If you’ve ever visited London and used the Underground (the subway) to navigate the city, you’re familiar with the repeated admonishment to “Mind The Gap.” The gap referred to is the space between the train and the platform. Although to my American ears, the constant “Mind the Gap” warnings in a very pleasant British accent seemed rather nonthreatening, the danger was quite real. Published statistics for the period of 2013-2017 state that 141 people died due to train incidents in the Underground.
But there is another gap we must be aware of that can have even more disastrous consequences, and that is the gap created by the idols we have in our lives when we let anything else slip into a space between us and our relationship with our Holy God. Commandment number one leaves no room for misinterpretation: Exodus 20:3-5a: “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God.”
Why is God so adamant that we worship and serve Him alone?
He alone deserves our worship! He commands first place because of who He is–like no other: perfect, holy, eternal, infinite, unchanging, omnipotent, and sovereign.
God requires priority because our purpose–the purpose of all creation–is to declare His glory. We cannot rightly glorify Him if anything else has more of our devotion than He does.
He is entitled to precedence because of what He has done for us. Charles Spurgeon eloquently expresses this: “He cannot bear that you should choose another. Did he not buy you with his own blood? He cannot endure that you should think you are your own, or that you belong to this world. He loved you with such a love that he could not stop in heaven without you; he would sooner die than that you should perish; he stripped himself to nakedness that he might clothe you with beauty; he bowed his face to shame and spitting that he might lift you up to honor and glory, and he cannot endure that you should love the world, and the things of the world.”
God insists on preeminence in our lives because that is our only path to righteousness. Idols cause us to sin. Over and over (and over!) in the Old Testament we read warnings about foreign gods/idols and demands to purge them from the midst of God’s people. God knew these idols would be a distraction and cause Israel to abandon Him. Deuteronomy 31:16 “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them.’
In 1 Corinthians 10:14, Paul recounts multiple instances where Israel was indeed defeated and suffered terrible consequences due to their idolatry and warns us: “Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.”
We must “Mind the Gap.” But today most of us aren’t running around with golden calves or little Baal statues. So what creates a gap between us and God? It may be different for each of us. It is anything that dethrones God from first place in our lives. But it can also be more subtle, and be anything that even competes for our affection for God. Bible study teacher Jen Wilkin says: “…an idol fills a gap in our ability to trust God. Idolatry is a “both-and” arrangement: I need God and I need my idol. I need God and I need a husband. I need God and I need outward beauty. I need God and I need my health. I need God and I need my stuff. “
Don’t believe you have an idol?
Who or what do you think about more than God?
Who or what do you fear losing?
What do you spend the majority your time pursuing?
What would make you angry if you did not receive it?
What would you compromise for?
The answer to any of those questions can reveal an idol.
Joshua 24:23: “Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord, the God of Israel.”
Let’s Mind the Gap so that nothing else takes God’s rightful place!