Quotes & Sayings About Your Idols

1 Peter 4 Living for God So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had, and be ready to suffer, too. For if you have suffered physically for Christ, you have finished with sin.* 2 You won't spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God. 3 You have had enough in the past of the evil things that godless people enjoy - their immorality and lust, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols. — Anonymous

You don't need to worship idols of the Virgin Mary, the Christ, or the Buddha. You can if you want to; if it feels good, do it. Your own body is a manifestation of God, — Miguel Ruiz

Dada is like your hopes: nothing like your paradise: nothing like your idols: nothing like your heroes: nothing like your artists: nothing like your religions: nothing — Francis Picabia

The Bible becomes a dead idol when we call the words between its covers inerrant, infallible, to be taken literally. This is not a dead book. It is alive. Open it carefully because the new truth that might come leaping out at you could change your life forever. — Mel White

It's cool to meet your idols. It's a good opportunity to travel. Those kinds of things are good. — Meg White

Go on your knees before God. Bring all your idols; bring self-will, and pride, and every evil lust before Him, and give them up. Devote yourself, heart and soul, to His will; and see if you do not know of the doctrine. — Henry Ward Beecher

What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give. — Timothy Keller

The test of having ceased to be an idolater is: "When you say 'I', does the body come into your thought or not? If it does, then you are still a worshipper of idols." — Swami Vivekananda

The more I think of it, the more our ideas, our idols and our so-called holy practices, and those of our visions which supposedly are ineffable, all seem to me to be engendered merely by the stirrings of the human machine, exactly as is the wind from our nostrils or from our netherparts, and as is our sweat and salty water from tears, or the white blood passed in love, or the muddy excrement of the body. It enraged me to think that man should so waste his own substance in construction of theories that were almost always pernicious, and should speak of chastity before having examined the whole machinery of sex; that he should debate the question of free will instead of pondering the thousand obscure reasons which, for example, cause you to blink if I suddenly point a stick at your eyes; or that he should talk of Hell before having looked more closely into the question of death. — Marguerite Yourcenar

Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally "bright", did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. — Ray Bradbury

And recite to them the news of Abraham
When he said to his father and his people: What do you worship?
They said, "We worship idols and remain to them devoted.
He said, "Do they hear you when you supplicate?
Or do they benefit you, or do they harm?
They said, "But we found our fathers doing thus.
He said, "Then do you see what you have been worshipping,
You and your ancient forefathers?
Indeed, they are enemies to me, except the Lord of the worlds,
Who created me, and He [it is who] guides me.
And it is He who feeds me and gives me drink.
And when I am ill, it is He who cures me
And who will cause me to die and then bring me to life
And who I aspire that He will forgive me my sin on the Day of Recompense.
(A Translation of Quran , 69-82) — Qur'an

If not to God, you will surrender to the opinions or expectations of others, to money, to resentment, to fear, or to your own pride, lusts, or ego. You were designed to worship God and if you fail to worship Him, you will create other things (idols) to give your life to. You are free to choose, what you surrender to but you are not free from the consequence of that choice. — Rick Warren

I'm your idol, the highest title, Numero Uno,
I'm not a Puerto Rican, but I'm speakin so that you know,
And understand, I got the gift of speech,
And it's a blessin, so listen to the lesson I preach ... — Special Ed

Consider, it is impossible that your idol sins and you can go to heaven together; and that those who will not part with these do not indeed love Christ at the bottom, but only in word and show, which will not do the business. — Samuel Rutherford

There was no point being a fan these days if you weren't willing to go the extra mile for your idols. It wasn't enough anymore to send them fan mail and kiss the posters above our beds. These days you weren't a true fan until you engaged in Twitter death threats and endless stan wars. The fandom landscape was peppered with land mines, and there was no other way to navigate it but to walk until you hit one. You come out the other side a little crazier, yeah, but you're also stronger. You are a true believer. You will do anything for the object of your affection. — Goldy Moldavsky

If you love anything better than God you are idolaters: if there is anything you would not give up for God it is your idol: if there is anything that you seek with greater fervor than you seek the glory of God, that is your idol, and conversion means a turning from every idol. — Charles Spurgeon

The superheroes you have in your mind (idols, icons, titans, billionaires, etc.) are nearly all walking flaws who've maximized 1 or 2 strengths. — Timothy Ferriss

Beware of your dreams. They can become misplaced lovers. They can become idols. — Phil Vischer

