Archive for November 16th, 2009
Your Mental Picture Of God!
Western Christianity is so caught up in doctrine, dogma, and other distractions that we can’t see the spiritual forest for those damn trees that are in the way! Do you believe this or do you believe that? Are you a deist, theist, or open theist? Are you even a theist at all? And in the midst of all the religious posturing we miss the pictorial backdrop that’s the stern in our spiritual waters.
Let me submit and suggest to you that your mental picture of God is far more important than your theology.
I know that sounds new age doesn’t it. In fact everything that “your theology” doesn’t agree with sounds like new age, heretical, or cult based. God knows that YOU hold and know the TRUTH and anyone who disagrees must need your prayers. There are so many poor and deceived people out there in the world. Laying all that aside though, what’s your IMAGE, your VIEW, your PICTURE of God outside of all the theological clap-trap?
The most important aspect of FAITH is your mental picture of God!
As Gregory Boyd wrote in his book, Is God To Blame, “The way we actually envision God may not be reflected in the theology we articulate. When asked what we THINK about God, we may recite all the orthodox attributes- love, omniscience, omnipotence- while entertaining a mental picture of God that is unloving and severely limited.” Bingo!
I know many people who know the Bible inside and out, exegete the word intellectually, have memorized vast portions of Scriptures, comprehend Hebrew, and can recite Strong Concordance definitions and numbers with precision. And yet those same people see God as one to dear, vengeful, and while tolerant, there’s a limit to his patience. Go beyond God’s tender loving, compassionate, and merciful line and you’re off to HELL for ETERNITY!
Worse yet! Some of those same people SEE God as the author of pain, bringing suffering, and otherwise a very strict disciplinarian (all for our benefit of course).
Me? I awaken every morning to a loving Father, and I can’t wait to thank him for loving me. I ask him (the I Am that is within me of course) what experiences he’d like to have that day? God experiences LIFE through his creation. For me, God is LOVE. While I know God is SPIRIT, living WITHIN me, and transcending space and time, my mental picture of God is so damned GOOD I can hardly contain myself.
But, I’m working on it! And, you? 
As a spiritual-futurist, I have a BA degree majoring in history. One cannot know the future without knowing the past which holds clues to what is on the horizon. The world is in such a rapid expansion of knowledge that we are close to entering a tipping point that will forever change earth as we know it.