No one likes failing. It’s embarrassing, frustrating, and often makes us feel like we’ve wasted whatever time we’ve invested. All of that is much worse, however, when it’s someone else’s fault that we failed. Whether it’s in business, competitive sports, or in our own lives, it’s so often someone else’s fault that things don’t go how we want them to. Yet when we blame others, we often do it as a human sacrifice to appease a false god.
Our false god
It’s tempting to look at certain areas of the Bible and shake our heads at those foolish, misguided people. One thing we see so often, that seems radically out of place today, is idolatry. The idea that placing food before a piece of carved wood could grant favor with a god you just heard about 2 weeks ago is ludicrous. Even God points out how illogical the whole concept is.
What profit is the idol when its maker has carved it,
Or an image, a teacher of falsehood?
For its maker trusts in his own handiwork
When he fashions speechless idols.
“Woe to him who says to a piece of wood, ‘Awake!’
To a mute stone, ‘Arise!’
And that is your teacher?
Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,
And there is no breath at all inside it.
“But the Lord is in His holy temple.
Let all the earth be silent before Him. (Habakkuk 2:18-20)
And yet, we aren’t as far from those ancient people as we may think. When God gives commands against idols, it’s not because He’s angry at their actions, but because of their hearts. After all, what is the purpose of praying to idols and worshipping false gods?
- Desire for power
- Hope of deliverance
- Requests for basic needs
- Gaining favor for things like safety and good harvests
- Vengeance against an enemy
The specifics could go on, but every motivation for worshiping a false god comes down to one basic idea: wanting our desires to be fulfilled. Idol-worship is rooted in self-love and fueled by our endless hunger to find happiness.
As time has gone on, idol worship has given way to reason, yet our greedy hearts remain unchanged. So instead of asking idols to fight for our desires, we do it ourselves. Idolatry is little more than relying on something other than God for satisfaction and salvation. Even worshipping ancient deities like Ba’al was really about people worshipping themselves, trusting in their own wants and desires to bring them happiness.
And this is where blaming others for our failures begins. We think we deserve to get that promotion, win that game, or to live the life we’ve always dreamed of. We want to be happy, we’re told we deserve to be happy, therefore we should get what we want.
With that prideful, self-serving mentality, it becomes unthinkable that we can’t get what we deserve. Yet when it happens, there must be some explanation. We must find some way to cope with the reality that we deserved something and didn’t get it. We’re too proud to see our failures, so there must be some external reason we’re unhappy, right?
The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverted mouth, I hate. (Proverbs 8:13)
Human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is horrific in any circumstance. To bind and slaughter another human being, all because someone is so fixated on gaining something from a false god, should turn our stomachs. We all know that a human life is far more valuable than any person’s personal greed.
Yet when we make ourselves our own god, when we put our happiness and desires above all else, our hearts depart very little from those who would kill another human being to satisfy their lusts. We may not kill them physically, but we’re willing to strip them of their value in order to prevent ourselves from admitting that our false god can’t bring us happiness like we think they can. We are willing to serve our god at any cost, even at the expense of tearing down someone who was made in God’s image.
What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:1-4)
The church in James was having issues. They were all so fixated on the world that there was little to distinguish them from those whose sins hadn’t been paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ. All throughout this letter, James addresses the many, many problems they were having. And at the root of everything, their greatest issue is that they cared far more about what the world offered than what Christ gives. They were comparing themselves to others, focusing on their sinful wants instead of their spiritual needs. And in the end, they were ripping each other apart, perhaps even literally attacking and killing one another, because their pride and greed ruled them much more than the Holy Spirit dwelling within.
A better focus
Our love can only go one direction at a time. If our love is focused inward, then we’re willing to sacrifice others to make ourselves feel better. Like a bully who hurts others to make themselves feel good, focusing on ourselves means that we must make the necessary sacrifices to please our god. There’s no escaping just how destructive our pride truly is.
Yet when our love is focused on Jesus Christ, then we will similarly sacrifice what’s necessary to love and pursue Him. Yet Jesus Christ is so unlike us in that He will never require us to sacrifice others to find satisfaction. In fact, there’s only one person we must sacrifice to see our desire to serve Him: us.
that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. (Ephesians 4:22-24)
When we view winning as a source of happiness, we will sacrifice others to explain how we could possibly have failed. When we think we deserve a certain life, we will sacrifice our spouse to explain why we don’t have what we deserve. There’s no end to how far our pride will distort our minds, and there’s no end to the number of people we’ll sacrifice to hide from the reality that our powerless god fails to satisfy us.
Yet when Jesus Christ is our ultimate satisfaction, “failure” transforms. Job promotions may fail, but we can reflect on why we didn’t get it and trust that, if it wasn’t a result of something like laziness, we can simply trust God to continue providing. If we don’t win a basketball game, we are unphased because our primary focus is to bring Him glory rather than finding our worth in victory.
We are terrible gods. We are incapable, ignorant, small-minded, petty, and will constantly fail to fulfill our desires. Yet the true God will always fill our desires because to pursue Him is to sacrifice our sinful wants to bring Him, and only Him, glory. Our lives stop being about us and become purely focused on Him. When we sacrifice ourselves, we will find a God whose desire is for us to love others for His glory, rather than tearing them down for our own.
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. (Galatians 2:20)
Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. (Philippians 3:17-21)
