Possession to Effectiveness Ratio

I saw this meme shared the other day on Facebook.  I like it because it does have some truth behind it, though not quite the whole truth, of course.

Recently, my wife and I both individually read the book Jantsen's Gift written by Pam Cope and Aimee Molloy.  I bought the book at the Dollar Tree because it looked interesting and you can't really go too awfully wrong for a dollar.  I won't go into detail about the book because I'm bad about making that go on seemingly forever.  So, instead, I'll just say that it was a wonderful book about an average woman from Joplin, Missouri making a very over-average global impact.  I recommend it to everyone.

In the autobiography, the author is giving more and more of her resources towards her mission.  Despite living in her dream house, she began to feel like it wasn't necessary anymore.  It wasn't necessarily guilt that was driving her to make these reassessments, but in her desire to do more and more for others, she came to realize that her large house was actually a large financial burden and large consumer of time.  Their resources were limited due to the extravagance of their spending.

This book had led me to wonder some of these same things.  Seeing the meme above, I almost felt some relief from these feelings that we may not have that dream house that we would like.  I immediately felt like perhaps I could build that dream house guilt-free after all.  But, the feeling didn't last.

I want to live correctly.  Meaning, I want to live biblically.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying that living biblically looks exactly the same for everyone.  I'm not saying that I must sell everything that I own and give away all the proceeds.  What I'm saying is that I want to be effective in what I am called to do.  I doubt that I would be very effective at all in my calling if I were dirt poor.  I would then spend all my time trying to feed myself and my family and wouldn't have time to be effective in my calling.  What I am saying is that I want to be wary of things that are unnecessary to my calling and therefore a hindrance to me achieving the goals set out for me.

I still like the meme.  But, I like it for pointing out the judgement being made on those based off of their possessions.  It also seeks to point out the irony of the ones that make that judgement.  Statistically speaking, households headed by conservatives give 30% more than households headed by liberals, the irony being that it tends to be the liberals who are making the socialist arguments like that found in this meme.

In the end, ones own conscience must be addressed when it comes to personal possessions and their respective calls on their lives to do for others.  Personally, I don't seek the life of luxury, I don't want the life of daily financial struggle, I desire a life of effectiveness. 

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Free Will

The Garden of Eden.  Most people are somewhat if not very familiar with this story whether they are readers of the Bible or not.  For those of us who hold that it is an historically true location and event, we may differ on how we view the Garden in our minds.

I, for one, always pictured it as a little forest teeming with animals of all kinds.  In the center of this little forest was a large beautiful tree plump with juicy fruit that was practically begging to be eaten, despite the fact that it was forbidden by God to do so.  Since, the Bible doesn't specifically mention any other fruit in the creation story, it never occurred to me that there was any other.  And, though it's irrelevant, I also always pictured this forbidden fruit to be an apple.  What a poor rap for the apple.

I blame my distorted view on the many illustrated accounts that I have seen over the years.  It's not to say that these illustrated accounts are wrong.  It's just that they only typically illustrate the tree, fruit, serpent, Adam, and Eve.  The context is completely left out.  What were the surroundings like?  What was the garden really like?

Let's take what we do know and work from there.  God gave us free will.  The Bible is chock full of commandments to choose right from wrong, good from bad, and righteousness from evil.  It never mentions the phrase "free will" but the ability to choose and the responsibility and consequences of those choices is made very clear throughout scripture.

Some argue that God set us up to sin ever since the Garden of Eden.  They'll take this argument to the extreme and say that an all powerful, all loving, benevolent god (APALB god, herein) would not have placed the tree in the Garden nor would he allow "bad things" to happen to people throughout history.

The argument is a logically good one, I admit.  However, the problem with this argument is that it assumes one of two things:  that a free creature can be created to always choose the will of this APALB god OR that a free creature can be created and have all their "poor" choices thwarted by this APALB god.

The obvious problem here boils down to the assumed contradiction.  There is no such thing as freedom without choice.  It's a square circle.  It's a logical impossibility.  One cannot be free to choose if there are no options in which to choose.  One cannot be free to make a choice just to have that choice changed by an external force at the last moment.  The problem of the argument is not in the logic, but rather in the assumption that the logic is built upon.

