Introduction
“When we talk about an idol, we generally think of a sculpture that people bow down before. But that is not all an idol is.” At the Teach & Pray on Friday, September 26, 2026, at Impact Centre Chrétien Montréal, Joao Ahlin focused on what we let into our hearts along the way.
In this season, he explains, the Lord is speaking to the Church about love: love for him, attachment to him, the need to have our hearts completely turned toward him. In the previous weeks, much was said about the ego, that thing inside us that turns us away from God's love. Yet the ego we try to satisfy ends up serving idols in its turn.
Starting from Ezekiel 14, the preacher helps you recognize these idols, often nurtured without even knowing it, identify where they come from, and present them to God so that he can take the first place again.
Outline of the Message
1. The Ego at the Service of Idols
- The Lord leads the Church day after day and, in this season, he is speaking to her about love for him and a heart entirely turned toward him.
- The ego turns us away from God's love. But in truth, the ego we try to satisfy in turn satisfies “idols that we have let into our hearts all along the way.”
- An idol is not only a statue. It is “anything or any circumstance” that can take the place of God: whatever demands devotion, whatever we lean on, anything that can substitute for God.
2. Ezekiel 14: Idols in the Heart
- Some men come to consult the prophet Ezekiel to hear a word from God. Before Ezekiel speaks to them, God speaks to him first.
- In the version he reads, the Lord says: “These men carry their false gods, their idols, in their hearts. They constantly desire what makes them fall into sin. Am I going to let them inquire of me?”
- What strikes the preacher: these people keep many idols in their hearts while seeking answers from the Lord. God says he will deal with them exactly according to what is in their hearts.
- Often, we keep idols alive every day without knowing that we do. God's desire is that we separate ourselves from everything that wages war against him “on the throne of our hearts.”
3. What Is an Idol, Concretely?
- They are all those things that seek to take God's place in our hearts and to take our time.
- They are the things that want to have the last word, when God is supposed to have the last word, that want to glorify themselves and control our lives.
- They are the things with which we have an emotional, “fusional” relationship that goes beyond the relationship we have with God.
- Sometimes the idol is ourselves: our self-centeredness, our need to possess everything for ourselves.
4. A Few Questions to Identify Your Idols
- What do you start your day with? When you wake up, is your reflex to turn to God to give him thanks, or to reach for your phone to check waiting messages? “These are simple things,” but they show whether God has the first place.
- What do most of your thoughts go to? If your whole day revolves around your concerns, your challenges, what you have not yet received from the Lord, the circumstances of your life have become idols.
- What feeds your decisions? Are you leaning on the Lord, or is it a fear, an anxiety or the opinion of other people that pushes you to decide?
- Pleasing God or pleasing people? Some prefer to obey their friends rather than God to avoid difficulties. In some couples, the spouse's decision takes precedence over God's decision.
- Are you able to hide your faith to be accepted in certain places, to avoid upsetting certain people, or to keep your status and certain advantages?
- Is your time taken up by God and his projects, or entirely directed toward you and your ambitions, “for ourselves, by ourselves, never consulting the Lord”? When the answer is not God, there are idols in the heart.
- Jesus says it in Matthew 6:24: no one can serve two masters. Very often, we despise God “in the small details,” when we let another will than his go through.
- A person, a parent, a friend, a job, a worry, a wound that is hard to let go of: these are idols as soon as they come to condition our obedience to God.
5. Three Sources of Idols
- Inherited idols. In 2 Kings 21:20-21, a king does what is evil in the eyes of the Lord like Manasseh, his father, and serves the idols his father had served. Many idols have grafted themselves into us unconsciously, through the environments we grew up in, through childhood relationships, sometimes even through churches, or through what our parents carried and passed on to us.
- Idols born of our inclinations. Inclinations are the things we love and cherish. Colossians 3:5 calls us to put to death sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and covetousness, which is idolatry. Everything we cherish in opposition to God's will, and from which we struggle to part, is an idol before the Lord.
- Idols born of our fears. The fear of losing develops mechanisms in us. We trigger them whenever circumstances ask us to lose in order to gain for God. Because we do not want to lose either our status or our health, these mechanisms take us away from God.
6. When Fear Sets a Limit on Obedience
- The preacher mentions a person he knew, fervent, attached to God, serious, but so attached to her status that she had sworn never to know shame.
- Because of this fear, she found herself disobeying God and taking actions she would never have wanted to take. Her reasoning amounted to saying: “Lord, I am ready to do anything to obey you, but if I have to know shame, then I prefer not to obey you.”
- Others say: “I want to obey God, but up to a certain limit.” Each time, behind it, there is the fear of sacrificing something or of being seen differently than we would like.
- If we love God only until the day money runs short, what would happen the day our lives were threatened?
7. Giving God an Undivided Heart
- Not all idols could be named. The preacher invites each person to a personal exercise: look at the state of your heart and name what disputes God's claim on your time and wages war against his will.
- He leads the congregation to present them to God: “I refuse to carry in my heart any rival to you.” Money, status, position, fame, pride and excessive vanity that wage war against humility: “Lord, we do not have the list, but you know them.”
- God said: “Walk before me, and be blameless” and “You shall have no other gods before me.”
- Like the father of the child who said “help my unbelief,” the Church asks God to come to the aid of her limits and prays that the Holy Spirit would consume “what you have not planted.”
- The prayer that concludes the teaching: “I want to choose you above everything.” Whether in the face of failures, divorce, job losses or circumstances, may our hearts stay turned toward God, “wholly yours.”
Key Takeaways
- An idol is not only a statue: it is everything that takes God's place, your time, your support or the last word in your decisions.
- You can seek answers from God while keeping idols in your heart. Ezekiel 14 shows that God looks at the heart first.
- Simple habits reveal who has the first place: your first reflex when you wake up, your thoughts during the day, what guides your decisions.
- Idols come from three sources: what you have inherited, what you cherish and what you fear losing.
- Fear often sets a limit on obedience. God desires a heart that is wholly his, with no other option than him.
Personal Application
- Tomorrow morning, what will be your first reflex when you wake up: turning to God or to your phone?
- What worry, what person or what wound takes up more room than God in your thoughts today?
- In what recent decision did you follow the opinion of others, or the voice of someone close to you, rather than the will of God?
- What way of doing things did you inherit from your childhood or your surroundings that opposes God's will?
- What fear makes you say, even without putting it into words: “Lord, I obey you, but up to a certain limit”?
Verses Cited
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an idol of the heart according to Joao Ahlin?
It is not only a statue that people bow down to. An idol is anything or any circumstance that takes the place of God: whatever demands our devotion, our time, whatever we lean on, whatever wants to have the last word when God is supposed to have it. It can even be ourselves, our self-centeredness.
How can I know if I have idols in my heart?
The preacher offers a few simple questions: when I wake up, what do I turn to, God or my phone? What occupies my thoughts all day long? What drives my decisions, the Lord or fear and the opinion of others? Am I able to hide my faith or disobey God so as not to upset someone? When the answer is not God, an idol has taken his place.
Where do the idols of the heart come from?
Joao Ahlin distinguishes three sources: idols inherited from our family or environment, like the king in 2 Kings 21 who served the idols of his father; our inclinations, what we cherish and what Colossians 3:5 calls us to put to death; and our fears, especially the fear of losing our status, our health or our reputation.
Never miss a sermon from Impact Centre Chrétien Montréal
A clear summary of every new message, delivered to you.
to take notes and ask questions.