When I am God

[I was having a hard time falling asleep the other night. As I was lying in my bed, I kept thinking about a line in a song that has come to be a new favorite. (For those who know me, I usually have some song stuck in my head.) That led to thinking of another song that has become a new favorite of mine. The following is the resulting brainstorm that followed. The two songs happen to both be metal and have great videos. You can check out the videos on tvulive.com and read the lyrics on christianrocklyrics.com.]

“When I am God this church is unsound.”
Oh, Sleeper
“Vices Like Vipers”

“We have all heard what we wanted to hear ‘Truth’ that sounds right to our ears.”
As I Lay Dying
“The Sound of Truth”

Common reaction is awe that anyone should think of themselves as God. This reaction is rightly so, but quite hypocritical. Really, we do it all the time; any time we decide to do things our way instead of God’s. Man ultimately wants to become God. It has been said that humanism is the second oldest religion in the world, and I would agree. Malcolm Muggeridge said, “If God is dead, someone will have to take His place. Either megalomania or erotomania; the clinched fist or the phallus; Hitler or Hugh Hefner.” We’ve been given two choices from the very beginning. God promised utopia; Satan promised that we would be as gods (Genesis 1:26-3:7). It’s either God’s way or a humanistic way. [Let me plug an idea in here: Satan doesn’t have a way. He knows the only way is God’s way; so he can only divert us and send us on our way. John 14:6, Luke 10:18, Genesis 3:14-15, James 2:19, Revelation 12:9;20:10) To become gods isn’t hard. Anytime we deny God’s truth, we assert that ours is ultimate, making us gods. Anything apart from God alone is attempting to assert our bit of personal deity.

This happens a lot with apologetics. We argue topics and not truth. We fight over preferences which we enjoy, and maintain that we are correct. Everything MUST come back to the person of Christ. HE is the way, the truth, and the life. (John 14:6) If it doesn’t go through Him, it’s the wrong way, truth, and life. Plain and simple! In church, we preach relationship but teach doctrine. Both are essential but must not be separated. A good example of this is the fruit of the Spirit (it drives me nuts when people pluralize it). We teach the fruit(s) of the Spirit without teaching the Spirit “of” whom it comes.

It’s like living in a distant, barren land and coming to an area of fruit trees (we’ll say…apple trees). You are mesmerized by the beauty and apparent goodness of the fruit. So you pick an apple and return to your distant, barren land. You eat the apple and sincerely thank God for its goodness, substance, and nourishment. You wake up the next day and remember how sweet that fruit from the day before was. You long for that blessing again. But there is no more fruit. You only picked one, and now it’s gone. Even if you had brought back a whole cluster of fruit, half of it would be wasted because we usually put it on the shelf and neglect it.

Now, go back to the land of plenty, and this time instead of picking the fruit, take the tree. Then, you get to enjoy the fruit today and tomorrow. And Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8); which means the Tree is always loaded with fruit. Plus, don’t just eat the fruit and throw the seed away. Keep the seed, plant it in your “soul” (I know. That was super corny. Sorry.), and watch it grow (via Bible study, Godly fellowship, testing, etc.). Now suddenly, what do you have? Not only is there a tree from which you can enjoy; but now there has grown an orchard in this once barren land, from which many others can come and find substance. The tree is the ultimate source. The “tree of life” in the garden, if you will. We neglected the original and chose the fruit. In essence, we neglected God and choose ourselves. No matter how good the fruit may be, without the Spirit, it is only a rotting flower.