I've heard debates go on and on about this and I have heard atheists never "hear" the answer.  They accuse of avoiding the question, but it's not an avoidance.  They simply don't want to understand the transfer of responsibility.  They want to illustrate with the question that God is responsible for sin since he created Adam & Eve and the scenario in which they found themselves.  Their logic points to this blame and is only secured by their understanding of God being an APALB god.  And, they're not the first to blame God in this manner, rather Adam was the first to use this logic when he blamed God for creating Eve.  But, notice that God didn't say "Well, would you look that?  Adam, you're logically right.  It is my fault.  I see that now.  Thanks for being so astute."

While God is all powerful, all loving, and benevolent, He is not self-contradictory.  He created a creature with free will and thus must allow said creature to make its own decisions despite the consequences.  Does this make God the object of blame when the creature willfully chooses against the will of its creator?  No.  The responsibility falls on the agent of free will that chose to do that which was explicitly forbidden by its creator.

We understand this very well outside the realms of theology.  Employers are not punished for the actions of their employees.  Lawmakers are not held accountable for the ones who break the laws.  Yet, many people battle internally with the theology of original sin and the problem of evil.

Coming back around full circle, I don't believe that the Garden of Eden was a little forest with a huge beautiful tree in its center enticing the inhabitants of the Garden with it's appealing fruit.  I believe that the Garden of Eden was very large and was full of wonderful and life sustaining fruit of all kinds.  I believe that the forbidden tree was probably sickly looking and small.  It might have only stood out in the sense that it was probably the only tree that didn't look good.  Though, let's not forget that God, Himself, must have pointed it out on the Garden of Eden tour.

But, why did God put it there, you ask?  He put it there out of love.  If God had never provided Adam and Eve the ability to sin, He would not have made them free.  They would have been no more than flesh wearing robots.  They wouldn't have loved God intimately and they would have never known God's intimate love.  The tree was inherently necessary.  And, today, though having been born with a sinful nature, we can all know God's love intimately, too.  But, not until we choose to be reunited with Him, redeemed by Him, and reconciled to Him.  Just like the taking of fruit from a tree, the choice is simple and made available to us all.

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Writing Down

It seems that there is a trend happening here with my blog writing.  Am I tired of it?  Is it not fun for me anymore?  Did I just not have anything worthy to write about?

The answer to all of these questions is no.  I guess, I just haven't been spending that much time on a computer save for the time spent working.  And, I've neglected something that I've really enjoyed doing to make more time for other things that I really enjoy doing.

So, it's May of 2013 and this is my second blog for the year.  While a third of the year has passed us by already, I've set a lofty goal for myself of writing more blogs in 2013 than I have in any other year to date.  More specifically, that means that I have to write 84 more blogs in 245 days to beat my bloggin' year of 2008 with a total of 85 blogs.  I think that should be pretty doable, after all, that's only one blog every 3 days.  But, it's not as easy as you may think.  Don't believe me?  Try it yourself.

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Hypocrisy on Both Sides of the Fence

I saw a re-post shared on Facebook yesterday that brought to mind an ironic hypocrisy among many politically left-leaning individuals.  I thought that I'd take a moment to point that out.

Many liberals decry the existence of the U.S. Naval Base Detention Center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GTMO).  And they do so rightfully.  It should be a universal outrage, no doubt.  How can a freedom-touting country allow it's government to create a prison in which people can be held indefinitely without trial?  It was placed in Cuba, so that the laws and protections of the U.S. somehow wouldn't apply.  And, we're supposed to be ok with that?  It's almost universally understood that the treatment of the prisoners there is inhumane.  Torture of various types has been inflicted.  We know this.  Many have died.  And keep in mind that these are prisoners who have never been given the due process of law, never to have their cases heard by a jury of their peers, never to have an impartial judge hear the arguments, and thus never been convicted.  They've only been accused.  Yet, despite this, they have been imprisoned, beaten, tortured, degraded, and many have been killed.  And, again I ask, we're supposed to be ok with that?

Sadly, on the original Facebook post, I saw many comments primarily in support of the prison.  It was mostly obviously uninformed people assuming the guilt of those imprisoned there.  Really?  How ironic it is that this support heavily hails from those who claim to love the USA and would cheerily accept 'patriotic' as an appropriate adjective for themselves.  These people who love freedom and the protection of rights for all people, yet are simultaneously in support of a government who would strip that freedom and those rights away simply on the basis of accusation alone?  It's not ironic.  It's contradictory.

