Ego

Oct 22, 2021

"When Jesus saw that they were ready to force Him to be their king, He slipped away into the hills by Himself."

- St. John, John 6:15

"God created man in His own image and man, being a gentleman, returned the favor."

- Mark Twain

I wonder if you realize just how often and how unknowingly we begin to create God into our own image. After the days of King Solomon, the twelve tribes of Israel divided into two kingdoms - the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. The southern kingdom had Judah and the Temple in Jerusalem where the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was worshipped. The first leader of the northern kingdom, Jeroboam, was jealous of Jerusalem as the place to worship God, so he set up a golden calf in the ancient site of Dan and established a religion that Scripture says, "he had devised in his own heart." (1Kings 12:30-31,33) And the Bible says, "Now this thing became a sin..." It's a dangerous thing when we begin to worship something that is nothing more than a fiction of our own imagination… that is… creating a God in our own image.

It actually happens because how we perceive others is quite often a reflection of our own internal state, rather than a picture of objective reality. I'll give you an example. The other day, I asked Candace if there was something wrong. With a puzzled look she said, "No… why?" "No reason," I replied, "I just felt like something was… ahhh… not right." Well, about an hour later, I asked her again, "Are you sure everything's OK?" Frustrated, she exclaimed, "Yes… everything's just fine with me… but obviously, if you feel there's something wrong, it must be with you!" And the truth is… she was right! Turns out, I was deeply agitated by a situation at work that I could not control, and I was unconsciously projecting my inner discontent onto Candace. We do the same thing with God.

Without even knowing it, we begin to project onto God our own desires, beliefs, opinions, values.

Race car driver, Ricky Bobby, in the comedy Talladega Nights, prays...

"Tiny baby infant Jesus, in your little tiny baby Jesus manger, use your little baby Jesus superpowers to help me win."

When Ricky Bobby's wife tells him he's supposed to pray to grownup Jesus, he says...

"No, I like the Christmas Jesus. The baby Jesus makes me feel good. So you can pray to teenage Jesus or bearded Jesus, but I'll pray to baby Jesus."

A ridiculous example for sure, but it illustrates how easily we can project our inner desires onto God. To put it simply… if I'm often angry, I tend to think God is angry too. If I'm hard to please, I tend to see God as unpleasable. If I'm overly critical, I tend to see God as judgmental.

So, what's the answer to this riddle? How can we distinguish the projections of our own anxious hearts from an objective, accurate portrait of God? Simple: We look to the picture we have of the eternal Word made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ!

The portrait we have of Jesus in the Bible is how you and I are to view, understand, and experience God.

Jesus helps us separate fact from fiction when it comes to understanding what God is like. And the God He reveals… WOW!... is so so so much better than me… And it makes me love Him and want to be like Him.

Every now and then, something happens, and you realize in a new and fresh way how much bigger and better God is from us. Last week during my morning devotions I read this in John 6 about Jesus…

When Jesus saw that they were ready to force Him to be their king, He slipped away into the hills by Himself." (v.15)

What? Do you realize how few people you can say this about? Everybody wants to be king… in love… in politics… in sports… in marriage… in money… in power… in health… in sex… in friendship… at work… at church.

I remember one time I delivered a really good sermon on humility, and I hung around the lobby in church just a little bit longer that Sunday, so people could tell me what a great message it was… maybe the best one ever. Ha! But I'm in good company… in Numbers 12:3, the Bible says, "Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth." That's really wonderful until you realize who wrote the Book of Numbers - MOSES! Yes… I am the humblest man you'll ever know. We even want to be the king of humility. Everybody wants to be king… except the one true King - Jesus!

Don't worship a god who is the creation of your own imagination… they cannot save you from yourself.

Worship the God who came from heaven down into your neighborhood and humbled Himself on a cross to forgive all your sins, and then who rose from the dead to give you an eternal relationship with the true God who rules and reigns over everything and everyone!