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How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word.
I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.
I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
Praise be to you, O LORD; teach me your decrees.
With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth.
I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.
I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways.
I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word.
Ps 119:9-16

Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. 1 Jn  5:21

As John closes his letter, he exhorts his readers to keep themselves from worshipping anything which isn’t the true and living God. We so easily take that which God has given us for our benefit, in its rightful place, and place it above God. To take the created and put it in place of the Creator. He writes as though to children, those who are vulnerable and in need of protection from Satan and the world.

Whilst we may not necessarily bow down to graven images, we can so easily form other idols. Saying that, it’s even possible to Christianise idolatory of the graven image kind and refer to it as veneration.

Less obvious forms of idolatory may include the worship of things.

No-one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. Mt 6:24

This may happen through the accumulation of wealth, in search of security and influence, and the over indulgence of the care of these things. Whilst possession of things is not sinful in and of itself, it can easily become our god. Whether it is the stockpile of money to increase our power, or the car which is more than well-maintained, but ‘pimped’, it becomes more than it should be.

Following on from that, the desire to own things may also be an idol – coveteousness.

You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour. Ex 20:17

This can easily beset both rich and poor, married and single, and become an idol as one seeks to gain relationships and things in the belief they will bring that which only God can provide.

Idolatory can be in the form of people worship, whether it is the adoration of footballers, through to Christianised adoration of preachers and ministers. It can leave us unthinking and uncritical, following men instead of the word of God.

In addition, we may place traditions above that of the word of God. The justification of something by tradition, that “We’ve always done things this way”, is not always sufficient. This is not to say tradition is bad, but that we must always think about why it is done.

Our jobs, the status they bring, the salaries they command can become our god. We can end up living to work, instead of living for God.

One final possible form of idolatory may be our interests. They may take more time than is reasonable, they may become an obsession. Keeping a garden beautiful can be a good thing, but it may become a bad thing and be all-consuming.

With all this in mind, we realise we are so susceptible to idolatory, and must seek to be on our guard that we avoid temptation, that we might worship the one true living God, that he alone might be glorified.