Worse yet, many of these prisoners have been "released" many times over from the various oversight committees involved citing that the prisoners in subject weren't believed to have ever been involved in the crimes of which they have been accused.  Yet, they've not been let go.  They remain incarcerated.  To date, 166 prisoners are locked up there, 86 of which have been cleared for release.

I would venture to say that the real enemies to the U.S. are the corrupt government officials displaying Anti-American values who allowed this to be created in the first place and the ones currently in office who aren't actively and legitimately seeking to bring an end to it.

That being all said, it occurred to me while reading the Facebook post that the politically right-leaning self-proclaimed patriots in support of this heinous practice aren't alone in their hypocrisy.  The vast majority of the politically left-leaning crowd on this subject is also displaying a gross inconsistency.  While the more liberal crowd is almost unanimously opposed to GTMO's Detention Center, simultaneously they almost unanimously support the legal allowance of abortion.

The parallels between these two injustices are astounding.  Let's look at some from off the top of my head.

• Both are denying the rights to live as free individuals.
• Both are having a sentence carried out while being denied a trial.
• Both involve human beings being treated inhumane.
• Both have the majority of their advocacy by individuals who either don't know what is actually happening in the process or don't want to know.
• Both are advocated by those who support freedom of everyone BUT the individual who is receiving the sentence.
• Both are advocated by people the majority of which wouldn't be emotionally capable of carrying out the sentence if asked.
• Both sentences would be an illegal act in the U.S. if the location of the one receiving the sentence was on U.S. soil.

I could go on if given enough time, but I bet you get the point.  One cannot be against one and not the other.  It's not logically consistent.

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Spiritually Gifted: To be or not to be?

I have been listening to Bott Radio Network for some time, though it's important to note that I don't always agree with what is being taught on the station.  As a matter of fact, sometimes I find that what is being taught is in direct conflict with scripture.

First, I don't mean to write this to discredit Bott Radio or any of the programs on it.  If you're reading this, I don't discourage you from listening to the station, as I, myself, still listen to the station and do enjoy it.  I stand firm to say that I believe Christians, like all people, can and will be wrong from time to time.  We're not perfect.  Though, in speaking our positions publicly, we allow ourselves to be corrected and thus are able to grow in our knowledge of Him, in an "iron sharpens iron" fashion.  I welcome responses to this blog in the same manner and only hope that we, as Christians, can always retain the high standard of respect for others even during times of discourse.  Let us strive to be a people impossible to offend.

So, in that light, I'd like to point out what I believe to be an incorrect teaching that aired today during my lunch hour.  The message was delivered by Ron Moore from South Hills church, located just outside Pittsburgh, PA, about spiritual gifts and and their validity in the modern day "post Apostolic Age."  His spoken message followed very closely to the written one on Bible.org about the same subject.  That message can be found here: http://bible.org/article/speaking-tongues  It's extremely long and makes this blog look quite short-winded in comparison, but in case you desire to read some opposing arguments, I've made it easy to find a prominent one.

Ron says, "There are no apostles today."  He later insinuates that there are no prophets today.  This is implied when he states that prophets related the mind of God to people, and that they wrote the Bible.  He follows this with, "If there are prophets around today then this book (Bible) is not closed.  We believe this book is closed.  God has given us everything He needs us to know."  The bible.org article even went as far to mention Revelation 22:18.  It's placement in the argument would suggest that anyone who may either prophecy or claim divinely revealed knowledge would fall into this snare of trying to add to the Bible and thus adding to himself the plagues recorded in it.  This thinking is very problematic from a biblical standpoint.  If God doesn't give divinely-revealed knowledge, then He must not speak to us.  Unless, of course, when He speaks to us it fails to contain any useful information.  So, they're suggesting that God is silent, unless He speaks to us through His Word, the Bible.  But, that doesn't line up with God's character and His ability and want to have a relationship with us.  He desires to relate and to commune with us.  Certainly, it takes no time at all to find a biblical example of God speaking to someone.  The suggestion that God is limited to speaking to us unless a printed Bible is in front of our faces, makes him no more powerful than any other dead author.

