I had the pleasure of visiting a local church for Sunday service this morning, and as we were getting ready to pray, we were directed to prepare our hearts for prayer. In the process, the leader said this and I quote, "as you get ready to pray, prepare yourself however you do to go to your God." Now how I took this was to say that however I view God in my own mind, I was to prepare myself to go to Him, whatever that might look like. I am hoping that isn't how it was intended, but it got me to thinking.
How many times do we tend to look at God in a way that makes us feel better about our position or our condition? In times of distress, do we look at God as a tender loving God that will certainly not allow us to go through trials and tribulations? In times of great prosperity, do we tend to see God as Ok with us because life is so good and I'll bet even often times, we forget about Him, because there hasn't been a "need" to go to Him.
We need to be careful about doing this, because God is who He says He is. We cannot make God into something He is not. We must not assume Him to be anything other than what He says in His word that He is. If we do, we break the first and second commandment:
"ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'
TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'
There are literally hundreds of references in the Bible where God says "I AM..." He tells us who He is, we just need to pay attention and stop assuming who He is. When we assume or try to make God something that He is not, we form in our mind an idol, a false God. This is why it is important we come to know the character and nature of God, who He says He is.
We should not be under any allusion that we each have access to our own God, or that we even have a deal with God that allows us to live our lives as we choose. There is but ONE God, He is the same yesterday, today and forever. We either choose to serve Him as HE is or not at all. It is not God that changes, we do.
