One of the greatest causes for human crisis results from misrepresentations of God. The dark ages marked a significant eon of human crisis driven by ignorance about God and His heart for humanity. Fear of the unknown reduced all unknowns to the devil’s work which enslaved humanity to ignorance, suspicion, superstition, fear and all the more obvious consequences of that age: dungeons, death and disease.
Aside from many other obvious social deviations, we each have our own personal misconceptions of God. It all reminds me of a little Church Mouse cartoon, which shows a mouse saying “Lord, just look at what is now available in the Internet”, to which a voice in heaven replies, “I’d rather not”.
Okay, enough of the more patently negative aspects of human attitudes to God. To me it is more tragic that believers are getting into trouble because of their misconceptions.
I have seen too many slam into brick walls naively believing that God has led them into this or that. They spiritualize mere feelings and amplify the softest nuances into conceptualizations of God, but never stop to blame their golden calves when it all goes wrong. In essence they end up tempting God and then wonder why God opts out.
Others live their lives to their own rules, following their own instincts with barely any reference to God, the bible or sound counsel and then wonder why their marriages, homes, finances, businesses and other contexts are in a mess. They forget a fundamental rule: The Lord is God, and there is none beside Him.
Then there are those whose lives are more subtly outlived. They apply the word of God selectively, to vindicate all kinds of deviations, thus defying the principle that we cannot live by bread alone, but by every word of God.
More tragic, for me, is the number of really meaningful souls who are in trouble, not because they defy God or follow Him in error, but because they just don’t grasp their spiritual position. I am certainly in that camp at the moment, although all the previous mentioned errors applied to me at one stage or another in my life. Yesterday I cried to God for a deliverance that has so long eluded me, until I sensed the still, small voice of God saying, “Why do you reduce my objective will and the historic facts of the cross to a subjective exercise? Why don’t you just live in what I have done? It can’t be taken from you, but whatever my Son did for you will only extend to theory until you grasp that He died to set you free and give you victory over sin. That is your heritage, so live in it.”
God means no harm in our lives and has given us all that pertains to life and Godliness. It is up to us to decide how we outwork and appropriate such truth, but we will never rise above the human condition until we shift our positions and walk in the light.
(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net
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