CWW Week 20 – Day 4 – Blending God To Suit Us 

Scripture.

Isaiah 40:18 [NKJV]

“To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to Him?”

Devotional.

There is a blended theology that is expanding in the world. It’s a mix of the new age and other spiritualism that seeks to create a notion of God that is meant to make us all feel comfortable. This is a one size fits all kind of God in this approach

It’s a kind of theology that enables people to create the representation of God that suits where they’re at. It saves them from having to adapt to God but rather seeks to adapt Him to them. It purports to announce a new age of reason. An age steeped in astrology and a new global consciousness.

Not wanting to accept God as God, it skirts around faith while seeking to entangle itself around the edges. People seeking the answers of life put together a show bag of ideologies that has a bit of everything in it.

It eventually, in it’s refusal to accept the one true God, leads to confusion that is often explained away with sayings like, “I believe that God is in all of us, or We are all gods.” People like Canadian Psychologist Jordan Peterson, a man I much admire, when asked about faith stops short of commitment on the issue by saying “I live my life as though God exists.”

The Bible tells us that the apostle Paul warned Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:5 of such things when he wrote, “having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.” Paul warned Timothy.

Faith that is true requires a commitment to God. It cannot be watered down because God Himself will not be watered down.

It’s not hard to see how all of this has come about. The practice of faith in God has been manipulated through ritual and the business of religion. Corporate religion has been around since the Emperor Constantine back in 320AD when he tried to set up a church that blended paganism with Christianity and religion became the business of God conducted by men. The Catholic Church.

This manipulation and blending of different theologies with ancient Greek philosophy and paganism has painted confusing images of God that have persisted to this very day.

Is it any wonder that people are confused and don’t know which way to turn.

Wandering in and out of atheism and into agnosticism and new age theories in my own search for meaning was directed by a strong desire to stay away from religion. In my search for some form of consciousness I walked past a thousand churches looking the other way. None of it seemed to last long in me because it lacked substance and seemed too multi-directional. Hopelessness crept in to the point of not wanting to live anymore. There was a gaping hole in my soul that I tried to fill with everything and it never sustained me.

I realise now, that hole was God shaped and it was waiting to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The Remedy was on almost every street corner in the form of church, but I kept looking the other way because I put no stock in religion.

In an attempt to live as though there must be a god but continuing to ignore the one true God, has been the source of aggravation as many resist with all their might any thought that the answers they seek all come from Jesus. Think of His example and life on earth. Think of His character as demonstrated in love of the marginalised and down trodden. If he were walking the earth in the flesh today, Jesus would be thought of as a hippie.

Corporate religion does have a lot to answer for and one day it will have to. But relationship with Him now, is the sure way of starting the journey out of the confusion. It requires focus and commitment. It requires faith.

It requires a knowing that God is indescribable and unchanging and way too big for us to control. In avoiding using His name many just refer to Him as the universe. No, the universe is one of His creations and in all the attempts made to deny Him by apportioning worship to the universe, we stop way too short and demonstrate that have no concept of the awesome nature and character of God.

It’s time to make a choice. There is a train coming and it’s not far off.

I have made my choice just as Joshua did when he wrote in Joshua 24:15.

“And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

The choice my friends is yours.

Questions

1. Have you recognised that you may be trying to find a one size fits all kind of god?
2. Has that given you confidence to stand where the time comes?
3. Are you wasting precious time and energy in conjuring up a god of your choosing?

Prayer.

Dear Lord, Papa God.

There is so much confusion Papa with people wandering too and fro as they walk past You in search of You. Thank you Lord for ending my aimless search for meaning by showing me Your Son Jesus in whom all remedy is found. He is the way the truth and the light and He is leading us to You. Papa please help us to see your character in each other as we step in close behind You, is our prayer in the precious name of Jesus…the name above all names. Amen.

Have a great day with Jesus.

Graham Hood.