A True View of God

A True View of God

And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength… (Mark 12:30)

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. –A. W. Tozer

1^st Things 1^st

-The struggles we face with all the rest of the lies of life flow from believing lies about God.

-What you and I believe about God will ultimately determine what we believe—or don’t believe—about else.

-To ignore or misbelieve the truths about God is to place God in the back seat in comparison to other more pressing things.

-Mark 12:30 ↑ points out that God is not content for us to have any other rivals—God desires and the unrivaled place in our hearts.

-If we’re to love God comprehensively, we’re to know Him unadulteratedly.

Five Commonly Believed Lies About God:

1. God is not a whole lot different from me.

Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. (Is. 6:3)

-We often look to the person in the mirror to take on God-like qualities and to demonstrate God-reserved power (i.e. worry, manipulation, anger, etc.)

-God cannot be to us…He is holy!

-Discuss: What are some things that set God apart from everything and everyone else?

2. God isn’t involved with or concerned with the of my life.

-One truth we don’t usually have trouble accepting: God is big.

-Consequently, we see the details of our life as on autopilot (deism).

-A truth we often look past: God is in the details—no matter how minute.

-Amid the major events conquests like Adam and creation, Noah and the flood, and Moses and the exodus, we find stories like whose details were all maintained by God Himself.

-With God in control, there are no freestanding details in life.

• Luke 12:7 But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
• Matthew 6:28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
• Matthew 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.

-The Christian life is lived by Coram Deo – to live life in the presence of God.

-Nothing is too or outside of God’s care.

3. I can earn God’s .

-This thought originates from a wrong view of man and his goodness.

–Our pushes us to believe…that we can somehow earn God’s favor, that if we are just good enough, God will be pleased with us and accept us—this is the heart of all counterfeit religion and the very opposite of truth.

-Because God is holy and we are sinners, we cannot earn His favor.

-This lie leads to thinking like: “I am saved by the blood of Christ, but how God really feels about me on any given day depends on how well am doing in obeying Him.”

• John 3:3, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

-Our standing before God is based only on what Jesus did, not what we do!

-Discuss: What “strings” do we often attach to God’s love and view of us?

4. There are ways to God.

-Like the disciple named Thomas, many have a “big tent” approach to Jesus—believing Him to be a good man, an exemplary prophet, [a] capable teacher, [or] even a way to get to God.

• John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

-(C.S. Lewis) A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.

-The hope-giving Gospel leaves only one option for our approach to God—Jesus is God and He is the way of reconciliation with God.

5. Church? I can take it or leave it.

-A common argument: the church should be avoided because it is so full of hypocrites—the good news: there’s always room for one more! 😊

-Our pride leads us to see ourselves as , as victims who have been mistreated rather than perpetrators who mistreat.

-Our uniting factor: our sins have been covered by the blood of Christ.

-The church is that place where we are assured of the grace of God, an undeserved gift that assuages our pain and moves us to joy.

-To live church is to cut ourselves off from the thing we need most—the chance to walk together in pursuing Christ and celebrating victory over sin.

-To say, Who needs the church? I just need Jesus. Is like saying, I love Jesus, but I’m not into His bride [or His body].

• Hebrews 10:24-25 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

*For the believer, church should not be optional—It is equipment.

-Discuss: What are some irreplaceable benefits of intentional and active involvement in God’s plan for the believer called church?

Next Week: Commonly Believed Lies About Self

• I’m not responsible for my actions
• Pleasure and entertainment can satisfy me
• I’m the master of my own destiny
• I don’t need Christian friends

*Study taken from Lies Men Believe by Robert Wolgemuth