vs

Ok, so there’s the true God we love and honor and then there’s the false god, the invisible, yet powerful god that lives in our gut and often dictates our lives.  There is quite a gap and a vast difference between these two G(g)ods. Our allegiance is given to either one or the other: the true God who has earned our love and given us the freedom to obey or the bullying gut god who demands our obedience, falsely promising that we can earn love and acceptance.

Identifying our gut god is essential; doing so illuminates the conflict we face as we pursue a life of discipleship. Maybe you’ve realized your gut god is cruel, or demanding, or unsatisfiable. If so you must ask yourself, “Why in the world would I want to be close to such a god? Why should I trust such an unpredictable god? Do I even like this god? And yet, I’m supposed to love and obey…” Naming our gut god, seeing it for the lie it is, explains the reasons we are not as close to God as our true self desires.

Family history, painful experiences, traumatic events and cultural dictates (even teaching we received in church) has formed this god of ours. We have fashioned a god based on what our history and our culture has taught us god “must be like.” The problem with this is our history is imperfect and our culture is tainted with evil, therefore, our ideas about God are imperfect and tainted. God’s image has been distorted.

We need to let God answer for God’s self about who God is….and he has, he sent Jesus, the fulfillment of the law and the prophets.

• Is your god distant and aloof? Meet Jesus, who used his own saliva to heal the blind man.
• Is your god ready to abandon you when you disappoint him? Meet the father Jesus describes who gives all he has to his prodigal son and eagerly awaits his return.
• Is your god punishing? Meet Jesus, who stayed near the woman caught in adultery when the crowd threatened her with judgment and stoning.

Jesus said, if you want to know what God is like…look at me. We’ve exchanged the truth about God for a lie, we have worshipped the creature we created rather than the Creator. This, my friends, leads to a slow, agonizing death.

Next post we’ll talk about how to return to the truth.

With you on the journey,

Debby