By CHIOMA CHIMERE. Special & Exclusive to USAfrica [Houston]
Idolatry is the worship of any god besides the one true God Jehovah who has sent his son Jesus Christ for our salvation.
To worship means to revere, to defer to, to give preeminence to, to love intensely and to take instruction from. To him/her that you yield yourself is your master/mistress.
Before now, Idol worship was prevalent before the advent of Christianity, the main reason Christianity came was to introduce us to Jehovah, there were a lot of small gods, ” nkanka mmuo” they are called in my native dialect Igbo, they came in all sorts and types and were worshipped diversely . There were several totems, amulets on the waists and necks, pots under the beds, little shrines at the corner of the house for everyday worship and bigger shrines manned by priests and priestess for escalations.
In our days, it is possible to begin to think that idolatry has been wiped out with the disappearance of these things. But a bigger Idol is here with us. It is called Self. Self is a new god that has arisen in the 21st century fiercer , more terrible, more domineering than any of the gods in the 19th century. It requires no shrines to be built for it , no physical totems to be carried around because it lives inside the body built already by Jehovah. The worshippers carry her around and she is with them all the time.
Self is the god that is ruling this generation today. It had been predicted in the scriptures earlier and believers had been warned against her. 2 Timothy 3 verses 1- 5- in the last days , men shall be lovers of their own selves …
Self is firmly in charge; has no competition and has no need to embark on evangelism because the worshippers take pride in her. Across the entire social media, she is trending and if you don’t have her, you will feel left out.
It is the pursuit of the god of self comes covetousness. Why we have a great hunger , thirst and desire for what others have. Their husbands or wives (bigger story but for another day here on USAfricaonline.com) their kind of homes, kind of cars, kind of clothes, jewelry etc.
Consequently, covetousness is why we are unhappy with the colour of our skin, our hair type and texture, etc and self endorses and encourages us to change them and get them to look like the one our covetous eyes have seen.
Self the god, encourages us to take pride in ourselves, forgetting that there are no great men/women, there are only helped men/women. “I am what I am by the grace of God”, 1Corithians 15 verse 10. We are told by self not just to take pride but also to boast about our achievements and rub it into people’s faces. That is why it becomes easy to treat those who we think are not as good as us or have not done as well as we have very poorly. Self encourages this behaviour and is fueled when we act accordingly.
Self is anti-family. She arises against the defined order of family. The biblical injunction in Ephesians 6 verse 1: Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right, has been thrashed by self. The children are on the quest for self-discovery , self-knowledge and the more they know, the more they realize and obey the teachings of self, you don’t have to obey your parents, rebellion fuels the pride in you, and the teachings and instructions of your parents will not go down well with self. It will deny you the pleasures that self seeks to have all the time.
It is self that teaches us to remain ungrateful and ignore and turn away from the true Godly teachings. These teachings are contrary to self and the teachings of self. Spiritual laws like love for people that leads to forgiveness when they offend us are also thrashed. These laws are too spiritual, self is a physical god , endorses physical pleasure and will not allow the spiritual laws that give life.
Self has come to steal lives, anything that enthrones the physical over the spiritual ” the law of life in Christ Jesus which liberates us from the law of sin and death has come to steal , to kill and to destroy. john 10 vs 10. It has come to cause a separation between the one true God who is Spirit according to John 4 vs 24. Once we are separated from God, we start to dry up and ultimately we die. ” I am the vine, you are the branches” John 15 verse 5.
We need to see the god self for who she truly is and rise up to demolish her to save ourselves, our generation and the next generation from the impending doom which is logical outcome of idolatry.
In the Bible, from Exodus 20 verse 3, God is specific: I am the Lord thy God, thou shall have no other gods besides me! •Chioma Chimere, a technology services corporate executive based in Lagos, will be contributing commentaries to USAfricaonline.com, first African-owned, US-based published on the Internet; and the print edition of USAfrica international magazine, based in Houston
