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Making
A God
One of the most important things in life is that we have
the right sort of a god. Religion has a profound influence
upon the lives, not only of Christian people,
I but of those who are under Christian influences, and
those who are under false religions. It is important
therefore that we have in our mind a correct, tho of
necessity only a partial knowledge of God. There is but
one God, but the picture of that God that is in the minds
of men differs greatly. As this picture differs in
different minds, we differ in our concepts of the reality.
Within the past week someone wrote to me and spoke of
God's "casting men into hell, then watching them
sizzle in a lake of fire." This is a crude and
altogether erroneous idea of God. Nevertheless, one who
believes in such things cannot but be profoundly affected
by such a belief. The heathen idea of God is often of a
fearful being, vengeful and terrible. Such a god inspires
fear, a terror, and often despair. The instinct of the
worshiper is to try to placate such a god. The heathen may
fear this type of a god, but he cannot love him. Happiness
cannot come into his life through such a god. A god of
this sort exists only in imagination, but the effect upon
the life is just as real as tho such a god were real.
The idea we have of God will profoundly affect our lives.
The god we have is the god we create in our lives; that
is, God means to us in our consciousness and in his
influence on our lives what we picture him to be in our
mental conception of him. Someone has said, "God
created man in God's image, then straightway man created
God in man's image." The Greek and Roman gods had the
form, the characteristics, and the passions of the men who
created them. The gods of the heathen are made in their
own likeness mentally, morally, and spiritually. In olden
times a Greek said, "If the camels had a god, he
would have four feet and a hump."
The development of the idea of God among the Hebrews can
be traced in the Scriptures. Before Israel went into Egypt
the idea of God seems to have been of a universal God, a
God who was God of all the earth and not of a special
people. But during the captivity in Egypt, surrounded as
they were by idolaters and they alone holding the idea of
the true God, he became to them the God of Israel. After
the Exodus he became to the great body of the people
little more than a tribal God. He was viewed in the same
light by the nations round about them. It is true that the
most spiritual, including the prophets and spiritual
teachers, had clearer ideas of God. But we do not find a
general conception of him any higher than a tribal God
until we reach the era of the Psalms. In these we find
both ideas—the God of Israel, and the God of the earth
and all nature. As we go on through the Major and Minor
Prophets we find a clearing and expanding of the idea of
God. This made an end to idolatry in Israel.
In the Old Testament Isaiah has the greatest conception of
God. But it is Jesus who reveals him as he is. The God
revealed by Jesus is a God of universal character. He
became not only the universal God, but the universal
Father.
The idea of God develops slowly. When the gospel is
carried to a heathen land it is difficult for the people
to grasp the Christian idea of God. It dawns on them only
a little at a time. This is true even in Christian lands.
Even today the views of God held by many people differ
widely from God as Jesus revealed him and as he is
revealed in the Christian Scriptures.
What sort of a God have you, reader? Sum up the various
ideas of him you have and see what he is in the aggregate.
How does he impress you? How do you feel toward him? Do
your ideas of God bring happiness into your heart? Do they
cause you to love him and trust him? Does contemplation of
him start the joybells ringing in your heart and the song
to come to your lips? To some people God is a giant to be
feared. We do not sing in his presence—we try to hide.
When we fear we do not sing. If we fear God with this
slavish fear, how can we be happy?
One of the secrets of the singing heart is to make a God
who will inspire us to sing. God in reality is a God of
that sort. If we know him as he is association with him
will be the source of life's sweetest and most satisfying
fountain of joy.
Jesus identified the greatest source of human happiness
when he said, "That they may know thee." Again,
he said to his disciples, "Let not your heart be
troubled.
Ye believe in God." To him that was sufficient reason
why one should not be troubled. But some people believe in
God and it is that very belief which causes them to be
troubled. They do not see God as Jesus saw him. The God
they see has different characteristics—characteristics
that inspire fear rather than love. They worship him with
the idea of placating him. They do not look upon worship
as communion with him, as a sweet, soul-satisfying
fellowship, the source of life's greatest joys and
blessings.
Perhaps it would be of great value to all of us if we
should read the New Testament carefully with the idea in
mind of finding just what it teaches about God. Let us try
to get Jesus' idea of God and John's idea and Paul's idea.
When we have done so we may be amazed to see how much our
own ideas of God have differed from theirs. God may come
to mean something entirely different to us.
Let us briefly view the outline of the picture of God
painted in the New Testament. First, we are told that
"God is love." A God of our mind that we as
Christians fear is not the real God. John 3:16 tells us,
"God so loved the world," and Paul asked,
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?"
Again he says, "That ye may be able to comprehend
with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and
depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which
passeth knowledge" (Eph. 3:18-19). We might
profitably spend days considering these Scriptures. Think
of them, dear reader, until they mean to you in your
innermost heart just what they say; until God's character
actually becomes love in your consciousness. Then you
cannot fear him, you cannot shrink from him. You will love
him.
