Come, Let Us Experience The Spirit of Emotional High Together

Over the past few days an interesting discussion — poured across several different places — has arisen. And it's not even about Rob Bell!

It started, most likely, with a Facebook note by Anthony Weber regarding the book, God is Not One, by Stephen Protero. The note's title is "Protestantism's Scarecrow Faith?!?!?" I learned of it via a comment made by a blog brother, Scott Smith, who further addressed it in his blog, Sarcastic Xtian, in a post titled "A Mindless Faith." Both provide excellent insights and stuff to consider.

I'm going to take a slightly different approach.

Consider †his: the Holy Spirit is not an emotional high experienced in "church."

I was surprised to discover in Google's results for "gifts of the holy spirit" a mention of Isaiah 11:1-5. I was more familiar with the ones found in 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 and Romans 12:1-10. (Thanks to Robert Longham, Jr., for his page, Gifts of the Holy Spirit, which provided a quick reference as well as a balanced view of the whole thing.) Galatians 5:22-23, on the other hand, provides the fruit of the Spirit.

While I could go off on the abuses made involving the gifts & fruit, I'll leave that for another post.

This time I want to tackle the modern notion of shutting down our minds in favor of getting "pumped up" with emotions. Yes, I'm talking about preachers and other leaders who choose to lead in chaos during a worship service rather than teach the word of God!

God has much for us to learn from His Word. We are called to learn sound doctrine so we may encourage those who trust it, and rebuke or refute those teachings that go against it (Titus 1:9). That passage refers to the "trustworthy word," meaning what is now considered Scripture, as we don't have the apostles among us (apostolic succession notwithstanding). Titus was later instructed by Paul to teach that same sound doctrine (Titus 2:1).

Paul's successor in teaching, Timothy, was also instructed to hold fast to sound doctrine (1 Timothy 6:3-16, 1 Timothy 1:3-7). Later Paul warned Tim that people would give up on sound doctrine, choosing a wide variety of teachers that will affirm whatever they want to hear (2 Timothy 4:3).

Welcome to the 21st century!

We have so many "feel-good" teachers that you have no reason to feel bad. Yet so many of us do! That's because emotions aren't permanent. They run & hide at the drop of a circumstance. Emotions aren't trustworthy. Many people feel "up" when the sun is shining, and "down" when it's cloudy & "gloomy." Emotions are often merely the result of chemical changes in our body. I suffer from clinical depression, caused by the inability to create and/or use the neurotransmitter serotonin properly.

Emotions make up the majority of our remembered experiences. This is especially true of women, who are able to use both sides of their brains at once, allowing them to think and feel at the same time. Sorry, men, it makes no sense to us, because we're "brain damaged" and can't do that. Still, how much pain do we guys remember compared to learned knowledge?

God can, of course, heal our hurts, repair our remembrances, and effect emotional changes for His glory. Sometimes, though, we have to be smart … Book smart … WORD smart! We need to know what God says to us so that we can bring Him glory even when we don't feel like it, or when our past experiences "prove" that what we "feel" is "true."

Life in Christ can be a "thrill ride" at times, but that's not all it is. We need solid truth — sound doctrine — to get us through those times when we know that roller coaster of life is surely going to throw us out of our car, hurtling head-first to our destruction … precisely what our enemy, the devil, wants us to think so we won't bring God glory!

When have you "felt" God protecting you in spite of your emotions? Has the emotional high ever failed you? When has the truth you've learned from God's Word rescued you from a bad emotional experience?

"Prove That God Exists!" — God In A Box

One of the comments I got in my recent saga with atheists was a "dare" to prove that God exists. After some discussion, I realize what is probably obvious to most people. There was no proof of the existence of God that this guy would accept.

As I thought about it last night, a "vision" of sorts came to me.

Imagine, if you can, a God Who can hold the entire universe in His hand. OK, we don't really know if God has hands, or that He can hold the universe in one. We don't know what shape the universe is in, or what it would look like from His perspective. Stay with me, though.

Now imagine a man or woman demanding that God "show Himself" to prove that He exists.

The only way that such an infinite God could do that would be to leave His infiniteness and cram all He is into a container, say a box. You could only see God in that little box. The problem is, it wouldn't be God. It would be some subset of God, an aspect of Him that wouldn't be all He is.

Then I saw a place that I'll call "The God Store." This was a place where you could obtain your very own god.

"We have a wide variety of pre-made gods for you. There are the classic Greco-Roman gods, like Zeus, Hercules, Aphrodite — she's for adults only …"

"I don't want any of those fairy tales," interrupts the skeptic.

"Well, we have the one true God."

"Show me."

"Well, sir, I can't. The one true God is so big, you can't see Him."

"Then how can you prove He's here? No, I want that God, but I don't like all of the things I've heard about Him."

"Well, we can customize for you."

"Great! Okay, I want a loving God, one that doesn't send anybody to Hell. He has to accept whatever I like and whatever I do."

"Get rid of justice. That's a common request." The shopkeeper enters that into a computer at the counter.

"I want a God that I can see and touch, one that I know is there."

The shopkeeper removed "infinite" from the list, and added "100% physical" under the "Limitations" category.

"I want a God who will bless me, but punish those who do me dirty." More keyboarding from the shopkeeper.

This went on for a few more rounds, then the shopkeeper said, "just give us a few minutes to produce your god for you."

After a few minutes, a hunk of white plaster appears in a curtained window behind the shopkeeper. It resembled a poorly chiseled statue of what could've been humanoid at one point.

"It doesn't look as nice as the rest of your gods," the customer remarked.

"No, custom orders rarely do. This was made to your specifications, though."

With that the transaction was completed, the statue was placed in a box, and the customer departed.

---

Some time later the customer returned with the ugly plastic statue. "I want to return this."

"What's wrong, sir? Doesn't it meet your requirements?"

"No, it does not. I asked it for enough money to pay off my debts, and to give me a new Porsche. It never showed up!"

"Quite right, sir. You chose to remove 'omnipotence' rather early on in the process."

"When was that?"

"Well, sir, no physical statue can have omnipotence. That was removed as soon as you placed your order."

"It also doesn't provide me any sense of love."

"No, sir, you removed that option as well."

"Don't you have any guarantee for these things?"

"We guarantee that all the items you wished didn't apply to God be removed. For many of the benefits to work, though, several unpopular options must be retained."

"So why didn't my god zap that guy who cut me off the other day?"

The shopkeeper tapped a few keys on his computer. "Oh, yes, that driver. It seems he purchased a god very similar to yours. It allowed nothing to go bad for him. That blocked your god from doing anything to him."

"That's not what I wanted!"

"Sorry, sir, but that requires the Justice option, which neither of you chose to keep."

"Okay, okay. What god do you have that has any sort of real guarantee?"

"Just the one, true God, without modifications."

"Can I read the feature set and guarantee first?"

"Of course, sir. In fact, you may keep a copy."

With that the shopkeeper hands him the Bible.

---

Consider †his: God is God, and we are not. God is not subject to our demands. He is not under our authority. We are under His authority. We can accept Him or reject Him. We cannot make Him into our own image and expect Him to still be God.

God chooses to reveal Himself in ways that are incompatible with our own logic and demands. He has that right. He loves us enough to reveal Himself through the Bible, but even that refuses to meet our rigorous 21st century demands of accountability. Does that make the Bible wrong, or does that make our demands wrong?

God is under no obligation whatsoever to meet our demands. We can take Him or leave Him just as He is. Why not take Him as He is? He'll take you as you are.