Here, I will inject an assumption.  I think that the catalyst to this message being given was in answer to, or perhaps in reference towards, certain Christians making the insinuation that the attainment of spiritual gifts are a direct reflection of the status of said Christian.  Let me state implicitly that spiritual gifts are no more a reflection of our "status" as a Christian than the amount of money in our bank accounts is a reflection of how much God loves us.  So, I would agree with Ron if this were the point that he were making.  However, it's not his point.  His point is to discredit certain spiritual gifts that he apparently does not have.  His preferred method of discreditation is to deny that they exist by making a case for why they are not necessary.  He misrepresents 1 Corinthians 13 to say that "completeness" has come and thus certain named spiritual gifts have "passed away."

Let me say that it's unfortunate that there are some Christians who do treat the speaking of tongues as some acquired rite of passage.  Though, in my experience, there are infinitely less of these particular Christians as there are those who treat the acquiring of knowledge (number of books read, number of college degrees acquired, leadership position, theological training, etc) with the same degree of pretentiousness.  Still, I apologize for tongues-speakers everywhere if that vibe has been given whether purposefully or not.  And, for the record, not all Christians with the gift of speaking in tongues think that it is required evidence of being "filled with the Spirit."

Back to the subject, Ron defines 'tongues' as a "known language previously unlearned so that those in the audience can understand the message", using the day of Pentecost as the end all/be all concerning the definition of the use of tongues.  Though, he complicates his own definition when making his next point, that the use of tongues is not to be preferred over regular language.  Paul made this clear in the context that people should be able to understand the words that you are speaking to them so that they may know what is being said.  The obvious problem here with Ron's definition is that if Paul is referring to speaking in tongues (which he is) and noting that it's a good thing (which he is) but also saying that people listening won't understand what is being said (which he is), this means that Ron's definition of speaking in tongues is already irreconcilably flawed.  Paul's definition of speaking in tongues would not have lined up at all with Ron's since Paul makes it clear that the purpose of tongues must not always be so that foreigners understand the message as Ron suggested to be the case.  Note that Paul never condemned speaking in tongues, but rather clearly recognized it as a good thing while conceding that it's not always appropriate or preferred in the context of giving instruction to a crowd.

Later, while still trying to reinforce his suggestion that speaking in tongues is not preferred, Ron makes it out as if Paul in Corinthians 14 was saying that praying in tongues is "not worthwhile, not fruitful".  Yet, in that very chapter, Paul encourages all men to speak in tongues while also wrapping the chapter up with the instruction to NOT forbid speaking in tongues.  Surely, Paul would not be instructing the church to maintain a fruitless pastime.  He's not.  The context proves that Paul was referring to speaking in tongues not being fruitful in certain given situations, nameably when presenting instruction to a crowd.

Ron, like everyone else on the subject regardless on which side of the debate they lie, references 1 Corinthians 13 as support for their argument.  I suggest you take a moment to read it yourself now.

Have you read it?  Good.  The discourse ultimately hinges on our interpretation of "completeness" found in verse 10.  Gift believing Christians think that completeness hasn't come yet and that Paul is referencing Heaven and our perfected, resurrected bodies, not to mention being in the presence of the Creator and the Bearer of all knowledge.  Those Christians, like Ron, will point to the canonical Bible as the completeness to which Paul referred.

Personally, I find the belief that "completeness" has already come to be illogical and quite obviously incorrect when stepping back and looking at the larger picture presented to us by the story of creation.  We are nowhere near complete.  The earth is nowhere near complete.  Sin is still prevalent.  Death is still certain.  At best, one could make the argument that completeness came when Christ died.  However, it doesn't benefit Ron to argue this since spiritual giftings came AFTER Christ's crucifixion.

To illustrate my understanding of Paul's idea of "completeness" in 1 Corinthians 13:8-12 I'll explain my take on faith.  I have faith that there is a God, the Creator, the one spoken of in the Bible.  I have never seen Him.  Therefore, my belief in His existence is one of faith.  If He revealed Himself to me in full, I would still believe in Him.  Only, now I would no longer believe in faith, but I would believe in knowledge.  As a matter of fact, 'believe' is no longer an appropriate word, rather 'know' would be more appropriate.  By God revealing Himself to me, my faith has passed away and been replaced with knowledge.  In other words, I don't believe in faith that two and two equal four.  I know it does.

