Thursday, August 9, 2012

Just a Note on “Profanity”

I’ve been bothered a little bit lately by several people referring to God or His work in “everyday” type terminology.  The Bible calls this “profane”, that is, taking what is holy and making it common or base.

God is not common, nor base.  He is holy.  He is God.  He is separate from us and the world.

One writer referred to the new church her husband was planting and said that “this is God’s gig.”  I have often heard “God is my co-pilot” or people calling Him “Dad.”  I just think those terminologies are lowering God from who He is. 

God doesn’t have a “gig.”  He has a church, and it is amazing beyond anything that we could conceive or do.  We are privileged to be a part of it.  God isn’t my co-pilot – He is to be my pilot.  My Shepherd.  My Guide.  He doesn’t help me do things, He does them through me.  And while one of God’s names is Abba Father which could be translated as “Daddy,” I think that we should refrain from always viewing Him in that common of a relationship.  Sometimes it is very comforting to realize that God is as close as a Daddy would be, but He is so much more than that.

{I also realize that while Jesus Christ was on earth, He was made like man in every aspect, so that He can say He bore our infirmities.  There is nothing that I can experience with which He cannot empathize.  He has felt and experienced it all.  So He is like us in some respects, and that can also be a comforting fact.}

As I was meditating on this, the thought occurred to me that when we profane God by lowering Him to a common level, we are trying to make Him seem just like us.  We are trying to put God into our terms.  To confine Him in our box. 

Yet as an eternal being, God is beyond us, beyond what we can describe or define or package up.  God is trying to conform us into His image.  He is trying to make us like Himself.  Let’s stop trying to make Him seem more like us, and concentrate on becoming more like Him.

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