Redefining God

I thought I'd pass along something from David Platt. I hope it makes you think a bit on this Monday.

Across the country the “faithful” quote, unquote “are redefining God, dissatisfied with conventional images of an authoritarian or paternalistic deity. People are embracing quirky, individualistic conceptions of God to suit their own spiritual needs.” We say “Yes. That is what the culture is doing. No, it’s what the church is doing. We have this dangerous tendency today to create God, redefine God, to be what he want him to be. And really we create a God who looks a lot like us. He’s a nice, middle-class American God. And he looks like us and he thinks like us and he’s comfortable with our lifestyles. He’s comfortable with our self-saturated lukewarm faith. He’s comfortable with our apathy. He’s comfortable with half-hearted devotion to him. He’s comfortable with materialistic indulgences. He’s comfortable with all those things because we are. And we fashion a God who looks a lot like us. Don’t miss the danger here. If this is the case then when we gather together in this room every Sunday or the church that you are a part of, gather together for worship, and you sing songs and you lift your hands out to God, this God that you’ve created, the reality is you’re not worshiping God. You’re worshiping yourselves. And even when we are known as a people who worship in the church the reality is the object of our worship has been grossly mis-defined.