Sure, Messiah. You made yourself a cult," she mocks dryly. "They're building idols to you in the square. Kneeling in supplication of your wisdom. O mighty lord. I will laugh when they find out they don't like you and can have you flogged anytime they do a naughty. Now hold still, you Pixie. And stop talking. You annoy me. — Pierce Brown

If you wonder why you choose to worship other gods rather than wholeheartedly devote yourself to the Lord you love, examine the thought and desires that captivate your heart. That's where you'll fin the answer to every sin and failure in your life. Don't be deceived into thinking that you need to develop more willpower. We need to develop godly thoughts and desires. — Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

Your every breath of life is so precious, so don't waste any moment of life while sitting idol. — Wiz Khalifa

The confidence and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust be right, then is your god also true; and, on the other hand, if your trust be false and wrong, then you have not the true God; for these two belong together faith and God. That now, I say, upon which you set your heart and put your trust is properly your god. — Martin Luther

Little children, keep yourselves from idols." And let this be the test or criterion of what an idol is. Whatever worship or fellowship or companionship, whatever System or society, whatever work or way, whatever habit or pursuit or occupation, is of such a sort in itself, or has such influence over you, that you cannot be in it and at the same time be in God, or that you may be in it and yet not be in God, as little children in a loving Father; that to you is idolatry, be the object of your regard what it may. From all such idols keep yourselves. And that you may keep yourselves from them ail, abide evermore in the Son of God, your Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To be in him is your only security, to be always "found in him." For to be in him is to be in the Father, even as he is in the Father. And there can be no idolatry in that. AMEN. — Robert Smith Candlish

It's dangerous to meet your idols. You'll always be disappointed. — Karina Halle

The energy you'll expend focusing on someone else's life is better spent working on your own. Just be your own idol. — Sophia Amoruso

The wasteland that is your memory now comes under the absolute dictatorship of idols too terrible to mention. — Jack Henry Abbott

Be careful who you choose as your hero or who you choose to deify, be it Clay Aiken or Barack Obama. You put all you're hope and all your dreams and all your ideas about stuff into one human being. They're a human being they're going to let you down.
You can't make someone your hero because of something you read on the internet. The internet is not a source of information it is a source of disinformation. — Craig Ferguson

If you are preaching on the first commandment ("Thou shalt have no other gods before me") or Ephesians 5:5 (which calls greed idolatry) or any of the several hundred other places in the Bible that speak of idols, you could quote David Foster Wallace, the late postmodern novelist. In his Kenyon College commencement speech he argues eloquently and forcefully that "everyone worships. The only choice we get is what to worship."32 He goes on to say everyone has to "tap real meaning in life," and whatever you use to do that, whether it is money, beauty, power, intellect, or something else, it will drive your life because it is essentially a form of worship. He enumerates why each form of worship does not merely make you fragile and exhausted but can "eat you alive." If you lay out his argument in support of fundamental biblical teaching, even the most secular audience will get quiet and keep listening to what you say next. — Timothy J. Keller

I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God. I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. Keep yourselves from idols. Do not follow other gods to serve and worship them; do not provoke me to anger with what your hands have made. For I am a consuming fire, a jealous God. — Zhang Yun

Marriage includes a spouse, and often children. But the goal, center, and purpose of marriage is not self, spouse, or children. The ultimate goal of marriage and family is the glory of God. Only when marriage and family exist for God's glory - and not to serve as replacement idols - are we able to truly love and be loved. Remember, neither your child nor your husband (or wife) should be who you worship, but instead who you worship with. — Mark Driscoll

Have you heard God's blessing in your inmost being? Are the words, "You are my beloved child, in whom I delight" an endless source of joy and strength? Have you sensed, through the Holy Spirit, God speaking to you? That blessing- the blessing through the Spirit that is ours through Christ- is what Jacob received, and it is the only remedy against idolatry. Only that blessing makes idols unnecessary. As with Jacob, we usually discover this only after a life of "looking for blessings in all the wrong places." It often takes an experience of crippling weakness for us to finally discover it. That is why so many of the most God-blessed people limp as they dance for joy. — Timothy Keller

By God, when you see your beauty you will be the idol of yourself. — Rumi

The denigration of those we love always detaches us from them in some degree. Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers. — Gustave Flaubert

It's great to get to work with your idols. — Joel Kinnaman

Work until your idols become your rivals — G-Dragon

Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers.
(Il ne faut pas toucher aux idoles: la dorure en reste aux mains.) — Gustave Flaubert

