The idols that populate the universe of deception are many and often are not concealed. They are with us in plain sight. They’re all part of creation.

Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. 1 Corinthians 10:14

To avoid idolatry might seem easy since opposite creation stands the Creator. For many people, buildings, purchases, things we have lost, things we want, church membership, and even people are more attractive than Christ. The risk is huge.

As soon as the conversation turns from God’s Son we know the truth is no longer central. Idolatry looms in opting for Moses, looms in the choice of Saul, looms in the choice of Judah over Israel, looms in the choice of Jerusalem over Samaria, and inthe choice of Barabbas over Messiah. That is why we should run if the conversation turns from the man Messiah Yeshua

You may not have submitted your spiritual life to God’s way.  Just so we are not punching the air, we must say that God’s way is not the Law, nor is His way whatever readers choose.  The law and the prophets had their day: the law’s accomplishments are condemnation and terror while the prophets were broken vessels who did not know what we now know about what they wrote. The promise of Abraham’s inheritance of the future world did not come, will not be realized, through compliance of law, nor through fabulous inventions based on the law and prophets.  It does not take a lot of reading into the gospels to realize that the proponents of the law were hostile to the truth, loved a doublestandard, and wanted everyone who was naive, sufficiently coward or uninformed to join them in cherishing the hole their head.

For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. Rom 4:13

For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null auninfirmed or corward, nd the promise is void. Rom 4:14

Using the law to terrorize people was still happening in Paul’s days. We saw that graphically in the instances of mob justice in the gospels (Mt. 14:5, John 7:1, Luke 4:29, and John 8)

For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. Rom 4:15

No law, no transgression does not allow us to conclude that there was no sin where there is no law. There is no law that says, “eat whatever you wish except one tree”. There was no law in eternity past that said “you die if you disobey me”, nor one before the garden of Eden that said “you shall not covet”. Paul assures us that “… sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law” (Rom 5:13), and that “Now the law came in to increase the trespass…”(Rom 5:20)

That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, Rom 4:16

My righteousness is like Abraham’s: nothing to do with performance.

fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. (Rom 4:21), That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” (Rom 4:22) But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, (Rom 4:23) but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, (Rom 4:24)

Is yours? Or are you loving that hole the law has drilled into your head?

…evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. (2 Tim. 3:13)

I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” John 8:24

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, John 8:31