things that are not as though they were (Romans 4:17). Why? Because faith pleases God, and when God is pleased, He moves on our behalf. That’s why we must pray with faith. That’s why we must pray believing already that God is going to to do exactly what He said He was going to do. We can go boldly to God because we believe in Him and we have submitted ourselves to Him completely, giving Him our daily worship.
Final Words
Ok, so faith, that’s it. Faith brings us out of most things, we just don’t know it. And that’s because at the base of faith is simply believing in God. Believing in God is so much more powerful than we think. And I don’t mean, believing there is a god, no… Belief in the One true God Almighty, that raised Jesus from the dead and gave us the Holy Spirit. That is faith and faith is powerful. I hope you’ve enjoyed this. I’ll be back and forth with idolatry all year, so strap in. Next time I’ll give a little of my own opinion on idolatry roots (hopefully, if I don’t forget, ha!).
If you haven’t caught up with Singlehood, my latest book, do that! And, please see my blog post on faith if you want to learn a little more about it.
Until then.
