Protecting Ourselves From Idolatry

If we don't want to fall into idolatry; into spiritual adultery, we must protect the relationship that we have with our God! Just as we would need to work hard to build and protect the relationships we have with our spouses, we need to put some serious effort into our relationship with God. We must make sure He is the one you look to for meaning, purpose, and fulfillment in life. Make sure He is the one who you find security and hope in. He needs to be the one who satisfies us and we cannot live without.

STAY FAITHFUL IN OUR “SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES.”

Nothing kills a relationship like not spending quantity and quality time with the person. “Quality time” usually happens during the “quantity time”. This is important for our relationships, but for some reason, this at times we don’t apply this to our relationship with the Lord. If we are not spending time often in Bible reading and study and prayer, it is going to kill our relationship with God and our hearts will be tempted to look elsewhere for satisfaction and meaning.

How much time are you spending during the week building up your relationship with God? Five minutes? Ten minutes? Thirty minutes? I will say this, it is more than likely not enough if all we are doing is reading a morning devotional in a devotional book and saying a ten second prayer when we are done. We are not going to build a strong relationship with God that way. Reading one verse with a page worth of men’s words (which usually take the verse out of it’s original context) is not good enough. We need more. We need to spend enough time in God’s word that we are able to see on a weekly basis just how much we need Him and depend on Him in our lives. We need to spend enough time in His word that we can know His word (in context) and not be led away to believe things that are wrong or to serve other things. We will put more time into study and prayer if our relationship with God is as important as we claim it is! I don’t think it is too much to ask to challenge ourselves with spending AT LEAST a half hour per day for around four to five days per week in combined study time and prayer time. That adds up to two to three hours per week OUTSIDE OF WHAT YOU DO WITH OTHERS DURING SERVICES AND STUDIES. I would recommend more than that. Many here may spend more time than that exercising, surfing the web, and watching TV per week!

EXAMINE OURSELVES

“Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?--unless indeed you are disqualified” (2 Corinthians 13:5)

We need regular spiritual checkups. Adults are supposed to see a doctor annually to prevent heart ailments, cancer and other problems. Yet many of us don’t examine our health spiritually and do what is needed to prevent sin in our lives. This is something we need to do often. We need weekly checkups to see how we are doing spiritually. Just because we are being faithful to God now does not mean will be faithful to Him next week or next month. We need to keep on asking ourselves some important questions in regards to our relationship with God.

Here are some key questions to examine our hearts with…

• What is it that gives my life meaning, purpose, and fulfillment?
• What would I not give up to serve the Lord?
• What am I most passionate about?
• What consumes my time, energy and affections?
• Are there sins (barriers to my relationship with God) that I am not repenting of? 

​“Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.” (The Apostle Paul)