THE LOSER IN US CALLED SELF-WORSHIPER

³ You shall have no other gods before Me. ⁴ You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. ⁵ You shall not bow down to idols or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, ⁶ but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments. EXODUS 20

Exodus 20:2-6 is Commandment No. 2. It forbids idolatry, which Webster defines as (1) the worship of a physical object as a god; and (2) immoderate attachment or devotion to something.

Idolatry divinizes what is not God. It makes us want to achieve our goals by relying on the power of a creation, not on the power of the Creator. It comes largely in four forms: Worship of graven images, Self-worship, Obsession, and Sorcery.

Self-Worship

The 2011 earth population approximates 7.0 billion. Is our planet burdened now with the weight of 7.0 billion self-worshipers? The answer seems to be Yes.

Why? Because people everywhere take care of their flesh but not their soul. Their god is their appetite (Philippians 3:19). They rely on human power (theirs and others) in organizing and managing their affairs, not on God’s power. They set aside God’s instructions and insist on doing things their way. Submission and humility before God are gone. They prefer to pay than pray and to play than pray. Those who pray are more often than not a case of telling God what He could do to please them, and not asking God what they could do to please Him. If things do not turn out as they have planned, they blame God.

Can you imagine of an instance more ridiculous than this: False gods imposing their will upon the real God?

LOVE is not the order of the day. To them Bible study and soul-winning are a waste of time. They would rather go malling and enterprising. They would rather use their gifts of strength and reasoning to impose their will upon their neighbors. If ever they do good deeds, it is to please themselves or the object of their pleasure, but not God. They appropriate unto themselves the honors and glories that rightfully belong to God. 

They profess belief in God yet live without God. Atheists and agnostics are more honest.

He who makes God No. 2 and himself No. 1 is guilty of self-worship. He who organizes and manages his affairs by relying on his power, not on God’s power, is guilty of self-worship. He whose basic drive in life is to satisfy his selfish desires is guilty of self-worship. He who pleases himself before he pleases God is guilty of self-worship.

Another word for self-worship is self-centeredness. It is the father of faithlessness, greed and irresponsibility. Two other words for it are self-condemnation and self-destruction.

⁵ This is what the Lord says: Cursed is the one who relies on man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. JEREMIAH 17

Self-worship bleeding everyone to death was prophesied 2,000 years ago.

¹ There will be terrible times in the last days. ² People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of good, ⁴ treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure than lovers of God— ⁵ having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. 2 TIMOTHY 3

¹⁰ Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand. DANIEL 12

The Root

Self-worship can be traced in the human desire to act like God. It started in the Garden of Eden when Lucifer said to our first parents:   

⁵ …when you eat of [the forbidden fruit] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. GENESIS 3 

The suggestion “You will be like God” had stimulated in them a desire so strong that they disobeyed God’s instruction not to eat from the tree of life. The same desire haunts the modern man. Little does he know that yielding to it is echoing the mind of Lucifer (Isaiah 14:13-14).

As for Lucifer, he failed to superimpose his will over that of God, but he is succeeding in making the humankind do it to God. Man might think that in so doing he is servicing his own selfish interests, but the truth is, he is servicing the selfish interests of Lucifer. The creation imposing its will over its Creator? Lucifer loves it!

Christian Discipleship

“The world teaches us to be independent-minded, to be independent even of God. But the reality is, we are not designed to function independent of God. We miss the mark when we choose to act independently of God,” said Neil T. Anderson. “When we focus on ourselves or prefer material and temporal values than spiritual or eternal values, idolatry has succeeded.” (The Bondage Breaker, p. 39).

For us to attain restoration of our original blessed state (the purpose why we exist on earth), we must learn to be God-dependent.

Rick Warren said, “There is a God who made you for a reason, and your life has profound meaning! We discover that meaning and purpose only when we make God the reference point of our lives. The Message paraphrase of Romans 12:3 says, ‘The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what He does for us.’ (Purpose-Driven Life, p. 25)

“Without God life makes no sense. Without a purpose, life is motion without meaning, activity without direction, and events without reason. Without a purpose, life is trivial, petty, and pointless. (p. 30) Without a clear purpose you have no foundation on which you base decisions, allocate your time, and use your resources. You will tend to make choices based on circumstances, pressures, and your mood at that moment. People who do not know their purpose try to do too much—and that causes stress, fatigue, and conflict. (p. 31) Without clear purpose you will keep changing directions, jobs, relationships, churches, or other externals—hoping each change will settle the confusion or fill the emptiness in your heart. (p. 32)”

⁴ Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me. ⁵ I am the Vine and you are the branches. If a man remains in Me, and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not remain in Me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned… ⁹ Now remain in My love. ¹⁰ If you obey My commands, you will remain in My love, just as I have obeyed My Father’s commands and remain in His love. JOHN 15

For us to attain restoration, we must be reconfigured, re-created. God must be allowed to do it for us; do we not try to do it on our own and fail each time we do? We have to humble ourselves, stop acting as if we were God and submit instead like clay to the Potter.

Being God-dependent and allowing God to reconfigure us is what the Ten Commandment is all about, what the Old Testament is all about, what Christian discipleship is all about…

Allow God and He would say anew, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). God would waste no time in reconfiguring us. At the end of the day, we would be able to testify, “I am being transformed into the likeness of my Master with ever increasing glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

²⁵ The [disciple] should be satisfied to become like his Teacher, and a slave like his Master. MATTHEW 10 tev

“Being a Christian is like the caterpillar that sheds the likeness of an earthbound worm and puts on the likeness of a heaven-bound butterfly,” said John Avanzini. “Salvation is shedding the old nature of the first Adam and putting on the new nature of (Y’shua) the second Adam.” (It’s Not Working Brother John!, p. 33). 

¹⁴ Clothe yourselves with the Lord Y’shua. ROMANS 13

Y’shua is the visible image of “true righteousness and holiness,” the essence of God’s image and likeness. To be Y’shua-like should be our aspiration and our goal.   

⁴ Christ is the end of the Law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. ROMANS 10

²⁶ Whoever serves Me must follow Me; and where I am, My [disciple] also will be. JOHN 12 

²² You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; ²³ to be made new in the attitude of your minds; ²⁴ and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. EPHESIANS 4

“We should want to handle situations the way Y’shua would handle them and treat people the way Y’shua would treat them. We should want to do things the way He would do them. That should be our goal,” said Joyce Meyer (A Leader in the Making, p. 224).

“Only when we are dependent on God and intent on following Christ are we complete and free to prove that the will of God is good, acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:2),” said Neil T. Anderson.