WHO HE REALLY IS
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. ~Anne Lamott
Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” The fruit of the Spirit, is the by product of the Holy Spirit (God), in us. Christ in our hearts will produce this... love, joy, and peace etc. Now, the reason the Spirit will produce those things in our lives is, because, this is the character and nature of God. God is love, joy, peace etc. When we have Him in our lives, we will begin to manifest these things. The problem comes when we believe that God is the exact opposite of these things. Religion causes us to believe, that God, is angry, and has no personality, and wants to execute His wrath upon mankind. Religion causes us to believe in a god that has no patience with us, what so ever, and he is not gentle, but is a hard taskmaster. This paradigm of god creates a deity who is not good at all, and will turn on his people at the drop of a hat. This god is driven by impulse and seems like he is unable to control himself. Now, if we believe God is like this, it is no wonder that we behave just like the God we believe in.
I was looking for some good inspiration for a message so I decided to post a question on My Space. The question I posted was, “if you could describe God with one word what would that one word be?” To my surprise I got over 50 responses that revealed that God had a severely bad reputation. Here is a short list of some the comments. God is tough, vengeful, angry, selfish, ignorant, irrelevant, indifferent, incompetent, imperfect, elusive, and chaotic. This list doesn't sound much like the, “fruit of the Spirit.” After a list like that, it is no wonder the world doesn't care for God. This sounds like the character sketch of the Devil. If this is an accurate description of God, I wouldn't want anything to do with Him either. Yet this is the God religion is giving.
It seems what the world needs today is an accurate, detailed description of who God is. The world and the church have accepted lies about who God really is. Our false images of God usually come from one of these three things: misunderstanding the Old Testament, hearing angry legalistic preachers, and experiencing terrible circumstances. When we have all three of these influences in our lives, we have a greater possibly of creating a false image of God.
In Exodus chapter 23, the Bible gives an account of people creating an image to worship. It seems kind of ignorant and barbaric to create a calf out of gold and fall down and worship it. Yet, we have created a modern day image of God that is far worse then a gold calf. Our image is created by our fears, disappointment, misunderstanding, and pain with just a dash of religiosity. Unfortunately, images like that are tough to break. This is how we have come to believe in a God, who is opposite from the fruit of the Spirit. Someone famous once said “that God created man in His image, and then man returned the favor.” Often we create a God that is just like us. If that is the case, then no wonder God seems tough, vengeful, angry, selfish, ignorant, irrelevant, indifferent, incompetent, imperfect, elusive, and chaotic.
The Bible reveals God as being flexible, forgiving, patient, loving, filled with wisdom, relevant, enthusiastic, competent, perfect, relational, and peaceful. Yet, this is not the God, the world or church for that matter, is experiencing. Now it seems that God is not very popular among the world, He’s definitely not someone you want to invite over for dinner. Within the heart of man is a hatred for God and maybe rightly so; I also hate the god they describe. There’s a good place for a god like that, it’s called Hell.
It is very possible that there has been an impostor masquerading as God. He is impatient, he’s proud, he demands his own way and keeps records of every wrong. I believe many Christian’s would be surprised to find out they have been serving Satan all long. He is critical, fault finding, and demands perfection. He loves to see people struggle to please him. He is a manipulator that does everything for his own benefit. He is quick to judge and abandon, and forsake you if you don’t measure up.
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. ~Anne Lamott
Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” The fruit of the Spirit, is the by product of the Holy Spirit (God), in us. Christ in our hearts will produce this... love, joy, and peace etc. Now, the reason the Spirit will produce those things in our lives is, because, this is the character and nature of God. God is love, joy, peace etc. When we have Him in our lives, we will begin to manifest these things. The problem comes when we believe that God is the exact opposite of these things. Religion causes us to believe, that God, is angry, and has no personality, and wants to execute His wrath upon mankind. Religion causes us to believe in a god that has no patience with us, what so ever, and he is not gentle, but is a hard taskmaster. This paradigm of god creates a deity who is not good at all, and will turn on his people at the drop of a hat. This god is driven by impulse and seems like he is unable to control himself. Now, if we believe God is like this, it is no wonder that we behave just like the God we believe in.
I was looking for some good inspiration for a message so I decided to post a question on My Space. The question I posted was, “if you could describe God with one word what would that one word be?” To my surprise I got over 50 responses that revealed that God had a severely bad reputation. Here is a short list of some the comments. God is tough, vengeful, angry, selfish, ignorant, irrelevant, indifferent, incompetent, imperfect, elusive, and chaotic. This list doesn't sound much like the, “fruit of the Spirit.” After a list like that, it is no wonder the world doesn't care for God. This sounds like the character sketch of the Devil. If this is an accurate description of God, I wouldn't want anything to do with Him either. Yet this is the God religion is giving.
It seems what the world needs today is an accurate, detailed description of who God is. The world and the church have accepted lies about who God really is. Our false images of God usually come from one of these three things: misunderstanding the Old Testament, hearing angry legalistic preachers, and experiencing terrible circumstances. When we have all three of these influences in our lives, we have a greater possibly of creating a false image of God.
In Exodus chapter 23, the Bible gives an account of people creating an image to worship. It seems kind of ignorant and barbaric to create a calf out of gold and fall down and worship it. Yet, we have created a modern day image of God that is far worse then a gold calf. Our image is created by our fears, disappointment, misunderstanding, and pain with just a dash of religiosity. Unfortunately, images like that are tough to break. This is how we have come to believe in a God, who is opposite from the fruit of the Spirit. Someone famous once said “that God created man in His image, and then man returned the favor.” Often we create a God that is just like us. If that is the case, then no wonder God seems tough, vengeful, angry, selfish, ignorant, irrelevant, indifferent, incompetent, imperfect, elusive, and chaotic.
The Bible reveals God as being flexible, forgiving, patient, loving, filled with wisdom, relevant, enthusiastic, competent, perfect, relational, and peaceful. Yet, this is not the God, the world or church for that matter, is experiencing. Now it seems that God is not very popular among the world, He’s definitely not someone you want to invite over for dinner. Within the heart of man is a hatred for God and maybe rightly so; I also hate the god they describe. There’s a good place for a god like that, it’s called Hell.
It is very possible that there has been an impostor masquerading as God. He is impatient, he’s proud, he demands his own way and keeps records of every wrong. I believe many Christian’s would be surprised to find out they have been serving Satan all long. He is critical, fault finding, and demands perfection. He loves to see people struggle to please him. He is a manipulator that does everything for his own benefit. He is quick to judge and abandon, and forsake you if you don’t measure up.