Not Like Me

In the early days of the nation of Israel, idolatry was an obvious thing. To us, it might seem silly to bow down to a statue, or believe that something made by human hands somehow had sovereign power over the weather, or the crops, or the military decisions of a neighboring nation.

But even though times have changed and the worship of physical objects as gods is less prevalent, idolatry is just as rampant as it ever was. So how do we tell if something is an idol? Psalm 115:3-8 gives us a telling description:

“But our God is in the heavens: He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: They have ears, but they hear not: They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.”

So, an idol is something man-made, and it is something that looks good, but doesn’t work. You could apply that to many things our world worships, but the psalmist isn’t done yet. He gives one more telling feature of a false god:

“They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.”

In other words, false gods reflect the people who made them, and logically, we can assume the reverse is true as well.

One of the most compelling arguments for our God being true and not man-made is that He is wholly unlike us. Mankind is flawed, thus anything he can make or think up will be flawed as well. (Think of the sordid tales of the Greek and Roman pantheons.)

But God is different. He is eternal. He is triune, three yet one. To try to bend one’s mind around these concepts proves that God cannot be an invention of mankind’s thinking. We can invent only what we know of. All new ideas grow out of old concepts. Where is the concept for eternality or a triune nature? Where is the root concept for a life outside of this, a life after death in which we will never grow old, never die, never be sick?

Perhaps the most remarkable difference between our God and the false gods worshipped by the world is the fact that God is holy. He is perfectly good, completely separate from evil. He will never, can never sin or make a mistake. How unlike us He is! And yet He calls us to be like He is. The gods of the earth call us to be as we already are, but our God calls us to become better than we are able, and then gives us His own power with which to do it!

And therein is both the joy and the struggle of Christianity. Joy that He calls us to be as He is, struggle against the pull to remain as we are. But then, we have God Himself to help us. As Paul reminds us, “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-39)

How glad I am to serve the one true God, the God who is not just like me, but who calls me instead to become more like Him!

“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)