I also found it hard to accept the Mizuko I'd known in multiple miniatures was one physical person. I suppose it would feel the same waking up in bed with Jesus or Father Christmas, or any long-dead figurehead of an ancient cult. You know every word of every doctrine off by heart and then you see their toenails, gums, and vertebrae, not in pieces but all held together, and it's hard not to lose your shit. — Olivia Sudjic

It's the irony or maybe the tragedy of being a fan that it's not enough to let the music enter you like a drug or define and shape the world for you. You also want to somehow touch it and have it affirm you in more direct ways, whether you're playing a riff like Chuck Berry or singing like Buddy Holly or buying Keith Richards's guitar - or actually meeting your idols. In — Marc Maron

21"Present your case," says the LORD. "Set forth your arguments," says Jacob's King. 22"Bring in [ your idols] to tell us what is going to happen. Tell us what the former things were, so that we may consider them and know their final outcome. Or declare to us the things to come, 23tell us what the future holds, so we may know that you are gods. Do something, whether good or bad, so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear. 24But you are less than nothing and your works are utterly worthless; he who chooses you is detestable. — Anonymous

You're killing yourself with cynicism. Your idols got taken away from you one by one and now you have nothing to give your love to. — Philip K. Dick

But I've learned that intelligence alone doesn't mean a damned thing. Here in your university, intelligence, education, knowledge, have all become great idols. But I know now there's one thing you've all overlooked: intelligent and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn ... Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love ... Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. — Daniel Keyes

1. Today's reading gives us surprising news: our longing for perfection is not a fault but something that God has planted in every one of us. Since this desire for perfection is strong, we may end up seeking to fill it through trying to improve ourselves in some way, either physically, intellectually, or through doing for others. When this happens, we unintentionally create idols in pursuit of these goals. What are some areas where we try to attain perfection in our lives? Could some of these areas become idols to us? 2. Psalm 37:4 tells us, "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart." What desires does your heart want that might bring you true perfection in Christ, rather than the false perfection you often seek in your life? 3. Looking back on your life, what events or occurrences do you see as evidence of God bringing you closer to Him, or perfecting you in your walk with Him? — Sarah Young

The loving and much loved wife is satisfied with the love of her husband; his smile is her joy, she cares little for any other. So, if you have come to Christ, thy Maker is thine husband - His free love to you is all you need, and all you can care for - there is no cloud between you and God - there is no veil between you and the Father; you have access to Him who is the fountain of happiness - what have you to do any more with idols? Oh! If your heart swims in the rays of God's love, like a little mote swimming in the sunbeam, you will have no room in your heart for idols. — Robert E. Murray

Before I met Maria, I was your basic craven hermit. I spent most of my time in my room, in love with my walls, hiding out from the world with my
fanzines and my records. I thought I was happier that way. I had developed these monastic habits to protect myself from something, probably, but
whatever it was, the monastic habits had turned into the bigger problem. In my headphones, I led a life of romance and incident and intrigue, none
of which had anything to do with the world outside my Walkman. I was an English major, obsessed with Oscar Wilde and Walter Pater and Algernon
Swinburne, thrilling to the exploits of my decadent aesthete poet idols, even though my only experience with decadence was reading about it. — Rob Sheffield

When I look at this world I feel a deep pain.
A burden in my soul.
This overwhelming sadness threatens to engulf me, to crush me with waves of despair.

Who can I trust but you?

Our Western civilization has fallen foul to false idols.
Community is replaced by screen's of various sizes.
Friendship is reduced to a virtual status.

Yet in You I find community.
In you I find friendship.
The wife you provided, the baby on the way.

The love of this world is enmity with you.
The world's love blows hot and cold.
A politics of hate, a muffled church, neighbourhoods of fear and pain -
Broken, All Broken!
But, Your light still shines.
Pockets of hope, sparkles in the night.
The Sunrise is coming! — David Holdsworth

Maybe you feel so consumed with the pull of your desire that you wonder if there is still hope for you. Perhaps you feel so beaten down by a certain trial in your life that you don't know if you will ever have the strength to get up again. Maybe you are so exhausted from your attempt to juggle all the different idols begging for your attention that you're on the verge of collapse. If you want to have genuine faith in a God who has the power to stand with you in the fire and bring you out unharmed, then I beg you to examine your faith, as Scripture tells us to do: Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. — Kasey Van Norman

