The Consequence of a Wrong View of God

In a previous post, we looked at the folly of those who convince themselves that God doesn’t exist. However, those of us that do believe in God often make a mistake that is just as dangerous—we think of God as a human, and try to understand Him on that level. Maybe we allow Him some extra powers and abilities, or think of Him as a bigger version of ourselves, but we still make this fundamental error which affects everything that we do.

 

Volunteering for Chatnow, a Christian live-chat organisation taking calls from people all over the world, I can see that this flawed way of thinking is at the root of most of our problems. We don’t really understand what God is like or Who He is, or we choose to ignore what the Bible tells us about Him.

Sadly, I have spoken to people who believe that God exists, but who have decided to reject Him because of His failure to do what they perceive to be right. People who believe that a good God wouldn’t allow suffering in the world or “send” anyone to hell. They label God as “unfair” and determine that He is either indifferent to things here on earth or is lacking compassion. Worse, there are some who decide that He is cruel or vengeful based on their assessments of His activity or failure to act.

When I point out that suffering is caused by sin that entered the world originally through people, it usually falls on deaf ears. When I comment that God doesn’t want anyone to go to Hell, and that He has provided an escape through Jesus, for those who choose it, they don’t want to know. When I suggest that an indifferent or aloof God would hardly go to the lengths of sacrificing His Son to restore the broken relationship with them, they scoff. When I warn that in rejecting His offer, they are choosing the broad path to Hell, they don’t believe it.

There are also people who believe that God exists, but reject Him the minute He fails to deliver something they have demanded.  They treat Him as a genie or good luck charm to be called upon when they have a financial, material or relational need. They quote out of context verses about health, wealth and well-being and conveniently overlook passages about cross-bearing and counting the cost of following Jesus. Again, these attitudes come back to a wrong view of God.

Some of these erroneous views have come about due to the “God is our friend” theology. The Bible does speak of God as our Father and Jesus as a friend to sinners, but this should not be taken in a casual manner. God is not our chum, buddy or mate, He is worthy of our respect and total devotion, and should be approached through Jesus with reverence due to His holiness.  We need to remember Who God is according to the Bible, when we approach Him.

Try to imagine the earth (and humans) from God’s perspective—He created it (and us), He sustains it and He is in control. Now, imagine God looking down at a load of tiny, ant-sized people, marching around the earth, shaking their fists at Him, refusing to acknowledge Him in one way or another, and seeking to rebel against His authority. 

If this seems ridiculous, it really is, but it is a good analogy in terms of our comparative insignificance. This life is short. We are just a vapour that appears for a little while and then vanishes away (James 4 vs 14.) It is incredible that God pays attention to us at all, let alone watches over us with the kind of love and care that the Bible describes.

All of us suffer from this wrong perspective or wrong view of God, to some extent—we fail to consistently give Him the worship He deserves and we fail to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. We reduce Him to a god of our own making or try to put Him in a box of our own understanding. We relegate Him to a small corner of our lives and often only pay attention to Him when we are in trouble.

As soon as we start asking “Why?” questions of or about God, we need to be careful—there are a lot of things about God that He has chosen not to reveal to us, and others that our tiny human minds cannot comprehend. The bottom line, is that God is God and He can do whatever He wants. The fact that He chooses to involve us through prayer is a privilege not a right.

We read in Isaiah 55 vs 8-9:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

It can be difficult to use these verses when trying to help a Christian struggling with trials. They want God to explain Himself and feel that His failure to do so is due to inability or inadequacy on His part. They don’t consider that their perception may be completely wrong. 

In the Bible, Job made this mistake. He endured a lot more than most of us will ever have to deal with. He refused to curse God during his terrible suffering, even when his wife told him to! However, he did eventually ask God to explain Himself. He wanted a reason. He asked God, “why?” We all behave like Job, we want to know why bad things happen to “good” people and why things we see as unjust or unfair are allowed to continue.

