We often associate idols with graven images, statues, or items of clay, gold, and silver. We know there’s only one true living God and every idol is dead. See, we make idols to serve ourselves. That’s the difference between idols and God. Idols serve us, but God doesn’t serve us, we serve Him! One thing we forget is the idol of idols is actually ourselves! This is how creation fell! To the temptation to be their own God! That was satan’s fall because he wanted to be God, and what did he tempt Adam and Eve with? “I dola “tree”. Was it the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or was it the temptation to be their own God?
“For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). You shall be as gods; see, that’s what satan is all about when he tempts us - getting you to be your own God instead of letting you serve God. The devil does not come and say, “Hey, serve me.” No, he gets you to serve yourself because he knows when you serve yourself, he gets you to become your own god because he is the god of this world, and anyone that is of the world is of him. And anyone that wishes to be god or their own god like him is his child!
Idolatry is a trick because, at the end of the day, you’re just a servant to satan and in bondage to sin. Jesus said that anyone who sins is a servant to sin, meaning that you’re not just doing sin, but if you’re doing sin, that means that sin has power over you if you let it. We think when we’re doing whatever we want, we’re our own god, but actually we become slaves when we do. Freedom can only be found in Him. The biggest idol is you! That’s why we say, “I” dolatry. I want this, I like that, I need that. My family, my job, my life. There’s nothing wrong with the letter I or the word my, but everything is wrong with it when we live for I and my but not for “Him.” His will, His way. See, now this is His Family, His house, His body. Paul said: “I” am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not “I”, but Christ liveth in me. Our life is now Christ. When we gave our life to Him, it wasn’t a superficial prayer, “Lord, I give you my life.” We literally became His property. We have been bought with a price, and we were expensive because He spilled Royal Blood to have us! So that He can live in us and through us, and people can see Him in us so that God can be glorified. When He baptized us in the Holy Spirit, He claimed us, and now we are His temple. We are His house now.
See, our glory is crucified with Christ. God is asking us to kill our glory so that we can have His Glory, and they can see His Glory and glorify Him that is glorified in us. We’re not giving up our glory for nothing. We’re giving up our glory so we can have His Glory. It’s a joy to die to pride because on the other side is the Glory of God to be revealed in us. The more we shed off this old skin, it can be seen. We need to die to wanting to be seen so that He can be seen. For the world is waiting to see Him in you, but it’s your death that will make it possible. We’re not waiting on God, but God is waiting on us to die so that He can live through our mortal bodies. He died so that we can live, and now we must die so that He can live and manifest to set the captives free, break yokes, cast out demons, heal the sick, and bring many signs and wonders so that all who witness can glorify your Father who is in heaven and believe and be saved! He wants to be seen, heard, and felt! But we first must die to wanting to be seen, heard, and felt. Your death is not for nothing. Your decrease is so that He can increase in you!
See, the thing we need to die to is really just our pride, but the root of pride is idolatry! Where everything has to be about us, our way, our time, our money, our will, our desire, dream, vision, you name it. All this needs to die to have Him and to advance His kingdom. When God gives us the desires of our own heart, that’s one thing, but when we choose our desires over His will, that’s idolatry. That’s bowing to the golden image of self when you’re supposed to resist the calf worship and enter the fire as Daniel and they (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) did, and be refined like gold, not bow to it! There is gold inside of you! But if you exalt yourself, you are bowing to another god, the god of self. Then we erect an image of gold like Nebuchadnezzar did in our image, and we want friends and family, and acquaintances to bow to it because our flesh wants to be worshiped! Every time we push our will, every time we push our way just because we want our way, because we want to be followed, we want to be liked, we want to be appreciated, we want to be liked or looked up to or have a legacy, fame, or fortune for our lusts, this is all Idolatry, and God will not have it! Idolatry is the root of pride, and pride has a network that bears rebellion, lust, resistance, vanity, justification, and covetousness, which is idolatry (Colossians 3:5-11). Then it says in 1 Samuel 15:23 that stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. These are all signs and looks that idolatry is strong. If you kill idolatry, the fruit falls off. You take down the whole network of pride!