In this light, 1 Corinthians 13:8-12 makes much more sense.  Taken with the context of all creation, it makes much more sense.  I can't make sense of Paul referring to "completeness" being when the 66 books of the Bible were officially canonized.  Everything around us is still incomplete, and, like Paul put it, we're still like children who are unaware of the immensity of the truth of who God is and what He has for us in this life and for all eternity.  We do not have ALL knowledge.  We do all things "in part" because we still live by faith since we have not seen.  I would like to see a teaching on just that alone from these same people who claim it to be the case.  Because, I can't find anywhere else in the Bible that refers to the completion of the canonical Bible as the "completeness" referenced by Paul in 1 Cor 13:8-12.  I missed that verse where Paul said, "As soon as we're done with this thing there won't be any more supernatural gifts, so go heal the sick, unless you're one of the billions of people reading this after we got done, in which case, you can pray for them, but don't expect much."

It's troublesome for me to hear teachers denying the authenticity of spiritual gifts.  Clearly, they were prevalent in the Bible which they don't deny.  But, they use very little and quite trivial "evidence" to supposedly prove these things no longer happen now.  What I find most troublesome is that they put God in a box and replace His creativity with methodology.  Jesus didn't heal people the same way twice.  Why not?  I can only guess that it's because there is no method or equation to God's healing.

Aside from that, by denying that God gives gifts such as healing, prophetic words, tongues, etc. it inherently claims that anyone with these gifts must be faking it, or worse, supernaturally powered by the devil.  Though, irony is not lost, when those who deny God's supernatural activities don't hesitate to apply those same supernatural activities to the enemy, as if God can't but Satan can.  Hmm.

Thirdly, by denying these gifts and in turn denying entire denominations of people who believe God still gives them, teachers sow separation, confusion and disharmony into the body of Christ.  Ironically, Ron uses 1 Corinthians 12 as a basis for his message.  He means for it to show that the gifts of the Holy Spirit "always bring unity".  I would whole-heartedly and without conviction disagree with Ron.  It's clear in 1 Cor 12 that the gifts of the Holy Spirit, in fact, did NOT ALWAYS, bring unity.  As a matter of fact, 1 Cor 12 doesn't claim that it does.  It proves the opposite.  Paul was writing to the church of Corinth who apparently had many members who had been given different gifts.  Paul is explaining to them that the gifts do not represent levels of importance and that no gifts are to be lorded over others with different gifts and that ALL gifts of the Holy Spirit are distributed out according to His will and that ALL are equally important.  The bible.org article attempts to make out that the Corinthians were misusing tongues and that this was the only reason that Paul was presenting written correction.  However, it's clear that MANY gifts were present in the church of Corinth and that the correction they were receiving was that they had incorrectly applied a status or spiritual worth to each of the different gifts.  They had done what people do best and forgotten that they were undeserved gifts from the Holy Spirit and instead were viewing them as earned trophies.  They had forgotten love for one another as well.  I picked up in both the article on bible.org and in Ron's message the insinuation that the presence of spiritual gifts and the lack of love were related.  Though, that's confusing correlation with causation.

Though Ron cites 1 Corinthians 12 to make the "unity" point that can't even be found in the text, he misses Paul's glaringly obvious main point to the church of Corinth (and thus to us today since God's Word is living) that just as there are different parts to a human body and all are useful and necessary, so are the different members of the Body of Christ with their different gifts from the Holy Spirit both useful and necessary to the entire Body.

I feel that God is speaking directly to us here today on this issue and saying to us (through Paul to the church of Corinth) that we are not to think that the distribution of gifts from the Holy Spirit is a reflection of our importance in the body.  Furthermore, we are to recognize that being different parts of the same body, we should "give honor to each part", "have equal concern for each other", and have "no division" of the body.  The hand shouldn't want to be the eye.  The eye shouldn't want to be the hand.  Likewise, the hand shouldn't tell the eye that it should be a hand, or vice versa.

