Run to Christ
12/6 Reading Portions: 2 Chronicles 6:12-42; 1 John 5; Habakkuk 1; Luke 20
Online Bible Audio/Readings Links (ESV)
12/6 Reading Portions: 2 Chronicles 6:12-42; 1 John 5; Habakkuk 1; Luke 20
1 John 5:21
Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
IDOLATRY
All sin stems from idolatry. You’ve read this before from my devotionals. If I have been blessed to be your pastor for even a little while over the past 25 years, you have no doubt heard me preach it repeatedly. So insidious is idolatry that it is the second commandment of the ten, immediately on the heels of God commanding us not to have any other gods before YHVH God:
”You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love Me and keep My commandments.” Exodus 20:4-6
Surely, most of us do not have carved or graven images of wood, stone, or precious metals. And if we do own some souvenir from some distant land decorating our den or living room, we certainly don’t venerate such a thing (or at least, I hope not). Nevertheless, idolatry is a struggle we all face. Simply put, idolatry is anything that competes with loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ. In biblical terms, it is anything that causes us to place something that we value in front of the LORD God, violating the first commandment. It doesn’t even have to be something that we esteem as more valuable than God. It could be anything that draws us, even momentarily, away from him. Sports. TV. Career. Family. Friends. Idolatry is the root of adultery, or what may be more properly referred to as impurity. Adultery is taking something God has created for good and twisting it in some way in our hearts and minds so that it distracts us from God.
Yet our gracious, merciful, and loving God has given us the remedy for idolatry— the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, He is our Savior and Redeemer, but He is also our Sanctifier and Refuge. John doesn’t want us to simply run from idolatry. He just spent five chapters telling us to keep our eyes of faith upon Jesus and fall in love with Him. We flee idolatry by running to Christ. When we see the infinite value of the Lord Jesus Christ, the things that pull us away from Him begin to fade away. Hallelujah! What a Savior!
A gilded calf or stone or wood,
Idols, we make them all;
‘Cept stay’d on Christ, whose grace is good,
Idolatry’s our fall.