Who is God?

I heard a quote recently that had more truth in it then I initially thought. It was similar to the following: A dog looks at his owner and thinks, “This person feeds me, and houses me, and protects me, and loves me… he must be god.” A cat looks at his owner and thinks, “This person feeds me, and houses me, and protects me, and loves me… I must be god.”

 

While humorous, I was brought to think on the radically different lifestyles that emerge out of the two mindsets presented here. The first of course being a life of gratitude, obedience, and joy with the second being a life of entitlement, stubbornness, and bitterness. And while it may be relatively easy to go through life without ever consciously thinking, “I must be god” it is certainly much more difficult, if not impossible, to go through life without subconsciously believing it. I would say it is especially true in this service centered society in which we live where people (or machines) do things for us all the time. But this kind of society also allows us to see this subconscious belief - where we will destroy phones, scream at ATM machines, and curse out slow drivers because “We are god and are entitled to get what we want!!!”

 

This is why the first step to get out of this mindset is to realize and fully believe that “we are not god.” Yes, we have a lot of things that nearly fulfill our every wish. Yes, we have people all around us who constantly serve us but the only reason that we have any of this is because other people took pity on us and helped us. It started when we were born into this world as a helpless infant and it has continued to this day. If other people did not take pity on us and help us nothing that we have accomplished would have been possible. We just don’t often realize it, as Dallas Willard explains, "People often do not want to accept that they can only live on the basis of pity from others, that the good that comes to them is rarely 'deserved.'"

 

I say this is the first step because I think coming to this realization produces a question. And that is, “If I am not god, then who is?” or in other words “If I am not meant to live for myself, then who am I meant to live for?” And while there have been many answers given to this question I agree with what the Bible says in Deuteronomy 4:39, “Know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.” There is one God and He is who we were all meant to live for.

The Lord has given us everything that we have – He has given us the ability to work, eat, sleep, laugh, and play. He is the ultimate provider and the giver of life. The question is how will we respond? Will we presume that this life that has been given to us is our own, that we are god? Or will we “ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name” and live a life of gratitude, obedience, and joy unto Him? This is the good life that God wants for us and the life that Christ calls us to with the words, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”