TAKE THE "I" OUT OF YOUR EYE

The Puritans believed sin is the raw material for the heart's idol factory. Idolatry is really about self as the secular trinity: Me, Myself and I. We were created to worship God, but at the root of sin is the idolatry of self-worship. At the heart of idolatry is the desire to control and/or manipulate people or things for the benefit of self. It supplies self-centered desires and comforts.

In spite of God's warning to Israel not to make idols, idolaters did so in order to worship that which they believed God could not supply. Carving of idols is not limited to wood, metal, stone or other materials, but is the end-product of the spirit of idolatry that begins in the heart. Idols are carved because of the false notion that worship of God cannot supply all our needs. We need something more. The spirit of idolatry is not about the object or the other person; it is about self.

The root cause begins with what "I" see with my "Eyes." "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat..." Genesis 3:6. In the end, idolatry turns us away from the love of Christ to the love of self. We will never understand the true love of our Redeemer until we take the "I" out of our "Eye."