We might expect that God would explain Himself to Job after all he had suffered. But, He doesn’t. He reminds Job of his comparative minuteness. God asks him whether he (Job) has the right to question the Creator of the universe and the One who sustains everything. He rebukes Job for his presumption. He details His power and greatness and makes it clear that Job is the creature and He the Creator, Job the clay and He the Potter (Job 38)

At this point, Job doesn’t say, “But you still haven’t explained yourself” or “How could you allow me to suffer in this way and not do anything about it?” or “I don’t like the decisions that you made, I’m going to serve a different god.” Unfortunately, that is how a lot of us respond when faced with trials and difficulties. We think that by walking away from or rejecting God, we can win the battle for supremacy, or somehow hurt God with our lack of allegiance or through sinful behaviour.

Pride is at the root of our rebellion, and Job, recognising this, humbled himself. In one of the most famous passages of the Bible which tells us more about Who God really is, he said, "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You; Therefore, I retract, And I repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42 vs 5-6) Job was a faithful and righteous man, but he had had a wrong view of God. He tried to reason with God on a human level and ended up in serious difficulty. 

When God revealed Himself to Job, his immediate response was repentance and humility. His view of God had been dramatically altered and it affected everything. Job’s only concern was to correct his earlier mistake, there was no longer any discussion of the suffering that Job had had to endure. He had seen who the God of the Bible really is and dared not question Him or suggest He was anything other than perfectly Holy.

As Christians, we must start with the right premise. We must believe what the Bible tells us about God. We must believe that everything He does is perfect, including allowing suffering on earth and creating a place called Hell. We must accept that God is perfectly just and that He cannot lie, that He doesn’t change His mind like humans do. God has many other attributes (for a fuller discussion read The Attributes of God by A.W.Tozer,) and all of them are consistent with His nature and character.

When our mind starts to ask why something is happening, let’s make the decision straight away to trust God.  If our brain begins to consider that maybe God has got something wrong. Let’s dismiss this immediately knowing that it cannot be true because God doesn’t make mistakes. If we wonder whether God is aware of something or whether He has forgotten us. Let’s remember the promises in Scripture—that He knows everything that is happening and that He will never leave nor forsake us.

We can be confident that all things are being worked out according to God’s sovereign purpose and that His plans are for our good. There will be many things about God that we can’t understand but we need to learn to trust Him anyway, because He is faithful. 

Let’s make sure that we have the right, Biblical view of God. It is best to assume that where there are question marks in our minds, it is either due to sin, or due to our finite minds being unable to fully comprehend a perfectly holy and omnipotent God.

Romans 11 vs 33-35

“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”

Numbers 23 vs 19

"God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”

Who will be the Captain to Steer your Ship?

It seems to me that one of the key principles to be learned from the life and witness of Hudson Taylor, a biography of whom I just concluded, was his whole-hearted devotion to his Master. His single-mindedness was displayed in his willingness to give up every earthly thing for the sake of the Kingdom and in his total trust and reliance on God in any and every situation. He remained calm in the midst of crisis, both in the mission and when things affected him personally. He prayed about everything in what some would say was a childlike manner knowing that he was weak but his God was strong. He was not only professing Jesus as his Saviour, but was clearly following Him on a daily basis as Lord. How many of us are doing this? Is it Biblical or does God instead demand less of us because of grace? 

The central issue here is: Who is in your driving seat? or Who is steering your ship? David Cameron recently came to the conclusion that he was “not the 'captain' to steer our country to its next destination.” His emotional speech came after a shock decision for Brexit. Because we live in a democracy, Cameron was not in sufficient control to guarantee that his desires came to fruition. He presumed that he was steering the British ship, but he ultimately only had the power that God allowed him as an elected ruler for a time. The same is true of current and future Prime Ministers, Presidents and leaders around the world. Let us not forget Who is really steering the ship.

