Leviticus 19.4 “Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves any gods of cast metal: I am the Lord your God.”

“It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.” – Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters

If we want to identify our idols, we can ask ourselves some very simple diagnostic questions.

If you have answered these questions, you have likely found some of the idols of your heart.  

For instance, just yesterday I was driving to a meeting in a neighboring city.  For about 10-12 of the miles I was stuck behind two trucks carrying the two halves of a modular home.  They took up both lanes and made it impossible to pass.  

I must admit two things: they were actually doing a good job of keeping up with the speed limit and according to my GPS I would easily make it to my meeting on time.  

So how did I respond?  I got frustrated that I could not get around these trucks.  I was irritated and sulking for that entire 10-12 miles.  Why was I so upset?  My idols were at work.  Which one?  Take your pick . . . but maybe my control idol.  Particularly when I am driving I enjoy the control that I have . . . I am the king of the road.  That is why I do not like people driving slow in the left lane. (It’s for passing right?)  When my ability to control a situation is taken away, suddenly I am frustrated and begin to get angry.

Why do we . . . no take that back . . . why do I so easily find my life so easily upset?  My heart is an Idol Factory.

“From this we may gather that man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.”  – John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion

“. . . every one of us is, even from his mother’s womb, expert in inventing idols.”  – John Calvin, Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles