No More

Scripture Reading: Hosea 14:3

We will say no more, ‘Our God,’ to the work of our hands…

John Calvin wrote, “Man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols…Man’s mind, full as it is of pride and boldness, dares to imagine a god of its own capacity; as it sluggishly plods, indeed is overwhelmed with the crassest ignorance, it conceives an unreality and empty arrogance as God.”

Saying that the heart is an idol factory doesn’t mean our idols are all ideas, philosophies, or other invisible things. While those things can become gods, it doesn’t exclude the material world from the potential idol factory. Calvin meant that our hearts can turn almost anything into an idol.

While Hosea was likely referring to actual idols made of wood, silver, and gold; the application for us can be much broader. We can take a career, a hobby, a home, a church, or anything else that we have had a role in building and turn it into a god that we worship and devote ourselves to.

Hosea ends with a call to repent and turn back to God. A part of that repentance is to stop saying the things made by human hands are God. I’m sure none of us are literally calling the works of our hands “God,” but our actions and attitudes might speak that more loudly than if we used those words.

It is a good spiritual exercise to examine your life and see if there are things you are making that are or have become idols. If there are, then say, “I will no more say, ‘My God,” to the work of my hands.”