What are your thoughts on this? Do you know of any examples of people making their own gods and calling said god Jesus? Do you think I'm just crazy? Comment below and let me know.
I like history. My 3 favorite subjects in history are church history(bet you didn't see that one coming) The Revolutionary War and the history around Greek mythology. Even at a young age I found all these fake gods interesting to learn about. It almost seemed like the Greeks had a god for everything. They had all kinds of different names and duties as gods. Of course you know about Zeus and Hades and well who hasn't heard of the half god half man Hercules? Believe it or not Idolatry still exists today, but it has changed a bit. Just like riding a horse has changed to driving a car, but the principle of using something faster than you to travel stays the same, the idea of worshiping a false god is still around, but there is one important change. All these gods have the same name. Can you guess what the name is? No it's not money or fame, or even yourself. All of these false gods are named Jesus. Yes you read that right, but let me clarify. First when I say all, I don't really mean all. There are false gods out there by different names, but I am mainly speaking to trend I am seeing in the US to make a god whatever kind of god you want and call it Jesus. Chris Rosebrough of Pirate Christian Radio made the analogy to the Build a Bear Workshop. At the Build a Bear you go and you get to make your very own bear, or for most people reading this your kids get to make their own bear. I believe you can pick out what type of eyes it has and what color its fur is and everything. When you get done you go and name your bear whatever you want. May I suggest that people have done the same thing with God, but instead of coming up with a different name most people are fine to name their god Jesus.(You know for brand recognition) I have heard of all kinds of things that Jesus said or did not say, and all kinds of things that Jesus will or will not ask you to do and oddly enough the Jesus's beliefs always seem to match up with whatever person is talking. god can be as loving or as harsh as you want him to be. If someone else says that you are doing something wrong, well that's not your Jesus, your Jesus does not say what you're doing is wrong, or even if it is wrong, well your Jesus still loves you no matter what and just wants you to be you and wants you to be happy. After all he, or she, because Jesus can also be female is whatever you want to make for yourself. The problem with these false gods named Jesus is that they aren't real. They have not existed eternally, they are the one in whom all things were created, and most important of all they cannot save you. So how do we tell the real Jesus from the fake one. Would the real Jesus please stand up, please stand up. Man did I just date myself there or what? There will probably be like three people who get that reference. Anyway to understand who the real Jesus one should look for the book that was written about him. Turns out there are 66 really good books that not only talk about Jesus but were also inspired by the Holy Spirit, who is God. Who knows God better than God? Holy the Spirit not inspired these 66 books, for the sake of argument let's call these 66 books the Bible, but he was inspiring writers who had actually seen and talked to Jesus. People who listened when he taught, witnessed his many miracles and even saw him after he came back from the dead. To make a long story short(TOO LATE nice little Clue reference in there) If want to learn about the true Jesus and in fact the true God then you should read what is considered to be his word, and this means all of it. Not just the red letters, but all of them. Some people may ask, why do we need to read the whole Bible, are you saying that I can't be spiritual unless I'm reading the Bible and following the God in there? While you might be able to feel spiritual without reading the Bible I would ask how do you know if you are worshiping the True God, or just one that you made up? That's the problem is that god at that point is simply whatever you feel, and as good as feelings are, they are subjective. God is not subjective. God is not what you make of him. God is who He is, and will always be that way no matter how we feel towards Him. This quote from scripture alone I think represents the importance of allow scripture to show you who God really is. Without a firm foundation, a discernible standard, an unchanging and unchangeable rule, we are left to construct a theology that can ascend no higher than majority opinion, that cannot claim divine authority" When we stop looking to scripture for our understanding of who God is, we can no longer claim to really know. Think about it this way. If God is all powerful and is in fact way beyond our thoughts, aside from understanding God exists, what can we really know about God aside from what He has revealed to us? I would there really isn't anything we can know about God except what he has revealed to us. The problem with many people is that when the read the God that the Bible speaks of they don't like him. In the same way that the Pharisees didn't like Jesus. Even though they spent much of their time reading the scriptures and practicing all the laws and statues they did not understand who the scriptures were about and so when the encountered Jesus they hated him and nailed him to a cross. Jesus called them white washed tombs, and he also said that they honored God with their lips but their hearts were far from God. Unfortunately I believe this is the condition of many people in America today. I'm not God so I don't know their hearts, but listening to what they say, and what they say about Jesus, well it does't add up with the word of God. This is a temptation that we all should be careful of. We do not need to make the Christian God whatever we want, or just have a build a god workshop, but instead we need to allow God to be God, and Christ our king and bend a knee to whatever He says. Do we bend a knee to the true God. To the one revealed to us in scriptures, the one that loved us enough to send us his to die for us, and by repenting of our sins and trusting in him we receive forgiveness of our sins and we are made righteous in Jesus Christ, not because of any works that we did, but by his grace and our faith, which is also a product of His grace. This is the God I serve. What about you?
What are your thoughts on this? Do you know of any examples of people making their own gods and calling said god Jesus? Do you think I'm just crazy? Comment below and let me know.
3 Comments
Jessica Byrd
2/9/2015 08:48:38 am
I really liked the Build-a-god workshop analogy. It is so true that sometimes we like to make Jesus into something He really is not because it makes us feel better about ourselves. We like to justify. Thankfully, God gives us grace as we redirect ourselves back to Him and His Word.
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Zella Johnson
2/10/2015 12:41:27 am
As one of the 3 "dated" people who "got" your reference, no I absolutely do not think you are crazy. I must say that everything that I have learned about Jesus and about God, I learned from the Bible, from which comes true understanding, and the more I read it, the more I know I've yet to absorb. What an awesome Book. You are so right, it is only from this Book and prayer, and with the help of true Christian teachers of His Word that I can recognize the true Jesus and have that personal relationship that He offers. Thank you for sharing this lesson with us.
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william keith foley
8/12/2021 07:15:21 am
I think everyone is turning a blind eye to a larger concern.God?A very broad subject with an even larger impact on humanity.Personality.The development of organized religion birthed nations founded on phillosophies that started as many gods of tribal origin and evolved to theollogies of major religouns one true god divinity per culture.Your oversimplifying a very important evolutionary change in the incarnation of the Hebrew God in modern times as it pertains to psychollogical phenomena thats a spiritual phenomena in origin that doesnt have an answer as simple as reading the bible to learn the real God in biblical text in a body of conceptual knowledge that would only be accurate to consider taking that approach for those whon where born of the faith of the Holy Bible in the christian credence and not accurate for the faiths that originated from Holy Bible testiments that arent christian,such as Judiasm that apply the old testiment teachings to there personal understanding of there spirituality.Spirituality is an influence that molds men and women from a young age and these men and women go on to build and govern nations,not always refered to as nations but started as tribes,then evolved to civilizations,then principalities,then nations and each had a period of time where there existence descended into darkness and turmoil and the civilazations failed to remain civilized and many things of change occured do to the injustice that was the catalyst of the era that cuased the civilizaton to descend into darkness,these are known as dark ages.The current phenomena is psychollogical and spiritual and is due to the human psyche,also refered to as the spirit or the soul,which is diffined as the essence of ones being.sorry i could go on and on but i have an important meeting to get to.please research more and dictate less opinionitive statements in things far to difficult to sum up.God is a very sensitive subject and to important to reduce to study in one sacred text and even if someone reads the entire Holy Bible there still not going to get one universal message.
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