Prayer Concerning Our Idolatry

Read Philippians 2:1-5

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, ² make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. ³ Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. ⁴ Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. ⁵ Let the same mind be in you that was^[a] in Christ Jesus...

 

               There is a lot of distance, Lord, between the unmistakable forms of Old Testament idolatry and us.  Images cast from metal or carved from wood have never figured in our lives and never will.

                Idolatry is a far more subtle process for us.  We do not find ourselves actually worshipping false gods.  We do find ourselves drawn toward admiring, envying, or elevating into importance things that do not deserve the tribute we pay to them. 

• People who seem to have all the pleasure for which a human being could ask, even if at the expense of using others for that purpose;
• Toughness that can, without a trace of sympathy and without a backward glance, make decisions that will hurt dozens of other people;
• Ambition so single-minded in its drive toward its goal that every other consideration is shunted aside;
• Fame that turns heads, opens doors, makes news;
• Wealth so plentiful that it puts almost any material want within easy reach, and puts an end to any trace of financial insecurity.

Part of us looks at the people who have these things we lack, and wonders if life would not seem more exciting, more worth living, if only we could be more like them.

                However, the better part of us, knows that when that kind of wondering begins to come over us, we do battle with some of the shapes idolatry takes in us.  The false gods are elbowing their way toward a place on the altar of our hearts.

                Whenever those false gods make their move -- today, tomorrow, any day -- may the admonition of faith move with all its power into the battlefield of our minds: "Let that mind be in me that was in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Philippians 2:5)

                Amen.