“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out God hates all the same people you do.”
It's easy to unintentionally expect God to think the way we do and to behave the way we want Him to behave. But that is exactly what the 2nd Commandment warns against. The nations that surrounded Israel worshipped gods that the people had made themselves – images of animals, the Sun, the mountains, etc. in other words, "They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen." (Romans 1:24-25)
In the same way today, the human tendency is to construct God in a way that we can define, understand and control. But in the 2nd Commandment, God tells His people that He is beyond anything in creation because He is the Creator. He is eternally, completely and inestimably unique. So, he says, "“I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols."(Isaiah 42:8)
But still, the temptation is there to recreate God in a way that endorses me. So, we think God must hate the people we hate or He must have the same priorities as us (even when those priorities aren't centred on Him).
That's the problem with Prosperity Doctrine – it assumes God has the same priorities as the World: health, wealth and success. But, God calls us to a life of discipleship that points people to Jesus.
So, rather than create an image of God in our own minds, we should look to the only image of God we've ever actually been given – Jesus: "the image of the invisible God." (Colossians 1:15). Jesus sets the standard and the focus:
- Do we want to know what Gods heart is like? Go to the Cross
- Do we want to know what God's priorities are? Go to the Cross
- Do we want to who how God sees us? Go to the Cross
- Do we need to kneel before Him, ask for forgiveness and recalibrate our lives back to Him? Go to the Cross
I knew a lady once who told me that God had told her "to step out of Church and just be a Christian-at-large." I said, "I've never known God to be inconsistent with Himself before." It's so easy to create God in our own image because then He stops being confronting but it's problematic because He also stops being Lord.
Take some time to stop and ask God if there are areas in your life where you have created an idolatrous image of Him for yourself. Let Him show you, correct you, renew you and bless you. Because, when we get it right God shows His "love to a thousand generations."