People have an interesting tendency to adopt their surroundings. A native North Easterner who moves to the south will find themselves saying “ya’ll” and enjoying chicken fried steak if they stay there long enough. Like a sponge we absorb bits and pieces of language and culture until they become a part of who we are. This principle applies spiritually as well.
Jeremiah 2:5 asks, “What injustice have your fathers found in Me, that they have gone far from Me, have followed idols, and have become idolaters?” Interestingly, the word “idols” is not found in the original text. Literally translated the word is “worthless things.” So, Israel left Jehovah to follow worthless things and thus became worthless themselves. You are what you worship.
The Psalmist made the same observation when he said of idol worshippers, “Those who make them are like them; so is everyone who trusts in them” (Ps. 115:8). Hosea said of Israel, “They became an abomination like the thing they loved” (Hos. 10:9). Idols are empty, worthless, and powerless, and so are their devotees. Ancient paganism was a dead-end centered around the pursuit of carnal desire and irrational superstition. Worshippers found themselves intertwined with a prostitute in a drunken stupor, or muttering mindless incantations, or cutting themselves in some strange act of devotion to a piece of wood. There was no moral foundation or purpose of life to be found, only baseless insanity. No wonder God would describe idolaters as worthless.
Have things changed much in our 21st century world? Consider the difference between a passage like Ephesians 5:1 which commands God’s children to imitate His qualities, and 1 Timothy 6:10 which describes those who have pursued materialism to the point of straying from the faith and piercing themselves with sorrow. Those who worship God devote themselves to Him and thus seek to become like Him. Those who see a Christian see Christ in him. But those who worship money, or pleasure, or themselves, or anything else devote themselves to them. They find themselves overcome by greed, or addicted to the flesh, or blind to everyone and everything except themselves. You become what you worship.