Whom Do We Worship?

What comes to mind when we think of God?

Worship is only Theo-centric or ego-centric depending on our view/thoughts of God

The greatest fact that we need to face is what we think God to be like deep in our hearts

We will only and always move in the direction of our mental image of God

A right conception of God is basic to sound theology but also to practical living The religion section of the Dallas Morning News contained an article entitled, “Letting God Grow Up.” [1] Rabbi Jack Bemporad, a leader in Jewish-Christian circles, had co-authored a new book Stupid Ways, Smart Ways to Think about God. Bemporad seems to be saying that we must forsake what we have learned about God as children and think of God in more adult terms. While we can agree with some of the author’s ideas, overall, we must reject them. For example: To a large extent, atheists seldom reject a credible God but usually reject some stupid way of thinking about God, the authors say, calling some ideas about God so ridiculous they are not worth believing. There are some “childish” ideas about God that are wrong and should be rejected. Like the idea that God is a “cosmic bellhop…ready to serve you.” However, another idea that needs, he says, to be rejected is the idea that includes the concept of God’s wrath as a childish idea. Basically he is saying: “Men believe in the kind of God they wish to believe in and reject the kind of God they dislike.” Bemporad places little emphasis on the description of God that is given in the Bible. He seems to believe that we need to adjust our theology to our desires, rather than recognizing that we must adjust our theology to who God really is. If we don’t we then become idolaters! The end product of devising a God of our own imagination is very serious. When we devise a God of our own thinking, liking, desires, or understanding we create a false God, an idol, and we become idolaters. The truth of the matter is this; that many so called evangelical believers are idolaters. They have invented a God of their own imagination and they worship that God, not the God of the bible. We have a tendency to think of God as someone that we can relate to on our level or that we can love since we think of Him as being more like us. In reality due to our sin nature we want a God much like ourselves. We even have a tendency to create or desire a God that we can control. Anything less than the God of the Bible is an idol, for whatever we can imagine about God is less than God really is. Many professing Christians have a non-biblical, nonsensical, and shallow view of God. We desperately need to radically revise our thinking about God. So, the purpose of the next several lessons (Sunday Posts) is to explore the excellencies of our great God. The purpose is to realign our thinking about God considering what godly men have written. It is to realign our thinking with what is revealed in the Bible about the God of the Bible. Stay tuned!

[1] “Letting God Grow Up,” by George W. Cornell, The Dallas Morning News, Saturday, March 5, 1994, p. 44a