We Can't Change God, But He Can Change Us

We can't pick and choose which parts of God we like...
 
It’s popular on cooking shows for chefs to serve “deconstructed” dishes highlighting the separate ingredients of a recipe. 

It’s also popular in some sectors of Christianity to serve a “deconstructed” God. However, instead of highlighting each separate aspect of God’s character, they leave some aspects off the plate altogether. 

Just as strawberry shortcake without the strawberries can’t legitimately be called strawberry shortcake, a god built on half-truths cannot legitimately be called God.

We can't serve people God's grace without His truth, His love without His commands, His forgiveness without His justice, or His salvation without His wrath (John 1:14-17). 

Half truths about God make people feel warm and fuzzy. But half-truths won't save their souls or bring genuine change to their hearts.

The True God isn't popular because He forces us to face our sins (John 3:19-20; Acts 3:19).

But He is our God and we are proud of Who He is. God doesn't need to deconstruct Himself to please people (Hebrews 13:8), so let's present Him as He is.

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You might also enjoy reading "Have Christians Forgotten How Much God Hates Sin?" and "A Healthy Fear of God" and "Reviews of "The Shack's" Deconstructed God" and "Why Hoping All Men Will Be Saved is Unbelief."

Bible Study

We cannot truly know the grace of God unless we also know His wrath and His truth. His truth explains, among other things, the serious nature of our sin. His wrath explains what we deserve and what we have been spared through Jesus.

Truth

John 1:14-17: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  

The Greek word used for truth in this passage is alétheia and it is defined this way: “truth, but not merely truth as spoken; truth of idea, reality, sincerity, truth in the moral sphere, divine truth revealed to man, straightforwardness.”

Strongs explains it further: "the truth, as taught in the Christian religion, respecting God and the execution of his purposes through Christ, and respecting the duties of man, opposed alike to the superstitions of the Gentiles and the inventions of the Jews, and to the corrupt opinions and precepts of false teachers even among Christians.” 

See "Are We Ashamed of God?" 

We cannot experience God's grace without experiencing His truth and one aspect of that truth is His wrath:

Wrath

How can we appreciate a god who saves us from nothing? God's wrath assures us that we have received the greatest gift of life and eternity through the shed blood of Christ.

Romans 5:9: Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!

Romans 1:18: The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness...

The Greek word for wrath is orgé.

Definition: “anger, wrath, passion; punishment, vengeance” 

Remember that God’s vengeance is not the same as man’s revenge. God is justified in everything He does. See "Deadly Revenge."
copyright 2017, Gail Burton Purath, BiteSizeBibleStudy.com