Fear, Love, and Trust

“What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols! Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise! Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it. But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”
Habakkuk 2:18–20
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Fear, Love, and Trust
Anything that we put our fear, love, and trust in can become our god. Our sinful nature is enticed away from the living God to things all around us and even things we shape with our own hands. The devil always deceives. He twists the truth so that we do not believe. His accomplices are the world and our own sinful nature. It really is true that we walk in danger all the way, as the old Lutheran hymn says. We have danger all around us and danger within us. So much so that we would be led to believe that something we make could be a god over us. The psalmist (Psalm 115) reminds us that these creations of human hands have mouths, but do not speak, eyes, but do not see, ears, but do not hear, feet, but do not walk, and hands, but do not feel…and those who make them become like them. There is one God and no other. He is not formed and shaped by human hands. He is no respecter of persons. He has dominion over everything because he made it. This God rescues and saves. He redeems and chooses to dwell with his people so that he can fight against our enemies with us and for us. He even became part of his own creation to accomplish the work: to break the devil, the world, and our sinful nature. It is done on the cross. Jesus buys you back and makes you new with his righteousness.