sin of idolatry

I have 2 1/2 chapters remaining in Doctrine, What Christians Should Believe. It is significantly shorter than the longest book I have ever read, but my progress through it has been staggered. It's been on my "in the midst of reading" shelf for more than six months. At least ten books have come and gone from when I started until now. It's not that I find it boring or uninteresting. It's merely a slower-paced read considering the heaviness of the subject matter: every single primary issue concerning Christianity.

The chapter I find myself working through revolves around the idea of worship, particularly what it is and why it is necessary. They quote Harold Best's definition of worship to frame the rest of the chapter; worship is the continuous outpouring of all that I am, all that I do and all that I can ever become in light of a chosen or choosing god (pp. 340). As you can see, the definition isn't geared completely towards the worship of God, and that's intentional.

Every human being on earth has two options placed before them: worship or idolatry. True worship takes the above quote and places the triune God of the Bible at the end. Idolatry takes the above quote and places everything else at the end. True worship is beautiful, while idolatry is horrific. Either way all human beings are worshiping something or someone.

Now Christians (myself included) can easily read the definition with approval because we go to church, read God's Word, pray, serve, and, in general, live lives which physically carry an expression of our worship. But God repeatedly tells His people, worship is a matter of the heart. The outward can deceive man easily. God, on the other hand, plants His gaze upon our hearts. And our hearts are where idolatry feeds and grows.

Doctrine quotes an exposition of Luther about the worship verses idolatry. It's rather tough to read, but an honest barometer of how whether we worship the true God or commit idolatry with worthless idols.

"...to have a god is to have something in which the heart entirely trusts...Thus it is with all idolatry; for it consists not merely in erecting an image and worshiping it, but rather in the heart...Ask and examine you heart diligently, and you will find whether it cleaves to God alone or not. If you have a heart that can expect nothing of Him but what is good, especially in want and distress, and that, moreover, renounces and forsakes everything that is not God, then you have the only true God. If, on the contrary, it cleaves to anything else, of which it expects more good and help than of God, and does not take refuge in Him, but in adversity flees from Him, then you have an idol, another god. (pp.346)