"Our Deceptions"

"An horse is a vain thing for safety: neither shall he deliver any by his great strength." (Psalms 33:17) You can replace "horse" with any number of things that we depend on for safety, be that for protection, or even for financial dependency; anything that we place in our lives that we look to for deliverance, aside from God, is what is commonly referred to as an idol. Idols do not necessarily need to be gods, although many of them are; but anything that we place between us and our Creator is something that has the properties of an idol. If you are like me, you can sometimes get distracted by things of value or pleasure; placing a little too much value in pleasure is usually my biggest downfall, because I like to have fun; whether that be with friends and family, or just heading out on my own and doing something like snowboarding, golfing, or biking; if it's something that gives me pleasure doing, I place value upon it as something that I must do. Can that be an idol in my life? If I let it be, I am pretty sure that it could; but in what regard does it become an idol? The Apostle John was very instructive in his epistles about the love of God, and how we know that we are His children if we love one another; and the concept of loving can become an idol also, if placed in the wrong position. This is something that can become very hard to recognize, let alone try and explain; but a person can love someone for the wrong reasons; and love, just for the sake of loving, may not be love, if it does not consider the person that is being loved. (What does that even mean???) You have no doubt heard the phrase, "Putting the cart before the horse"; a phrase that speaks about placing things in the wrong order; something that we have continually done, and continually do, almost without even knowing that it is happening. When it comes to love, real love has something that it is fixed upon, as in, I love my wife, or I love Jesus; there must be an object to which love has a destination, for love to actually mean anything at all. For example; you cannot say that you love God, if you do not know God; as John says in 1 John 4:19, "We love Him, because He first loved us"; with the general point being, that God has demonstrated His love for us, therefore we know His love for us, and now we are able to love Him back based upon His love, not ours. In that same light, when it comes to loving others, a generic love will not work; in other words, the love we have for others must be the same love we have received from God, whereby He has loved us, and now we can love Him is transferred to our brothers and sisters; as in, I can love them, because God has loved me... "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from Him, That he who loveth God loveth his brother also. (Not an option!) Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth Him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of Him." (1 John 4:20-5:1)