I'm an idolater.

The more they were called,

the more they went away;

they kept sacrificing to the Baals

and burning offerings to idols.

Hosea 11:2

God was always faithful in His covenant love with Israel. It was the people who turned from His steadfast love. God never turns away His love from His people. But His people are stubborn in their sin. They worship idols rather than the God Who loves them and keeps calling them so that they might repent, turn back to Him, and know His love as they believe.

There is only one other option when a soul rejects God... and it is idolatry. We were created to worship something. It is what our souls naturally do. And if we reject God, we will seek something to fill the void. Our souls fixate on something or someone to fill the God gap. Even atheists "worship" something. By that I mean they commit to some ideal, some self-direction, some teaching from humanistic sources to direct them to what they deem as "right" living. That is the soul, admitting its own insufficiencies, and attempting to worship. It is no differenct than Israel sacrificing to pagan Baal and burning an offering to an idol.

But let's not pick on atheists and make them the bad guys. They are people like me. No different, really. Besides, we Christians (based on my experience) can be pretty respectable idolaters ourselves. We find a way to do it undercover as a second life for the most part. I've fallen to the temptation over the years to worship my works, my marriage, my family, my ministry and a host of worldly "isms" like materialism, selfism, egotism, and Americanism in my life as a Christian. How luring is the song of an idol of our age to make me blindly crash on the rocks of God-abandonment and false worship! And idols can temporarily drown out the call of the Spirit of God to repent and live under the gospel's obedience. That's why I need Jesus. That's why I must REPENT and BELIEVE in His work for me, because I am an idolater otherwise.