The great French scientist and philosopher Pascal cynically wrote that “God created people in his image on the sixth day, and every day since, people have returned the favor.” A recent survey noted that the vast majority of Americans believe in God, but how many of us have actually taken the time to try to fully understand Him?
Jarrett
Stevens notes in his book “The Deity Formerly Known as God” that we share a
basic problem with other generations which is “our insistence on crafting
images of God that limit our understanding of ourselves and limit our experience
with God. We’d rather have a small, custom-built God who meets our emotional
needs or suits our intellectual ideals, than a BIG God who can’t be
controlled or contained.” It’s been said that you can tell the size of your God
by looking at the size of your worry list. The larger your list, the smaller
your God.
Everything we need to know about God we can find in the life of Jesus. It was Jesus himself who asked in Matthew 16:15, “Who do you say I am?” That actually takes more than a little work on our part!
We’re reminded in Psalm 46:10 to “be still”
to know God, but our modern world conspires to suppress both stillness and God.
Somewhat in the American way, we’re raised to go to church on Sunday and the
balance of the week we’re conditioned to consistently win, perfect ourselves,
accomplish and accumulate. Silence is an endangered species in our time.
Some of the destructive images of God
that Stevens discusses are a sweet old man, a cop around the corner, a cosmic
slot machine, a talent show judge and a cafeteria sampling of the world’s
religions. Finally, he notes that “good or bad, like it or not, the bottom line
is that there is no more powerful force in the universe that shapes our
perception of God, other than our parents”. If you have a negative image
of your parents, George MacDonald advises us to “interpret the word by all that
you have missed in life.” Hopefully, God will emerge in truth and reveal to us
his perfect, loving, fatherly and motherly heart.
God is our Abba or eternal Father, and according to Jesus, we are
his beloved children. I pray to my eternal Father. I believe that we were
created in His image and that he considers you and me His children. We share
many emotions and parallels in our existence. Jesus wept and laughed with
his friends and fellow journeymen. And he was frustrated and angered by
uncaring, evil people. I believe our soul occupies our entire material
body just as His timeless spirit occupies His entire universe.
When Jesus taught us to pray The Lord’s
Prayer in Matthew 6, he started with the words, “Our Father, who art in
Heaven…”, and he addressed God as Father a total of 170 times in the
Bible. Jesus created a new way of praying that is as natural as a child talking
to his father. By creating us in his own image, God truly wanted someone to
love and someone with free will capable of returning that love.
To become more like God is humanity’s highest
goal, by reflecting his characteristics and trusting him. The path leads to
becoming less self-centered and more Heavenly Father-centered. I
believe a few of God’s characteristics include:
• He is timeful because He knows no
dimensional boundaries like space or time.
• His saving grace can forgive all charges.
• He is purposeful and ever creative.
• He has revealed Himself through the scriptures
and Jesus.
• He has a loving and caring Fatherly and
Motherly heart.
• He nurtures & cares for us.
• He can forgive us when we fall short.
• He can be trusted and approached with
confidence.
• His freely given and priceless grace is always
available.
• He gives us “free will” and is always with us.
• He is our loving, eternal Father and we are
his beloved children.
• There is nothing we can do to have Him love us
any more or any less.
• He wants us to make good decisions.
• He wants us to understand there are
consequences to bad decisions.
• He may not interfere in our trials and the natural laws he created, but will
provide peace and strength and help us bring something good out of hardship.
• He is not so much to be proven or seen as He
is to be felt within.
Rick Warren has written that, “Great people are
ordinary people with extraordinary amounts of persistence. They just hang in
there and never give up. God is sufficient for any challenge. We just need the
attitude of quiet confidence to stand firm and trust Him to sustain us.”
All that we see can teach us to trust God for
all that we cannot see. And all that we can know about God can teach us to
shape the one true God so that we are truly shaped in His image.
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