What’s Your Golden Calf?
I have a confession to make.
“My name is Melody, and I have in the past and continue to struggle with worshiping idols.”
Wow. That really makes me sound like a horrible person. I realize, though, that apart from Christ, I am a horrible person.
Totally self-centered, prideful, hateful, rude, spiteful. Without Jesus, I would not be worth anything, and would not be worthy to
enter into a relationship with The Most High God. It takes recognizing this to begin to allow God to change my heart.
I was recently reading the Bible and my husband and I were discussing the Word, as we often do together. We came upon Exodus 32.
This particular story stuck out to me as a clear reminder of how some of us behave concerning idol worship.
[bibleblock]Exodus 32:1-6[/bibleblock]
When the people saw how long it was taking Moses to come back down the mountain, they gathered around Aaron. “Up,” they said, “Up, make us gods who shall x go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
So Aaron said, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.”
All the people took the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron.Then Aaron took the gold, melted it down, and molded it into the shape of a calf. When the people saw it, they exclaimed, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”
Aaron saw how excited the people were, so he built an altar in front of the calf.
Then he announced, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.”
The people got up early the next morning to sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings.
After this, they celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.
Christians love to poke fun at the Israelites in these situations. I mean, the idea of bowing down and worshiping a golden statue seems ridiculous to us, right? Or does it? I would challenge each one of us to pray and ask God to reveal to us what idols we have in our lives. Anything that becomes so important to us that we find ourselves thinking and reflecting on it more than on the things of God, is an idol that we have placed above Him in worship. This “golden calf” of the Israelites, could be many different things in our lives.
Our jobs, our country, our family, our friends, our clothes, our cars, our house, our education, even our church ministry can become an idol in our lives. There are also all the worldy influences such as Hollywood, pre-occupation with how one looks, being “sexy”, climbing the corporate ladder, accumulating wealth, etc. Just as pagan cultures contain many false gods, we have the same in our culture.
[bibleblock]Ephesians 5:5[/bibleblock]
For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person–such a man is an idolater–has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
There is one chilling reality in the Israelites example. Aaron was the high priest, and he most definitely knew what they were doing was wrong. However, he himself fashioned the idol, and then, upon seeing how the people loved it, attempted to turn pagan worship into what he called worship of the true God. Instead of telling the people it was wrong, he just took there wrong behavior and put a godly label on it. Sadly, this is still happening all over in the church today.
This is getting long, so I will just point out one example. Mainstream prosperity teaching in churches today is a response similar to Aaron’s concerning the idol of money and wealth. People are going to idolize wealth and having a lot of stuff, and so some members of the church have decided to not only embrace this idol, but claim that their worship of it is in glory to God.
The idols that we have in our lives are too numerous to mention all of them here. I would just urge each person to pray and search his or her heart to recognize these idols, and with God’s help, eliminate them.
[bibleblock]Colossians 3:5[/bibleblock]
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
