I have a wife. Her name is Dana. I lover her deeply and she has many other people in her life who love her and seek her out in friendship. Now, suppose I run into you at the supermarket and you begin telling me how much you love and admire Dana. You go on and on about how she is such a wonderful dancer, how you can’t believe her skill as a swimmer, and how you are jealous of her tightly curled black hair. At this point I have to stop your flow of praise for Dana. Dana is a phenomenal pianist, she has a beautiful singing voice, she has a heart full of compassion for others, and she always floors me with her grey/blue eyes. She is not, however, the greatest dancer, she doesn’t particularly enjoy swimming, and she has wavy, brown/blond hair – its not black or curly! I gently correct you about your misconceptions and make sure to tell you about her other great qualities, but you persist in praising her for her swimming skills and her curly black hair. “Maybe we’re not talking about the same Dana,” I suggest, but you are adamant that my wife is the person you are talking about. If this situation had really happened, your praise for Dana would be worthless and empty because it would be based on a poor conception of Dana. You might say you were giving her encouragement and praise, but in reality you were not praising Dana at all. There are plenty of good reasons to admire her, but you don’t know any of them. You claim to know Dana, but you don’t know her at all. You only know your idea of Dana.
This same type of confusion happens within the Church. Many people call themselves Christians. They attend church, pray, read the Bible, serve in various ministries, and live morally, but when they come to worship God their attitudes and actions are meaningless, worthless, and empty. Now, don’t begin to think this is because their heart isn’t in it, like they’re just going through the motions and so the ritual becomes meaningless. No! A person’s heart can be completely invested ino worship, but their worship is worthless if their concept of God is wrong – based on something other than how God has revealed himself in scripture. J.I. Packer in his book “Knowing God” writes,
How often do we hear this sort of thing: “I like to think of God as the great Architect (or Mathematician or Artist).” “I don’t think of God as a Judge; I like to think of him simply as a Father.” We know from experience how often remarks of this kind serve as the prelude to a denial of something that the Bible tells us about God… At best, they can only think of God in the image of man – as an ideal man, perhaps, or as superman. But God is not any sort of man. We were made in his image, but we must not think of him as existing in ours. To think of God in such terms is to be ignorant of him, not to know him. (47,48)
These words are challenging for us. Even as I write this my gut is rebelling against me, telling me not to be such a hard-liner. Surely God is merciful! Surely he looks at the heart of a worshipper and judges based on intention! My gut wants me to believe that God judges our worship based on the heart, but that is only half true. God indeed judges the heart, but he also judges the head. True worshippers of Christ must worship Him in spirit (heart) and truth (head) (John 4:23&24).
We can see this truth played out in the book of Exodus. In chapter 32 the people of Israel tire of waiting for Moses to come down from meeting with God on the mountain, so they go to Aaron and say to him “Make us gods who shall go before us.” So Aaron tells them to give him their gold and he fashions a golden calf and proclaims the next day “a feast to the LORD.” Growing up, I heard this story and assumed that Israel consciously abandoned the LORD, Yahweh, to worship another God – the golden calf. But that’s not what Aaron says. He fashioned the golden calf and commanded Israel to worship the LORD, not a different god, but a horribly wrong idea of Yahweh. “And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings… “ To Israel, they were worshipping the God that had brought them out from slavery in Egypt, their hearts lifted in worship, but God almost destroyed them in his anger at their perverted praise. We see this happen again in the New Testament, when Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem riding on a donkey. Crowds worshipped him that day, crying “hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” (Mat. 21) But they were not worshipping the Jesus who came to cleanse us from our sins, they were looking for a king who would deliver them from the Romans. Luke tells us that when Jesus drew near to the city he wept over it because it did not know “the things that make fore peace” (19:42). Days later, the crowd that had cried “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” shouted, “crucify him.” They were worshipping God, but they were not worshipping him for who he truly was. They worshipped their idea of the Messiah, not the Messiah. Their worship was empty and faded quickly. They did not see Jesus as God’s messiah who would make peace between God and man and their misconception of Jesus caused him much sorrow.
People of God, in light of these examples, we must examine ourselves! How easily we could fall into the same trap as the Hebrews, worshipping a misconstrued idea of God instead of the Lord of scripture. Who is God to you? Do you think of Him as a god who would not let you suffer hardship, or trials, or hell? Is he here just to make us feel good when times get rough? Is he merely the reason we use to get together and experience community? Is he just the thing we use to keep our families to behave morally? Do we really know God? Do we strive to worship Him for who he really is, or are we content to pacify ourselves on our incomplete or misguided conceptions of Him? Which god do you worship?
At this point the logical question to ask is, “what now?” or perhaps more specifically, “How do we begin to truly know God?” No doubt, a long and in depth answer is needed to answer the question of how to know God, but the answer I will give here is simple: seek Him in his word and you will find Him. Too often we view the Bible as a history book, a self-help guide, or a manual for life, but at its core the Bible is the God of the universe revealing himself to His children. I said the answer was simple, but I did not say it was easy. We cannot just read the scriptures – we must study the Word and prayerfully plead with God to open our eyes to see Him more clearly. Oh how we desperately need to know Him – to worship God in spirit and in truth, abandoning our poor ideas of Him for the fuller picture given to us in His Word! Will you join me in striving to know our God?
