We are surrounded by idols.
We are surrounded by things created by man’s hands which we look to in order to find comfort and peace for our soul.
Tibetan prayer flags, Eastern Orthodox icons, Romans Catholic crucifixes and statues of Mary, statues of Buddha, the Quran of Islam . . . these are all manmade things which are foolishly worshiped and wrongly trusted in to bring comfort and peace to our souls. Which is to say, these things are idols.
Some other idols might not seem quite so “religious,” but may still be things we have made—or accomplished—with our own hands, and which we put our trust in for the sake of comforting our soul: our artwork, our music, our business, our school, our house, our bike, our car, our money, our diploma . . .
But there is only one proper object of our worship and our faith: the one true God.
But how do we recognize Him? What is it that sets this God apart from the infinite number of false gods and lifeless idols which surround us?
Well, it’s really quite simple: He is the Maker of heaven and earth.
Psalm 96:4–5 says, “All the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.” And because He made the heavens, He is “greatly to be praised,” and “to be feared above all gods.”
Every idol, or false god, comes from the mind of man, and is created by man’s hands. But God the Father Almighty created the heavens and the earth, and every created thing belongs to Him:
The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains,
The world, and those who dwell in it.
The world tells us that the God of the Bible is a creation of the mind of man, but we all know that this is not true. The Living God is not man’s invention. He is the Lord, and “His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made.”
The Christian’s hope is not in any manmade thing. Our hope and “our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”