To post Doctrinal statements about "why we don't believe sign gifts are still to be the practice of the church" or to preach messages aired all over the world about how we don't believe that the Holy Spirit distributes gifts like He used to isn't at all edifying to the Body of Christ and specifically sows discord and division in the body.  This is the very thing that Paul was addressing in 1 Cor 12.

I enjoy listening to Bott Radio Network and I will continue to do so.  I will potentially enjoy listening again to Ron Moore on another subject.  However, it's always good to listen and test all things against the truth and safety of scripture.  And as a last note:  God is not some long ago dead author.  He's much more powerful, willing and able than what our experience (or lack of) gives him credit for.

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Audiophilistic Moment

I love music and I do thoroughly enjoy a good quality artistically-composed song.  At unexpected times this love stands out to me and I'm reminded of it all in a wave of rushing emotion and a super-heightened appreciation for every minute sound within a recording.  The ebb and flow of the melody carries with it my full attention for mere minutes, however my concept of time sort of melts away as my internal clock pauses it's relentless ticking to match the tempo of the song.  Then, the song ends.  A new one begins.  The atmosphere changes with it.  And, I find myself wondering why the composer only made the tune to last five minutes.  Though, I suppose our emotions are just as fleeting as the timeframe of the average modern song.  Thus, there's seldom a need to carry on longer than the 4-5 minute standard.

My sound set up at work includes a single computer speaker attached to my work computer on which I play my mp3 collection via Windows Media Player.  Since I only brought in the one speaker, as opposed to the pair, I'm only hearing the right channel.  Sound quality was obviously not my goal, but rather I wanted a simple and inconspicuous set up so as not to attract any potential new prohibition of music in the offices.

Today, I was caught off-guard.  I was listening to Ryan Adams' 'Night Birds' from his 2005 album entitled 29.  This isn't an album that I have given much play, but a certain song caught my ear and I wanted to hear it better.  So, I pulled out my headphones and plugged them into the stereo output of the single speaker.  The song truly came to life as I was able to hear both channels and a nice bass response while also having the opportunity to increase the volume to my eardrum's desire.

The next song on the album was 'Blue Sky Blues'.  It was this song that inspired me to write this blog.  It's mostly compiled of a piano and Ryan Adams' voice, but also adds some very subtle horns, a few almost imperceptible wind sound effects, and some gorgeous stringed accompaniment on the chorus.

It's songs like this that inspire people like me to become audiophiles.

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God Fearing Man

A few weeks ago I took a short road trip to Lebanon, MO, to pick up some hardwood flooring that I found for sale on Craigslist.  On the trip, I flipped through an old CD case of ours that has remained somewhat untouched for years.  I pulled out all the CDs that didn't have any writing on them and decided to go through them to figure out what they were.

One of those disks was full of Ben Harper's music.  Through the CD swap, it had managed to stay in the 5-disk player even after the trip.  Several weeks later, I would happen upon this disk and inevitably find inspiration for this blog.

I found myself listening to Ben Harper's "God Fearing Man".  And, unlike in my younger days, I actually made a point to listen to what Ben was saying rather than just tap my foot through a song, oblivious to its message.  In the song, he sings, "Tell me, what gives one the right to say their God is better than anybody else?  Don't we all have a right to find God for ourselves?"

I'd like to take a crack at answering Ben's questions here, despite the fact that, in all liklihood, they were only intentioned to be rhetorical.  In the first question he poses, he correctly makes it known that we don't all serve the same God.  The opposite (that all religions worship the same God) is a common misconception among non-Christians.  While it sounds nice to say, even wise perhaps, that all those religions have much more in common than they would like to admit, it really only betrays the speaker's lack of knowledge of any of the religions to which they refer since they are all mutually exclusive.  So, kudos to Ben for recognizing that.

Let's go back to answering that first question of "what gives one the right".  The short answer is God.  God instructs us to share the good news.  The good news is who God is, who we are, what He did for us, and the eternal implications of all of it.  So, we're supposed to tell others about God.  For that matter, if He were truly a part of our lives, wouldn't He normally come up in conversation?

