When I was younger, if my brother and I watched a superhero movie, you could almost guarantee that afterwards we’d be wrestling around outside on the trampoline afterwards. Why were we doing this? Because we had just watched heroes do these different moves and now, we wanted to be like our heroes. The idea behind this all is, we end up trying to be like the people we admire.

Imitating what you admire isn’t always painful. Sometimes it is a good thing. Maybe you know a more delicious version of this. For instance, I had a phase in my life where I made soup and buns on Sunday afternoons because people I admired did this.

Whatever the case is, both speak of something central that is hardwired into humanity: we imitate what we love. Or in religious terms: we become what we worship.

This is especially important when we get to our understanding of who God is:

• If your version of God is all judgement, then you’ll mirror that in how you act towards others.
• If your version of God is all love and light on truth, then odds are you will become light on truth.
• If you see God only as a mighty warrior, then you may try rule with an iron fist.
• If you see God as the giver of grace, then your graciousness will expand day by day.

Notice, our view of God is important in how we behave. This can be good or bad, to our ruin or our restoration. And the thing is, our view of God can easily be distorted. Often we start worshiping other things instead of God without even realizing it. We distort our picture of God to suit our needs. And then we start looking like that. There is a special word in the Old Testament that talks about the things that we worship that are not God. It calls it idolatry. Idolatry is when we find our hearts longing for the wrong things. Idolatry is a word that is all about desire, what do we truly love? Who do we trust?

To start Lent, we are going to look at the different forms of idolatry in our day and how we are called to rid ourselves of these things. Rather than giving up something like coffee (you can do that too), we are going to look inward and see if there are any idolatrous ideas or practices that have developed in our lives. The goal is that as we look towards Easter, we can lay these things before the cross and grow in greater imitation of God as he reveals himself to us. After all: we become like what we worship.