God doesn’t want your sports teams, your family, your friends, or your soul ties; He wants you! And if those things have you, He will tear down every other idol because He will have no other gods before Him! Not even you as a god! See, the ark of the covenant was a container made for the Glory of God, for the Holy Spirit. And when that ark left Eli and went in front of other gods and idols, those statues and monuments to those gods were destroyed wherever the Ark went. The anointing will destroy the yoke of idolatry, and now the ark is now us because now we carry the Glory of God as it says in John 17, and God is saying to us He will have no other gods before Him because He loves us, and He will tear down the idol of self we have erected to ourselves because He won’t even let us be left to our own selves because He wants us. He’s too in love with us, and He will wage war to have His bride! He’s chasing us down. Nothing can separate us from the Love of God, and He will destroy our glory until He can have His Glory in us! So He can have Himself in us!
What a privilege, but He will not force it. He will come after us. He will get in our way, but He will not make decisions for us. See, some have strongholds. Bondage is when something has a hold on you, but a stronghold is when you have a strong hold on something and you won’t let it go! What is the strength of that hold? It’s your pride. It’s the fact that you can’t let go of this or you can’t let go of that because you want it, or it has to be your way, but God says to let it go, but why can’t you let it go? Because you still want to serve your self. Or you think you have a better way, a better plan, but now you’re trying to be God. Do you think you can do better than God? Or are you an unbeliever that thinks that God can’t do better than you? See, His plan is perfect! If you choose your way, then you are saying you have a better way than perfection! That’s pride! See, when we make choices, we’re making statements to God! We’re telling God I want it my way, and then we use divination to fool ourselves or make others think that our way is God, but it’s still just idolatry, and we’re just slapping God’s name on that. God sees that as using His name in vain! We think when we stub our toe and say, “Jesus”, that that’s using His name in vain. No, that’s just surface-level religion.
Using His name in vain is having a vision of your own or your plan, and you say, “It’s all for the glory of God,” and it’s in “The Name of Jesus,” but it’s really all for your name and for your glory. If you want to do what you want, then do it! But don’t put God’s name on it and say it’s all for the Glory of God when it’s really just for you! Even if it’s ministry and has some fruit, if God didn’t commission it, it’s not for the Glory of God because only God can rightly glorify Himself. That’s why we need to work with Him just to even glorify Him! We need to be careful what we say is God’s because if it’s not, it won’t have His backing on it. He may use it, but that doesn’t mean He’s backing it! Then if He’s not backing it, then you need the hands of man and things like fundraising because God is not providing for a plan that He did not send forth. Then, there’s striving and fleshly labor just to get it to come to pass, but with God, there is rest! We need to get real with ourselves and determine who we’re going to serve. Is it ourselves or is it God? There’s the devil. There are other gods and soul ties, but at the end of the day, it’s really about choosing ourselves or choosing God! Nobody can make us choose either. That’s why we ourselves are the idol of all idols because we are the ones with the power to choose, and based on those choices, those results determine who we have chosen to serve. Not who we tell man that we serve, not who we try to make ourselves think we serve, but what we choose on a daily basis determines who we’re serving today. It doesn’t matter who you were serving yesterday. Who are you deciding to serve today? That is the difference between idolatry and serving God! Choose this day whom you will serve; that’s in every decision that you make. God’s way or my way. One is idolatry and one is true worship to Jesus! What you choose is who you worship! You can praise Him with your lips, but your heart may still be choosing self. God doesn’t look at anything but our hearts. You can fool yourself, your family, and your peers, but you can’t fool God, and you’re only fooling yourself and robbing yourself of your destiny, hope, future, and Him and The Authentic Glory of God that He wants to release through you, because it’s already in you. The same Glory that the Father gave to the Son, the Son gave to the sons, but in order to manifest that, it’s glory for Glory. Giving up your glory is expensive because, in exchange, you get to see the manifestation of His Glory in your life. Everyone who exalts themselves shall be abased, but everyone that humbles themselves, dies to their pride, and tears down the idol of self, shall be exalted!
In secret, you’re dying, but in public, you are being promoted. In secret, you’re suffering but in public, you are being exalted and glorified so that He can be glorified. The glory of man causes men to glorify you, but the Glory of God causes men to glorify God. And even if they glorify you, run away, because the devil is using them to steal the Glory of God from you because the devil knows that when you receive worship, the glory of God will start receding from your life! See, we don’t need to say “Glory to God, Glory to God,” to glorify Him. We are actually Glory carriers! The Glory is within us. In order to glorify God now, we need to release His Glory on earth as it is in Heaven, and He receives that as worship!
By Joe Pinto
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