Do you follow your god or the God?

The best thing a person can do when studying God is to step outside of oneself, to think outside of ones mind and to not interpret God through their own experiences or opinions. The biggest vice to the work of the Lord is our human emotions, for they blind us to the truth and convince us of what is incorrect. We must remember that God is an objective being. God does not alter in accordance with our mind set. People today interpret God in a subjective way. They allow their own experience of life to determine who God is. The more advance in life the person becomes the more experiences they encounter that further alter their perception of God, until there comes a point when their God is exactly that; he is their God, a figment of the imagination, something which they have sub-consciously created. They may have good-intentions and be wholly unaware of what they have done, but the god which they follow has in fact become themselves. They have begun to worship the creature rather than the creator. They have allowed the sinful experience of their own life to exchange the truth of God with a lie. They have become guilty of breaking the first commandment: they are idolators.

People try to fathom the perfection of God through a sinful mind, based upon the limited knowledge they have gathered via their experience of a sinful world. It is an impossible task. For this reason we must not consider God from our own point of view. There may be times when we can recognise that the truth of God differs to what we believe should be the truth, and we should try to discover why this is, but we should never allow those opinions to shape who we believe God is. Doing so brings the inevitable consequence of idolatry.

If God is 'a' and I wish Him to be 'b', it does not matter how hard I try to convince myself that God is 'b', or how much evidence I try to find and piece together to justify my opinion. It will not change the fact that God is and always will be 'a'.

I may not like 'a'. 'A' may not be beneficial to me. 'A' may not condone what I wish to do, but it does not change the fact that that is how 'a' is. Replacing 'a' with 'b' (in other words interpreting God in a way that you prefer, or a way that allows you to justify your actions, or a way that allows you to make sense of a particular situation) is the equivalent of running away. You are like Jonah who did not like what God had told Him to do. Instead of trusting in God and looking at God from an objective point of view, Jonah considered God from his own sinful point of view, based upon his own view of a sinful situation. In his mind the folk of Ninevah could not possibly be saved, in fact, in Jonah's mind they did not deserve to be saved, therefore Jonah substituted Gods 'a' for his own 'b'. But no matter how hard he tried to run away from the truth of God, or even put up arguments to convince himself that he was right, it did not change what God wanted him to do. God still remained 'a'.

Sometimes we may not like who God is. Sometimes His ways may seem unfair or unloving or too hard or even prejudice to us, but that does not change the fact that God is God. Just because we may not like a certain aspect of God does not mean we can ignore it. If we do then we are once again exchanging the truth of God for a lie and worshipping the creature rather than the Creator.

The effect of perceiving God how we want to is that our whole faith becomes based upon a lie. And if the basis for our faith is non-existent then our faith itself is non-existent. The bible states that those who belong to God will not fall away. Today we hear of so many people who have fallen away or struggle in their faith. This is not because they have become despondent with God or are unsatisfied in their faith, for anybody who truly has faith knows that such is an impossibility. It is because these people have no real faith in God in the first place. They may have faith, in fact it may be strong sturdy faith, more faith than many of their Christian counterparts, but it is faith in their god, not the God. Of course such a faith will dwindle and die, for it is based upon a lie. You do not need a lot of faith to stay strong in your faith. Matthew tells us that faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains. Remaining strong in your faith has nothing to do with how sturdy or large it is, it is to do with what you put your faith in. All the faith in the world placed upon a lie will fail, but faith even as small as a mustard seed placed in the true objective Lord who is the same yesterday, today and forever, will last forever.

-BACChristian