#idolatry

Every man becomes the image of the God he adores. He whose worship is directed to a dead thing becomes dead. He who loves corruption rots. He who loves a shadow becomes, himself, a shadow. He who loves things that must perish lives in dread of their perishing. ↗

— Thomas Merton

#idolatry #worship #love

mysterious money had stood to him as the symbol of earthly good, and the immediate object of toil. He had seemed to love it little in the years when every penny had its purpose for him; for he loved the purpose then. But now, when all purpose was gone, that habit of looking towards the money and grasping it with a sense of fulfilled effort made a loam that was deep enough for the seeds of desire. ↗

— George Eliot

#idolatry #money #love

By giving us control, our new technologies tend to enhance existing idols in our lives. Instead of becoming more like Christ through the forming and shaping influence of the church community, we form, and shape, and personalize our community to make it more like us. We take control of things that are not ours to control. Could it be that our desire for control is short-circuiting the process of change and transformation God wants us to experience through the mess of real world, flesh and blood, face-to-face relationships? ↗

— Tim Challies

#discipleship #idolatry #change

Idolatry' is the practice of seeking the source and provision of what we need either physically or emotionally in someone or something other than the one true God. It is the tragically pathetic attempt to squeeze life out of lifeless forms that cannot help us meet our real needs. ↗

— Scott J. Hafemann

#faith

One must love God first, and only then can one love one's closest of kin and neighbors. We must not be idols to one another, for such is not the will of God. ↗

— Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

#eastern-orthodoxy #family #god #idolatry #love

We imagine that a little anxiety and worry is an indication of how wise we really are; it may be an indication of how wicked we really are. ↗

— Oswald Chambers

#idolatry #worry #imagination

If change and growth are not programmed into your spirituality, if there are not serious warnings about the blinding nature of fear and fanaticism, your religion will always end up worshiping the status quo and protecting your present ego position and personal advantage as if it were God. ↗

— Richard Rohr

#humility #idolatry #status-quo #nature

The art of government is the organisation of idolatry. ↗

— George Bernard Shaw

#government #idolatry #organisation

Mindset of the man too busy: I am too busy BEING God to become LIKE God. ↗

— Mark Buchanan

#rest #business

And that's really what's happening in this country is a violation of the First Commandment. We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is the dependency upon our government. We're supposed to depend upon God for our protection and our provision and for our daily bread, not for our government. ↗

— Sharron Angle

#bread #commandment #country #daily #daily bread