When Desires Become Demands

When Desires Become Demands

You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea.

Exodus 20:4

I will heal you of your faithlessness; my love will know no bounds, for my anger will be gone forever.

Hosea 14:4

Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.

1 John 5:21

I work hard all week. Don’t I deserve a little peace and quiet when I come home?” “I work two jobs to put you through school; I deserve your respect.” “All my friends have a car to drive to school. I get good grades. I deserve a car too.” Does this kind of thinking sound familiar?

The more we want something, the more we think of it as something we need and deserve. And the more we think we are entitled to it, the more convinced we are that we can’t be happy without it. That’s how a desire becomes a demand and creates an idol. What we want is not always the problem; the problem is that we want it too much.

While we may think of an idol as a statue of wood, stone, or metal worshiped by pagans, in reality an idol is anything besides God that we depend on to make us happy, fulfilled, or secure. It is anything other than God that motivates and masters us, anything we love and pursue in place of God. Idols begin with desires—often good and healthy desires. But when a desire becomes a demand, when it begins to control our thoughts and behavior, that thing we want has become an idol.

Growing in the Christian life is a process of identifying and confessing our idols one by one. It means cooperating with God as he removes them, bit by bit, from our hearts, until finally we’re convinced that he is all we need to make us happy.

DISCUSSION STARTERS

Can you think of anything you wanted so much you moved from desiring it to demanding it?

How does a person change what he or she wants or how much he or she wants it?

What are some of the common idols in our society today?