Out of all of the Ten Commandments, which is the easiest one to break? Maybe lying (#8),lusting (#9), or coveting (#10), you might say. After thinking about it for a while, I think it just might be the first commandment. God doesn't want us to worship any other gods besides Him. This is of course a prohibition against some beliefs like the polytheism of the Hindus, but I think it applies to a much more secular view than some might realize. Sure we may not be offering sacrifices to foreign deities anymore, but when do things in our modern day become obstacles to living as Christians?
How do we know if we've made something an idol? Two questions need to be asked. Number one, what is our highest priority? When we by place too much of a priority on something, then that thing might be our number 1 priority. If our number priority is not God, then that priority has replaced God and become an idol. The second question is similar to the first. What do we sacrifice the most for? We all sacrifice things in order to achieve our goals, but if the sacrifices we make to achieve those goals are larger than the ones we make to maintain a positive relationship with God, we're in trouble. This means that from this perspective, atheists technically have a god as well. The god for the atheist could be a number of things from wealth to pleasure to fame; but the point remains.
Without the God who is love as our number 1 priority, our idols will always fail to satisfy us.
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