A sinful act involves worship of the wrong kind, submitting ourselves at that moment to serve the appetites of our pride or lust, and so repentance is literally a transfer of our worship back to the One who rightfully owns it….. Worship has been misunderstood as something that arises from a feeling which “comes upon you,” but it is vital that we understand that it is rooted in a conscious act of the will, to serve and obey the Lord Jesus Christ. The feelings, the joy of having been forgiven, follow on as a consequence of our reunion with him.
Idolatry
Martin Luther
There are three conversions necessary: the conversion of the heart, mind, and the purse.
Robert Murray M’Cheyne
Self-righteousness….is the largest idol of the human heart – the idol which man loves most and God hates most. Dearly beloved, you will always be going back to this idol. You are always trying to be something in yourself, to gain God’s favour by thinking little of your sin, or by looking to your repentance, tears, prayers; or by looking to your religious exercises, your frames, etc; or by looking to your graces, the Spirit’s work in your heart. Beware of false Christs. Study sanctification to the utmost, but make not a Christ of it.
Danny Silk
Idolatry only happens when I accept your worship. If you treat me like I am more valuable than anybody else, and I cooperate with that, I’ve led us into idolatry. “I appreciate your respect, I appreciate your value for me, I appreciate even your submission to my leadership, but I need to know the truth.” I have to be willing to hear the truth.
Brian Hardin
Giving our hearts to unworthy things can become like drinking from a tainted water source that is corrupt and will make us sick. Our hearts are ground zero for our lives, and we must be intentional vigilant, and wholly devoted, if we want to know and be known by God.
Ed Stetzer
Our idols are not golden calves or carved statues. Idolatry is not tied to any specific idol; it exists whenever we look to someone or something in the world around us to save and satisfy us. Just as every age has its own problems, each has a fresh cast of new idols it creates to solve them. We reject the refreshing and rest-filled salvation of the Lord and hew for ourselves cisterns that give the illusion of holding water but are really bottomless pits. Try as we might, every new cistern fails, and we are left looking for some new solution to our temptations, fears, anxieties, and self-righteousness. The insidious lie of idols is that they prey on our hope. Every day they demand our work and devotion, offering nothing in return but promising us that “just a little more” will do it.
Seth Dahl
If we don’t get out of worry, we risk getting into idolatry. Idols are anything we need to check with before we say yes to God, and quite often, money is something people are checking with, and worrying about it only reveals we are trusting it instead of Him.
Anonymous Chinese Pastor
It is not persecution of the church in China that I fear. The church has always been able to weather persecution. My fear is love of money in the church.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I always have the feeling we are merely fearfully trying to save room for God; I would rather speak of God at the center than at the limits, in strength rather than weakness, and thus in human life and goodness rather than in death and guilt.
N T Wright
What stops us from being genuine humans (bearing the divine image, acting as the “royal priesthood”) is not only sin, but the idolatry that underlies it. The idols have gained power, the power humans ought to be exercising in God’s world; idolatrous humans have handed it over to them. What is required, for God’s new world and for renewed humans within it is for the power of the idols to be broken.