19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
- Romans 1:19-25
Man, from his beginning, has had the opportunity to know God. As Paul points out, what can be known of God is readily evident through God’s creation. The problem man faces is that such knowledge illuminates our sin problem and highlights our inadequacies. When presented with the truth of God, man becomes uncomfortable because he must confront and deal with his faults. However, as the Gospel of John explains, when man is faced with the truth and light of God, rather than accept his own inferiority, man shuns and even hates God’s truth, rejecting what is good and embracing what is evil. (John 3:19-20) But still, even though man has rejected God’s truth, he must still deal with his inward sense of God’s presence. “Darkening his heart” man seeks to replace the image of God for a new one, one more comfortable and acceptable to him. In doing such, he exchanges the uncomfortable truth of the immortal God for the comfortable, enjoyable, and relatable lie.
When, you, and in truth all of humanity, say that you were uncomfortable with certain aspects and characteristics of God, what you’re admitting is that you saw your inadequacy before the holiness and righteousness of the immortal God. Unable, or simply unwilling, to deal with God’s truth, you decided to “take God out of the box.” But instead, what you’ve actually done is to remove God from the realm of his holiness and truth and placed him into the realm of fallen creation. You have not liberated the truth regarding God, but have instead rejected what is true in favor of the much more comfortable lie. Such an action is not an act of ‘opening one’s mind’ but instead an act of closing one’s mind to what is evident and true.
But you sound like the Baptist preacher of my childhood who said so many of these things but forgot love. Where is the love that binds all religions together and makes them all one? Sounds like you have none of it.
ReplyDeleteOprah's Advocate
Kyle, an encounter with God could result in feelings of inadequacy, but I don't think that is always the motivation for trying to alter the biblical view of God. Sometimes a person's motivation may be the desire to help others feel more comfortable with God. I might wish to make God a bit more flexible so that my friends can enjoy him too.
ReplyDeleteThe problem I face (and that Oprah faces) is that God won't (and shouldn't) budge because he's the perfect one. Oprah should look to the bible to clear things up.
John 3:16 supplies the correct understanding of God's love - he demonstrated love by giving us his son, not by letting us make up an infinite number of paths that often contradict each other, but still magically lead to the same place.