Col. 3:5-7; 1 Thess. 2:1-6, Pursuing the Living God (1)

I have another matter to add to our recent studies on “the unity of God” and the related posts on idolatry.  We called attention to the Apostle Paul’s Spirit-led observation that covetousness is idolatry (Col. 3:5-7; Eph. 5:5). 

In 1 Timothy 6 the phrase “desire to be rich” (6:9) and “the love of money” (6:10) we see thoughts that are synonymous with covetousness and greed.  The dangers of these two attitudes are ominous.  They will cause us to fall into temptation (or trials) and a trap, involving “many” harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.  I can’t think of the last time I really stopped and meditated on that verse.  I am more familiar with the words of v10, that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil which had caused some persons known to Paul to stray from the faith and to bring on their souls self-inflicted wounds. 

Pardon me if I don’t get sidetracked by the question of eternal salvation.  I have my view and you yours.  Whatever it is, look at the words of Scripture.  The consequences described here are as bad as it gets spiritually.  They are turned away from the Lord.  And they experienced terrible, personal pain.  It is, in fact, like what the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel experienced for replacing the true God with the idolatry of the golden calves.  It is what the Southern Kingdom of Judah experienced for engaging in their casual idolatry and not loving God with all their hearts, souls and strength.

One thing this does is help us to understand idolatry in our own setting.  We don’t pray to little Buddhas or fall prostrate before gold calves.  But what makes something an idol?  It is when we are engaged in a pursuit, pouring our lives into something we have deemed essential for our well-being, and that “something” is not the true God. 

Let’s think about this.  The ministry of Jesus Christ has been a central focus of my life for many years.  Could ministry become an idol?  Yes!  It could become the thing that I count on for satisfaction in life.  Are my sermons appreciated by others?  Is my church growing?  Do people speak well of me?  It becomes idolatry when my pursuit is not the pursuit of God.  The Apostle understood the difference.  He ministered “not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts” (1 Th. 2:4).  “Nor did we seek glory from men” (1 Th. 2:6). 

Could a man’s job be an idol?  Yes!  Paul addressed it like this: do your work “not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men” (Eph. 6:6-7).  Could a mother’s raising of her children be idolatry?  Or the way she keeps her home?  Yes!  Any pursuit that is not first and throughout the pursuit of God is an attempt to satisfy the soul apart from God.  And that is idolatry.

We will know where the idols of the heart are in our lives by the things that consume us with worry or fear.  Sadly, we may also detect it when we begin to stray from the faith, and when we find ourselves unable to escape from “foolish and harmful lusts” that are sucking the life out of us.

But wait!  There’s more in 1 Tim. 6.