God's loving, gentle, forgiving, pitying character can
never inspire fear. We need not fear his justice, for his
justice is only for those who will not have his mercy.
Really to know God is to love and to trust him. Note
particularly the following facts: Only those who will not
believe have cause for this slavish fear.
Those who have cause for fear do not fear him, as it is
written, "There is no fear of God before their
eyes." Therefore, only those who have no occasion
thus to fear God do thus fear him. The true God is the God
of the open heart, the Father who loves his creatures. He
is not a God afar off. He is a God who is near. He is not
harsh, and stern, and vengeful. He is high, and powerful,
and glorious, yet he condescends to walk with us in the
lowly vales of life. He condescends to talk with us in the
quiet of the evening. He has a listening ear and a tender
heart.
He is our Father, and as our Father loves us as sons and
daughters. "Ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith
the Lord almighty" (II Cor. 6:18). Sometimes an
earthly father must be stern. But his sternness is because
he loves his son and desires the best for him. The loving
father disciplines his son, not for the father's own
pleasure, but for the son's profit. The sternness and the
discipline are the special, not the ordinary attitudes of
God toward us. His constant attitude is one of tender,
solicitous love.
God is not only the God of the open heart but he is the
God of the open hand. "He that spared not his own
Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not
with him also freely give us all things?" (Rom. 8:
32). His promise is that he will "not withhold any
good thing from them that walk uprightly." He desires
that we be happy. He desires that we be supplied with
everything that will contribute to our happiness. Truly he
is the God of the open hand.
He is also the "God of all comfort" (II Cor. 1:
3). The Psalmist said, "Thy rod and thy staff they
comfort me" (Ps. 23: 4). Paul speaks of him on this
wise, "Blessed be God, the Father of mercies, and the
God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our
tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are
in trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are
comforted of God" (II Cor. 1: 3-4). The Holy Spirit
is the "Comforter" (John 14: 26). Reader, is
this the picture of God you have in your mind and heart?
He is the God of justice. The Bible says, "Shall not
the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Gen. 18: 25).
A number of times Jesus is called "The Just
One." His justice is always tempered with mercy. It
is never separated from his love. If we have the picture
of God in our minds that David had in his mind we shall
feel as he felt. He had sinned. The prophet gave him the
choice of three evils as punishment. He said, "Let me
fall into the hands of God." God's promise to the
Christian is that he "shall not come into
condemnation." What then if God be just? "Mercy
rejoiceth against judgment." It is God's delight to
forgive; therefore if we submit to him we need not fear
his justice.
He is a faithful God. "God is faithful, by whom ye
were called unto the fellowship of his Son" (I Cor.
1: 9). Again and again it is declared that God is
faithful. Peter calls him "a faithful Creator"
(I Pet. 4:19). The Psalmist says, "Thy faithfulness
is unto all generations" (Ps. 119: 9O).
God is the God of goodness. The Psalmist exclaims,
"Oh how great is thy goodness which thou hast laid up
for them that fear thee" (Ps. 31 :19). And again,
"He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is
full of the goodness of the Lord" (Ps. 33: 5).
"The goodness of God endureth continually" (Ps.
52:1). And again he says, "Thou crownest the year
with thy goodness" (Ps. 65:11).
He is not a God afar off. Paul said to the Athenians, the
Lord is "not far from everyone of us; for in hum we
live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:27-28).
"The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon
him" (Ps. 145:19). And Jesus said, "Lo, I am
with you alway, even unto the end of the world"
(Matt. 28: 20). And he has promised, "I will never
leave thee nor forsake thee."
The foregoing is a very partial picture, a very
fragmentary outline of the character of God. But if we
study the picture as it is painted in the New Testament
until God comes to be to us what he really is, and if we
then enter into relations with him such as he desires to
exist between himself and us, we then shall know one of
the secrets of the singing heart. Too often God (to us) is
only the reflection of our fears and doubts, of our
consciences, and of our peculiar characteristics. In
reality he is what he reveals himself to be.
To Moses God revealed himself thus, "The Lord, The
Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and
abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for
thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and
sin" (Exod. 34: 6-7). He promised Moses, "My
presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee
rest" (chap. 33:14). Our thoughts of him should not
disturb us. His presence shall give us rest.
We should dwell before him in confidence and trust. He is
a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. He is the
Father of tender love and constant care. He would enter
into all our troubles, our sorrows, our joys. He has said
he would rejoice over us with singing. He has said he
would have us without anxiety, he would have us abide in
his love, partake of his peace, to rejoice with "joy
unspeakable and full of glory," and sing the songs of
victory and trust.
One writer has said of the Bible, "It tells us that
at the heart of the universe there is a heart, that God is
love, that that love is the moving spring of his
activity."
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