An Unholy Exchange

An Unholy Exchange

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie.

Romans 1:25

IN WORD That’s what idolatry is: the exchange of a truth for a lie. Whatever takes God’s place in our hearts is a travesty of unspeakable proportions. In any kind of worship other than the God-exalting, Christ-honoring kind of passion, we have substituted the profane for the holy, the cheap for the priceless, the finite for the infinite, a curse for a blessing, and like Esau of old, our birthright for a bowl of soup. It’s a foolish exchange, but we do it all the time. It’s our nature.

Sixteenth-century reformer John Calvin said we were, even from the moment we were born, “master craftsmen of idols.” He was right. We seek things to make us whole and then pursue them with a passion. Some people seek sex or food, others seek profits or possessions. Some people feed themselves with status and accolades, others with interests and knowledge. And while nothing is wrong with any of these things in themselves, we use them wrongly. We put them on the throne of our hearts, where God belongs. We fall in love with unlovely things. We exchange truth for a lie.

That’s a painful assessment, but it’s entirely biblical. The history of humanity, according to Scripture, is a fall followed by a desperate search for meaning. We crave fulfillment because our sin has left us unfulfilled. We thirst for self-esteem because the esteem of being God’s special child of creation, made in His image, was forsaken. We exchange the truth for a lie because we had a falling out with the truth, and lies are the only options left. Until we come face-to-face with the truth again—in the person of Jesus, who declared Himself to be the truth—we are getting the raw end of a bad, self-inflicted deal.

IN DEED Know your heart. Understand its tendencies. Learn to recognize when you are enthroning unworthy substitutes in place of your Lord. His rule is not as easy as theirs, but it is infinitely more worthwhile. So choose what’s worthwhile. Daily exchange your lies for the truth.

Man’s mind is like a store of idolatry and superstition.

—JOHN CALVIN