Ben is specifically asking about one telling another that their God is "better."  I gave kudos to Ben for recognizing that people in different religions do not worship the same God.  However, Ben, undoubtedly, is leaning on the politically-correct philosophy that no one should discuss God, so that everyone is allowed to "find God for ourselves."  This is blatantly unbiblical, as previously mentioned about God instructing us to go out and preach the good news.  But, it's really quite popular.  It's become such a violation of accepted social norms to tell anybody about God.  And, non-Christians are not alone in the application of pressure to keep quiet.  Plenty of self-proclaiming Christians also feed the big shutup machine.  Bottom line, society and its hush hush policy of all things God is an obvious trade for the respect of people from the respect of God.  Rather than risk offending a person, our silence disrespects God and willfully rejects what He has commissioned us to do.  We are respecting the creation rather than the Creator.  Romans 1:25 - "They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator..."  The irony of Ben Harper's song is that it's entitled and repeats throughout the song that he's a "God fearing man", yet touts this philosophy that is steeped in the fear of man, instead.

To illustrate the big picture and to make an important point I will use the following very common scenario:

Two Christians, Matt and David, are talking at a coffee shop.  David makes it known in conversation that he is having sexual relations with his long-time girlfriend.  Matt points out that it's wrong for David and his girlfriend to be doing that to which David replies that he knows that it's wrong but that they have plans to marry at some point in the future.  Matt asks what measures David and his girlfriend are taking to help keep them living right and accountable.  David reiterates their plans of marriage.  Matt congratulates David for his plans, but asks about what would happen if David were to die tomorrow having been living in sin.  David replies that he believes in Jesus and is saved and doesn't believe that the loving God he worships would send him to hell.

Ben Harper may have been referring to a Hindu or Buddhist telling a Christian or Muslim that their God is better, or vice versa.  But, I tend to think from the collective statements that he makes in the song, that he's referring to anyone telling anyone anything about God, specifically when they disagree on the issue being discussed.  I don't believe that Ben was limiting the possibility to inter-religious discussions.  Ben would say that Matt is telling David that his God is better than David's.  And they are both Christians, right?

The first of the Ten Commandments applies here.  We are not to have any other gods before Him.  I would like to establish that David believes in a different God than his pal, Matt.  My evidence is that David believes in a loving God, but his god is neither just nor holy.  (Forgive me if I'm messing up the capitalization here)  The God of the Bible is loving, sure.  But He is also just and holy.  He cannot let sin go unpunished because He is holy, just and perfect.  To do so would be unjust.  Thankfully, He sent His son to be punished in our place, however, what are we instructed to do?  Repent from our sin and ask for forgiveness.  Repent means to turn away from.  When Jesus was brought the woman accused of adultery, he saved her from the death that was certain to come from her accusers, but he then said, "Go and sin no more."

So, David is purposefully ignoring the knowledge that he has, turning a deaf ear to the Holy Spirit, justifying his sin rather than seeking forgiveness, and altering his image of God to suit his desires.  What David has done is to create his own god.  And, he worships that one in God's rightful place.  This may even fall under the second Commandment which is to not set up an idol, graven image, or likeness.

In summary, it's not that one person's God "is better" than another's.  It's that there is but one God.  He is the Creator of all things, the Truth, the Life, and the Way.  There is no other.  So, we worship Him with our lives, or we don't.

Now, this may sound harsh or "judgemental" or both.  Am I suggesting that our proverbial David is bound for hell?  No.  I'm in no position to make that call, nor do I want to be.  God has immense grace for us (THANK GOD!).  But, with knowledge comes responsibility.  When David, empowered by the Holy Spirit, overcomes his flesh and recognizes his sin, he should repent from it and make changes to his life to help him make better choices.  David may not know that he is sinning with his actions right now.  His relationship with God and, thus, his knowledge of who God is, may not be developed to the maturity level to know or recognize hos actions for what they are.  God has grace for us during this growth (again, THANK GOD!).  But at some point, as we grow and learn, which we all do, we do learn what we should and should not do and we change our behavior according to the decisions we make to obey God or not.  Our walk with god is not static.  We're either growing closer or drifting away.

Ben's lyrics would have it that we can't have this discussion or countless others for that matter.  But, I fear God more than I fear those who may read this.  He wants to know us and He wants us to know Him.  I find no real value in "finding" God on our own versus having a loving, God-fearing man or woman tell us about Him.  If God intended for us to all discover Him with no help from others, He wouldn't have encouraged us to meet together nor would have commanded us to share the knowledge that we have been given with others.

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