Many, mouthing my name, have made an idol out of me.
What is an idol? Do you think you know?
Idols are unrecognizable as such, and are never seen for what they really are. That is the only power that they have.
The purpose of idols is to obscure, and they are feared and worshiped, both, because you do not know what they are for, and why they have been made.
An idol is an image of your brother that you would value more than what he is.
Idols are made that your brother may be replaced, no matter what the form of the idol. And it is this that is never perceived and recognized.
Be it a body or a thing, a place, a situation or a circumstance, an object owned or wanted, or a right demanded or achieved, it is the same.
Let not their form decieve you. Idols are substitutes for your reality.
In some way, you believe your idols will complete your little self. You believe your idols will provide for safety in a world perceived as dangerous, with forces massed against your confidence and peace of mind.
No one believes in idols who has not enslaved himself to littleness and loss.
Such a one seeks beyond his little self for strength to raise his head, and stand apart from all the misery the world reflects. This is the penalty for looking not within for certainty and quiet calm that liberates you from the world, and lets you stand apart, in quiet and in peace.
An idol is a false impression, or a false belief; some form of anti-Christ. All forms of anti-Christ oppose the Christ.
Yet, Christ's enemy is nowhere. He can take no form in which he ever will be real.
What is an idol? Nothing! It must be believed before it seems to come to life, and given power that it may be feared. Its life and power are its believers gift.
A miracle does not restore the truth. It merely lifts the dark veil you have placed over the face of Christ and let's the truth shine unencumbered, being what it is. It does not need belief to be itself, for it has been created; so it is.
An idol is established by belief, and when belief is withdrawn the idol "dies".
This is the anti-Christ: the strange idea there is a power past omnipotence, a place beyond the infinite, a time transcending the eternal. Such is this world: where such a power, place and time have been given form...shaping the impossible.
Here the deathless come to die, the all-encompassing to suffer loss, the timeless to be made slaves of time. Here the changless comes to change; here the peace of God gives way to chaos. Here comes the Son of God to hate a little while; to suffer pain and finally to die.
Where is an idol? Nowhere! An idol is beyond where God has set all things forever, leaving no room for anything to be except His Will. An idol must be nothing and nowhere, while God is everything and everywhere.
What purpose has an idol then? What is it for? This is the only question that has many answers, each depending on the one of whom the question is asked.
The world believes in idols. No one comes unless he worshipped them, and still attempts to seek for one that yet might offer him a gift reality does not contain.
Each worshipper of idols harbors hope his special deities will give him more than other men possess.
It must be more. It does not really matter more of what; more beauty, more intelligence, more wealth, or even more affliction and more pain. But more of something is what an idol is for. And when one fails another takes its place, with hope of finding more of something else.
Be not decieved by the forms the "something" takes. An idol is a means for getting more. And it is this that is against God's Will.
God has not many Sons, but only One. Who can have more, and who be given less? In Heaven would the Son of God but laugh if idols could intrude upon his peace. For more than Heaven can you never have!
If Heaven is within, why would you seek for idols that would make of Heaven less, to give you more than God bestowed upon your brother and on you, as one with Him?
God gave you all there is.
And to be sure you could not lose it, He also gave the same to every living thing as well. And thus is every living thing a part of you, as of Himself.
No idol can establish you as more than God. But you will never be content with being less.
Jesus