By: Shawn Weaver

Romans 14:11 (NKJV) For it is written: “[As] I live, says the LORD, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”

The Bible talks about idolatry a lot. Yet most of us don’t bow down to things in our everyday life. We don’t have shrines, altars, or temples. I am guessing (maybe hoping), that you have not sacrificed an animal for rain, protection, or prosperity recently.

Why then is this topic so important to God that He would address it over and over again? We all bow our knees to something.

The nature of idolatry was not that the people kept slipping up and bowing to things other than God. One of the keys to understanding idolatry is to understand fear.

People in ancient times were incredibly vulnerable. When there was sickness, people died. When it didn’t rain, people died. When an enemy came around, people died.
They were also very spiritual.

They saw spirits as being behind all of these things. To keep something bad from happening, they sacrificed to that spirit.

The followers of God would look around and see others seemingly thriving and prospering. They would do the same things, because they thought they would prosper in the same way if they worshipped that spirit.

Sound familiar?

How many times have we looked at other people’s seemingly successful lives and tried to do what they are doing? The truth of the matter is we are bowing to something other than God in order to obtain something.

God has allowed us to bow to whatever we want to. We take our God-given freedom and our God-given resources, and put them on the altars of success, health, peace, reputation, protection, etc. We can tell what we worship by what we sacrifice to. Any source we look to for life other than the one true and living God is idolatry.

God made this world to bow to us not the other way around. He designed us to walk with Him in freedom. Anything less will eventually feel frustrating and empty. That emptiness has led many to search for God. The beauty of it all is that He says that if we search for Him with all of our hearts, we will find Him.

That is worth the sacrifice.