When You Make Idols, You End Up Like Them
By Rick Warren

“Those who make idols end up like them. So does everyone who trusts them” (Psalm 115:8 GW).

Even good things—like our marriages, our families, our hobbies, the people we admire, or even our ministries in the church—can become idols if we place a greater emphasis on them than on our relationship with God.

Anytime you think fulfillment comes from who you’re with or what you do, you’re setting yourself up for a deep disappointment. Created things simply cannot give us meaning in life; only our Creator can do that.

The Bible says, “The poor, deluded fool . . . trusts something that can’t help him at all. Yet he cannot bring himself to ask: ‘Is this idol that I’m holding in my hand a lie?’” (Isaiah 44:20 NLT).

We want to live in the truth of God’s reality, not in the lie created by our own hand. These idols won’t just stop after they’ve disappointed us. Eventually, they will control us.

The Bible says, “Those who make idols end up like them. So does everyone who trusts them” (Psalm 115:8 GW). Whatever you value the most in life, you’re going to become like. If you value money, you’ll eventually become materialistic. If you value pleasure, you’ll become hedonistic or self-indulgent.

On the other hand, if you value Jesus above all else, you’ll become like him.

So if putting something else first in our lives warps us, why do we do it?

We want a god we can control. We want to be able to manage him. But why would you want to follow a god you can control and manage? That’s no god at all.

Guess what? You don’t have to settle for that kind of god. You can choose to give yourself over to an all-knowing, all-powerful God who can take you places far beyond where your fantasies and idols ever could. And that’s a reality that won’t leave you feeling disappointed.

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This devotional © 2018 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

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