Thursday, September 15, 2011

Learning to Follow the God Who Is, Not the God We Want Him to Be

One recurring theme popping up as many in our congregation read the Bible in a year together, is that God often tells us what we do not want to hear, what we do not want to believe, and what we do not want to do.

This is true when it has to do with His law, which puts limits on our voracious desire to be gods unto ourselves.

It's also true when it comes to His gospel, the good news of the free gift of forgiveness and new life for all who trust in the crucified and risen Jesus. This violates our pride because we have pretenses of being able to make it on the basis of our merit, goodness, or power.

The Biblical record shows though, that God is committed to puncturing our comfortable fantasies and bringing us back to reality.

God speaks the truth in love to us and as I read the Bible, I often wince, not wanting to hear the truth.

Steve Taylor once sang, "It's harder to believe than not to." It's true. But if I followed a God Who always did my will and saw things my way, He would be no deity worth following.

1 comment:

jen said...

The truth is hard to take, but definitely what I need to hear.