There are literally billions of gods across the world. Why so? Can we just write them all off as the un-Christian ones from other religions?
No, we cannot do this generally dismissive thing because each one of us, it seems, has our own view of God; a remote god or a near god, a reliable god or a hit and miss god a theoretical god or one who walks close to us, a miraculous god or a reluctant god.
Even the Church itself often gives the impression that she is a bit like Noah’s Ark in that those within are going to be saved and those outside it we can declare to be ‘lost’. Thus it is that the church itself becomes its own god and happily usurps the right to our judgement, which rests with Jesus alone.
But these gods are all sub-gods. Why is the one we cling to possibly not the right one? After all, how can we claim ours alone is the High God while we debate his gender to defend our own moral standpoints and have so many unanswered prayers and have so much go so terribly wrong in a world he is supposed to be looking after? Why are we always killing each other, attacking each other’s lands and why does our own sub-god somehow allow children to die of cancer?
Because, dear friends, there is one High God above all these. He is the High God of scripture. Do I know him? Am I in a holy enough place that I can explain all to you about all of him? No, I can’t.
I know, that the High God, the God of all gods, out of love for each one of us, has built a road for everyone in the world to travel down to find him. Each step along the way, we learn a little bit more about him, his presence in creation, his unchanging love for all of us, his plans for us. The road is called Jesus and it is the only road that leads to the High God..
We are not being divinely encouraged to stand comfortably at the turning into this road but to adventure along it.
Come the day of judgement, happily, it will not matter one jot how far down the road we get before our life ends. What will matter is that we have taken but one little adventurous step along this way.
Organised Christianity may well demand we come through certain hoops to gain proper entry into the Ark but God requires something much greater. Public demonstrations of our seeking (hoop leaping) may stand as real and vital witnessing to our journey but, in the end, it is not the number of steps that matter but our adventurous seeking along the road which brings joy to God’s heart.
Subscribe to this channel to get notifications of Kingdom blogs.
Discover more on kingdom teaching — www.ojw.org.uk
