My Imaginary God

Rev. Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas and a leader in the white evangelicals that are avid supporters of President Trump, said recently that democrats and liberals worship an imaginary God and not the God who revealed Himself in the Bible. Well I am registered as an Independent, but I certainly qualify as being liberal especially as Dr. Jeffress defines that term. At first, I resented the statement and I was ready to debate but I decided to give it some thought instead. Amazingly I found out I agreed with some of what he said.

WORSHIPING AN IMAGINARY GOD

I agree that I worship an imaginary God. Matter of fact we all do so. None of us has ever seen God in the flesh, we believe in Him by a thing called faith. So, we are left to come up with our own concept of who He is and how He reacts to us and our world. Someone recently wrote that God had to be a woman since it has taken so many men so long to tell us what She said.

All of us see God through the prisms of our own lives. Our relationship with our parents, the environment and culture of our youth, any traumas or pains we have suffered, the level of self-worth we have attained, and the ego needs that drive and tend to control our thinking and our actions. All of these impacts how we see God.

This means we all have differing concepts of God and no one has it exactly right. We “see through a glass darkly now” and I really believe we will all be amazed and surprised when we see Him face to face. Therefore no one has the right to decide their concept is the only one that is right or superior to all other ideas.

I gave up studying theology many years ago. It seems to me theology is the study of who is wrong. All it seems to accomplish is to divide us into waring groups.

I remember an old story of two identical churches meeting on opposite corners in a small town. The members would hardly speak to the members of the other church. Someone asked one member what was the difference, and the member replied, “Oh there is a lot of difference. Those people over there believe Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses floating in a basket in the river. Over here we think that was just her story.” So, there you have conservative and liberal.

I wish there was a Bible text that said, “I can do all things through scriptures taken out of context.”

I also agree with the statement that I do not worship the God who revealed Himself in the Bible. I try to worship the God who revealed Himself in the person and life of Jesus Christ. “And the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory.” There is a real danger in worshiping the Bible instead of the person the Bible is about and that seems to be rampant in the Christian world today. I often think we talk a great deal about Jesus, but I am not sure many of us really like Him. We ignore most of what He taught while asking for His blessing. God is like Jesus, not just on His good days and even on our bad days and if we wish to be followers of Him, we must try to do what Jesus did.

MY IMAGINARY GOD

So, my “imaginary” God is Jesus. “Imaginary” or not I can never begin to encompass the impact on my life.

Finally discovering His unconditional love changed how I saw myself and brought peace that freed me to love others instead of performing so they would love me.

His teaching taught me the most profound and practical words ever spoken: “If you would save your life you must give it away.” The closer we get to that the less self-absorbed we are. Get far enough away from that and we become dangerous to ourselves and others.

His brilliance boiled the whole of theology down to three loves. “Love God, love your neighbor as you love yourself, on that hangs all the law and the prophets.” Shut down the seminaries and close the book it is all there.

And His shepherd heart loved the poor, the halt, the stranger at the gate, the sick, those in prison, and the ostracized women of His day. He loved with such fever that He became royally pissed when they were hated, rejected or used. So now I am trying to figure out what tables I should be overturning and what to use as a whip.

Tell you what Rev. Jeffress, you worship your imaginary God and I will worship mine and let’s realize God is bigger than either of us can imagine.