Some time ago a man with whom I work commented to another co-worker that the God of his church (one of the two major categories of the Christian church) was more of the kindly grandfather sort than the God spoken of in the past. The other major category, or at least a large section of it, would have us believe that God is SO passionate and SO loving that He sent his own Son to die a bloody death on a cross, just so we can be with Him in the Heaven.  After visiting an average church in this category, an ‘unchurched’ person could easily come away thinking that WE are the center of God’s universe! And of course that is what the ‘unchurched’ are supposed to believe!

After years of reading and studying the Bible I have never been able to find that concept within its pages – until yesterday, and by accident! I was driving to work and I heard the host of a local Christian radio station offer the following uplifting quote:

“Mostly what God does is love you.” Ephesians 5:1

What a revelation! With all that God has to do with running the universe, what He does MOST is sit around in Heaven loving ME!

Actually, that wasn’t my immediate reaction. My first thought was, “Gee, I don’t remember that…is it really what Ephesians 5:1 says?” I looked it up and here is what I found for Ephesians 5:1-2 in several translations and a modern paraphrase that is used by many as a translation:

“Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” – NKJV

“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” – NIV

“Therefore, be imitators of God as dearly loved children and live in love, just as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.” – NET

The above are just three of the translations I researched, but all of the translations were remarkably similar. Here are the same verses from what many consider a translation. In fact, one wildly popular author has prefaced quotes from this version of the Bible with “The bible says. . .”:

“Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.” – The Message

Please understand that I am not bashing The Message. I had not intended to mention the title, but copyright restrictions require that I do so. This post is about God – specifically, what we think about God. When I heard that quote, the thought that the main activity of God is to sit around in Heaven loving us just didn’t quite ring true. Maybe it’s just me, but that sort of God somehow seemed much smaller than the God I held in my mind and heart.

Does what we think about God make a difference in our lives and how we live out our faith? Does what the Church believes and communicates about God make a difference in the larger context of the Church’s impact on our culture? In answer to those questions I offer the following quotes excerpted from the first chapter of A.W. Tozer’s book, The Knowledge of the Holy. The chapter is titled ‘Why We Must Think Rightly About God’:

“The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above it’s religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater that it’s idea of God.”

.” . .the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.”

“Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid. . .”

“Our real idea of God may lie buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions and may require an intelligent and vigorous search before it is unearthed and exposed for what it is.”

“It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity.”

“The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him – and of her.”

Readers and friends of this blog, I don’t take this matter lightly. If my grieving heart over this state of affairs is genuine and not self-deception, it is certain that the grief of the Holy Spirit of Almighty God is far, far greater.