Tuesday, November 17, 2009

God on My Pedestal

A completely casual utterance of Wingardium Leviosa in the office yesterday led to a long conversation that resulted in some very enlightening conclusions.

I hesitate to use the word 'enlightened', because it gives connotations of nirvana, Buddhist enlightenment and whatnot, but I couldn't find a better word for it.

Basically, it was a whack over the head and the loose bulb that had been flickering finally came on.

I realized humanism has a form of godliness, but actually leads down the path of destruction because it is the worship of man as god. Which is pretty similar to all that stuff I've been talking to daddy about (he presenting the side of Buddhism, of course).

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how many hungry you fed, naked you clothed, homeless you sheltered, lives you changed, or how much of humanity you saved if all of that was done with man as the end goal in mind.

Christians do all that, not because man is the greatest, but because God is, and naturally when you love God and worship him, you will come to love the people He loves too, see them through His eyes and value them as He does.
The key difference being that you do NOT worship them ie. place them on the highest pedestal, which is a really sneaky tactic the devil uses (just look at the numbers who have fallen prey to it!).

I have to confess, I was one of them.
Which explains the highly confusing situation I found myself in.
I had God and humanity both on the same pedestal, though in Christian reality love for latter flows out of love for the former. Unfortunately, the tricky line was something that eluded me for a bit.
Thank God, thank God, THANK GOD for helping me to learn that through an unexpected conversation.

"But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.

They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth—men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone."

- 2 Timothy 3:1-9

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