In Our Image

“Then man created gods in their own image. In their own image they created them, and some even called them ‘father’, ‘jesus’ and ‘spirit.’ And they said “let us make them love the things we love, and value the things we value, want the things we want, and think the way we think. In this way we need not change ourselves to worship them.”’

What are the idols of today? To whom are our modern children being offered as a sacrifice? 

America's idols are understandably being associated with the most common existing understanding of the supreme being in America, namely “God” and “Jesus.” The result is that people of all stripes and beliefs are pouring their own idolatrous desires into characters they name as "Jesus." You hear this whenever someone speaks about the character of Jesus without actually having studied the Jesus revealed in the New Testament documents. You hear it all the time when people say “the Jesus you are talking about doesn’t look anything like the Jesus I believe in!” Or saying “Jesus was just about loving people, NOT telling them how to live their lives” and the like. 

Abraham Lincoln supposedly has remarked “How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.” I love that guy, such a clear thinker. 

Today, more than ever before, people are calling idols which they have crafted according to their own desires and image by the names of "Jesus" and "God". The use of the name "Jesus" in no way ensures they you are talking about the God who revealed himself in flesh and left a written testimony (the New Testament) for future generations through inspiration of His Spirit. 

Satan’s attempt at deception is very simply to return to lying about Jesus. This is nothing new, of course, as most of the New Testament letters were written in response to lies that were going around about Jesus. The funny thing is, those letters which were originally used to ensure people of the truth and refute the lies about Jesus are the very same letters which today are now being pushed aside and ignored because “they don’t look like Jesus to me”! Astonishing! History has literally repeated itself and most are too engrossed in their idolatry to realize the supreme irony. 

Jesus predicted such days would come. “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.” — Matthew 24:4-5. 

Pluralism encourages the false belief that all variations of "Jesus" are equally valid, but such a view is entirely incompatible with the Bible itself. At the end of the day we have a simple choice. Will we believe in Jesus as He is presented in the Bible, including the parts we don't like today, including the parts which dash to pieces our notions of what it means to be a human? Or, will we erase the challenging parts and instead carve a new Jesus using only the parts that we want to be there,a Jesus who approves of our “identity” as we are without calling us to something greater, a Jesus formed in our own image? 

The choice is ours. God gives you and me the ability to choose Him freely so that those who truly love Him would find Him, and those who truly love self would stay in their own delusions and though ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand' (Luke 8:10). 

If you still are not convinced that we can create idols using the name of Christ check this out. “We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” — 1 John 5:19-21