I was amazed by the number of Christians who voted against Brexit in the UK because they feared for their jobs, their homes, their future lives and the future of their children. Although I personally voted for Brexit, this is not a political post. The real point is why are Christians voting for something because they are afraid of the consequences if they vote in another direction? What does that say about their faith in God? Is God in control and working everything for the good of those who love him or is He idle and watching in dismay as things spiral out of control? Whether we support Brexit or not, surely our decision-making process should begin with: “How would God want me to vote?” or even, “What are the likely consequences for Christians and religious liberty if I vote one way or the other?” But some Christians seem to have hung their faith on a coat rack when making their decision or looked at the whole matter from a purely selfish point of view---how it might affect them personally. They are now terrified of the economic outlook for the UK.

I think it comes back to whether we are Sunday Christians or whether we are trying in our imperfect and failing way to follow Jesus all of the time. Do we give Him access to all areas of our life or do we have areas that we want to manage ourselves? Do we think we can do a better job in those areas without God or do we recognise our weakness and utter dependence on Him in everything we do? Is it hard for us as intelligent beings to even acknowledge the need of God. I mean Christianity is a crutch, right? It is common to hear atheists making comments like that. But sadly, although most Christians are saying the right thing (“I do trust God and am following Jesus as Lord.”), the way we are living our lives tells a different story to those looking on. Why would others be persuaded to submit themselves and their lives to God if they can see that we are not even doing that ourselves? Why would they be willing to trust God if we do not?

My last post was about “Easy Believism” and “Decisionism,” or making an instant, on the spot decision to “accept Christ” without considering the cost. This practice again speaks to the heart of the issue and may explain why so many people profess Christ but are not following Him as Lord. They are not truly saved and are carrying a false assurance of conversion. Those who are saved know that the Bible teaches that things on earth will get very tough, one passage from Matthew 24 vs 6-13 details what we should expect: 

“And you will hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”

Is that not what we are seeing now with the frequent terrorist attacks, and wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, to name just a few. There is palpable tension on the world stage and relationships between countries are strained. Those who are hoping for peace are going to be disappointed as the Bible tells us that there will not be peace, at least not for Christians. The world is heading towards the final magnificent event when Jesus will return and take all those who have believed in Him to heaven forever. But before that, we will face some terrible times.

Did God include these things in the Bible to scare us? Maybe they should be seen as a warning that we need to be ready and not put off a decision about salvation to another day. Jesus could return at any time. But note the text clearly says, “See to it that you are NOT alarmed.” If we are true Christians, these verses should cause us to sit up and pay attention. They should cause us to pray and to trust God more in times of crisis. We have been told what will happen to allow us to prepare and to make ourselves ready. Why are some professing believers terrified of terrorists?  Isn’t God bigger than these things? Doesn’t He have the power to stop it all if He so desires? Since He allows it we must conclude that it is part of His plan. Who are we to question God who is so far above us in every conceivable way?

God knows when each of us will die. It is predetermined. We cannot die by accident or at the hand of someone else unless God wills it. Perhaps you are afraid of the pain of death, I can relate to that. It’s not death itself I fear but the pain and possible suffering is obviously hard to envisage. But we can pray for the strength to endure whatever we might face knowing that God knows how much we can bear and that He alone is faithful. Some of the missionaries of long ago were tortured and martyred but they stood strong in the face of this and even prayed for their persecutors. 

As global events propel us towards a final conclusion one day. We don’t know the day or hour---no one does. But we can observe signs and events which are fulfilling those things long ago predicted in the Bible and know that we are living in the end times. We need to be asking ourselves whether we are truly Christians. Are we trusting in Jesus death and resurrection for our eternal salvation? Have we confessed our sin and received forgiveness? Are we now following Jesus as Lord of every area of our lives? Does our faith impact every decision we make and everything we do? Is Jesus in the driving seat or are we battling Him for control? Are we afraid of the consequences, of Brexit, or the atrocities committed by terrorists? Or are we confident that God has a plan and is in control?

Who will be the Captain to Steer your Ship? Let it be God with Jesus at His right hand!