To identify your own idols, ask questions like these: What things take the place of God in my life? Where do I find my significance and my confidence? What things make me really angry? Anger usually erupts when an idol gets knocked off the shelf. — Philip Graham Ryken

Money isn't an idol. It just shows you where your idols are. — Timothy Keller

Remove all the walls and curtains so you can get closer and purely love. Have principles but do not use them to exclude or to judge the others. Stay far from idols, specially from those you made from your own principles. Have a powerful faith, but do not play the powerful. — Shams Tabrizi

What you do with your life is ascribing more to what you invest your time in. If you spend a lot of time on your phone, you're ascribing more worship to that. Anything can become, by that definition, some form of idol or deity or ultimate worth in your life. — Jon Foreman

American Idols that come off the show and don't have a hit song - that makes it tough. If you come off the show and the song isn't big, and it takes a couple months to get your single out there - that time could be damaging. — Nick Fradiani

The more you make Jesus the treasure of your heart, the less room there will be in your life for idols. — Ken Sande

Anything you love more, fear more, serve more, or value more than God is your idol. — Adrian Rogers

The God of the Hebrews is a God that human language, we're not even supposed to speak the holy name. We were told in the Second Commandment we could make no images of this God, and I don't think that means just building idols, I think that means also trying to believe you've captured God in your words, in the Creeds, in the Scriptures. — John Shelby Spong

You only have one life. And you only have one life of worship. You have one brief opportunity in time to declare your allegiance, to unleash your affection, to exhault something or someone above all else. So don't waste your worship on some little god, squandering your birthright on idols made only with human imagination. Guard your worship. And carefully evaluate all potential takers. — Louie Giglio

I grew up trying to be like my idols, and one of the main people in my life was my father. He played football, and when your father is telling stories about the game he played ... Everybody wants to be like their father. — Cam Newton

Before none of your printed idols do I bend in acquiescence, and he who saith thou shalt to me is my mortal foe! — Anton Szandor LaVey

If you look at me as a role model, I agree with it. If you look at me as an idol, I don't because an idol for me is someone that you want to replicate. You want to be them and I don't wish that on anyone to lose what they have personally, because that's when your spark is lost. — Miley Cyrus

What you need to drive out an old passion, is a new passion, a greater passion. What you need is an over-mastering positive passion. [ ... ] Just as Rachel was Jacob's over-mastering passion, the passion of his life, Jesus is our "Rachel". To the degree, that you see Jesus on the cross, loosing absolutely everything for you, He will become a beauty to you, He will become so beautiful in your eyes that you'll be able to change these things that control
you now, they'll loose their power.
Do you know how to work on your heart like that? It's only by rejoicing in and resting in what Jesus Christ has done for you. Then you can replace your idols. And if you really want to change and want to pound the Gospel more deeply into your heart - Jesus Christ must become your over-mastering positive passion. — Timothy Keller

15 Then all the women present and all the men who knew that their wives had burned incense to idols - a great crowd of all the Judeans living in northern Egypt and southern Egypt* - answered Jeremiah, 16 "We will not listen to your messages from the LORD! 17 We will do whatever we want. We will burn incense and pour out liquid offerings to the Queen of Heaven just as much as we like - just as we, and our ancestors, and our kings and officials have always done in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For in those days we had plenty to eat, and we were well off and had no troubles! 18 But ever since we quit burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and stopped worshiping her with liquid offerings, we have been in great trouble and have been dying from war and famine. — Anonymous

Whatever you love more than God is your idol. — Dwight L. Moody

No one's body is polluted so as to endanger the soul if it has not pleased the mind. If you were to lift my hand to your idol and so make me offer against my will, I would still be guiltless in the sight of the true God, who judges according to the will and knows all things. If now, against my will, you cause me to be polluted, a twofold purity will be gloriously imputed to me. You cannot bend my will to your purpose; whatever you do to my body, that cannot happen to me. — Saint Lucy

Make no man your idol, for the best man must have faults; and his faults will insensibly become yours, in addition to your own. — Washington Allston

God is not present in idols. Your feelings are your god. The soul is your temple. — Chanakya

Turn to yourselves rather than to your Gods or to your idols. Find what hides in yourselves; bring it to the light; show yourselves! — Hakim Bey

When something becomes so important to you that it drives your behavior and commands your emotions, you are worshipping it. — J.D. Greear

It's so rare that you meet your idols and they outdo your expectations. — Drew Goddard