Psalm 50:21 reveals one of the reasons why we are prone to sin. It is because we want God to be just like us. We look at mankind and somehow believe that God must be very much like we are. After all, didn’t he say he made us in his image (Gen 1:27)? So our thinking goes along its way and we then see some verses about God being angry. Well we get angry too. We apply logic to our circumstances and know that we can hide things from other people, so we must be able to hide things from God as well. I mean, look at how silent he is about the evils of the world. We have no power over these things so we think God must not have any power over them either. If he has no power over them that must mean that whether we obey his commands or not, things will keep on going just as they always have. We can literally get away with murder because God will not do anything. People who are “sexually immoral … idolaters … adulterers … men who practice homosexuality … thieves … greedy … drunkards … revilers” (1 Cor 10:9-10) have no worries because God has been silent and we think we can make up our own rules. See what happens when we think God is like us?
This idolatry is what got Israel into trouble and it is what gets us all into trouble. The Lord tells us clearly that we better repent of thinking he is anything like him and do what is right or he will “tear us apart” (Ps 50:22-23). How does he do that? He does it by letting us do the evil in our hearts until we essentially destroy ourselves (Rom 1:21-32).
He says we need to offer thanksgiving as our sacrifices instead of all the religiosity that we think God wants. That thanksgiving must be given to Jesus for dying for us because no other sacrifice could ever cleanse us from our sins, our deceitful hearts, and minds that make up whatever we want in opposition to him. Trusting in Jesus for our salvation and letting him renew our minds is the only way we can avoid inventing God after our own image.
No comments:
Post a Comment