{"id":1342,"date":"2012-10-14T09:00:03","date_gmt":"2012-10-14T14:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.barbdahlgren.com\/?p=1342"},"modified":"2012-10-02T15:18:19","modified_gmt":"2012-10-02T20:18:19","slug":"let-us-make-god-in-our-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/?p=1342","title":{"rendered":"Let Us Make God in Our Image"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Then God said, “Let us make man in our image\u2026\u201d (Genesis 1:26)\u00a0\u00a0 Unfortunately, many try to turn that scripture around.\u00a0 They think it reads, \u201cLet us make God in our image.\u201d\u00a0 In other words they have the misconception that God likes what they like, hates what they hate, and would react the way they would in any given situation.\u00a0 In their minds they actually create a being more like themselves. \u00a0\u00a0Which validates this old saying:\u00a0 \u201cGod created man in his own image and man, being a gentleman, returned the favor.\u201d So popular is this quote that it\u2019s accredited to everyone from Voltaire to Rousseau and even Mark Twain.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

A. W. Tozer says:\u00a0 \u201cMuch of our difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify Him and to bring Him nearer to our own image.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unfortunately sometimes our view of God can reflect our own personality.\u00a0 Introverts might think God is distant and not all that interested in our day to day lives. \u00a0Extroverts might think God is the life of the party so let\u2019s live it up.\u00a0 Happy people might think God wants to give everyone a big hug.\u00a0 Angry people might think God wants to annihilate everyone.\u00a0 Activists might think God is interested in social change, so they join groups to affect this.\u00a0 Pacifists might think God will just let everything take its course, so it\u2019s better to remain uninvolved.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anne Lamott in her book Bird by Bird<\/em> says a friend of hers puts it this way: \u201cYou can safely assume you\u2019ve created God in your own image when it turns out God hates all the same people you do.\u201d\u00a0 This makes the Christian life so much easier because the phrase \u201cwhat would Jesus do\u201d quickly morphs into \u201cwhat would I do.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eventually we must all learn to accept that w<\/strong>hat we think is not as important as what God thinks, because our thoughts are not his thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8)\u00a0 After all, God is God!\u00a0 Since God has given us free will we can choose to believe him or not.\u00a0 We can even choose to make him over into our image, but our inventive mind manipulations will not change him into something else.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Christians spend far too much time trying to align God\u2019s views with theirs instead of striving for the reverse \u2013 aligning their <\/strong>thinking with God\u2019s.\u00a0 It\u2019s a hard concept to grasp but God does not like what we like, just because we like it.\u00a0 God does not hate what we hate, just because we hate it.\u00a0 God does not react how we react, just so we can justify what we do.\u00a0 If he did, we would not need to seek the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5) and be transformed (Romans 12:2).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image\u2026\u201d (Genesis 1:26)\u00a0\u00a0 Unfortunately, many try to turn that scripture around.\u00a0 They think it reads, \u201cLet us make God in our image.\u201d\u00a0 In other words they have the misconception that God … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1342"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}