In The Beginning God...

Joshua Harris helped me realize one thing when I started reading Dug Down Deep. I realized that I knew nothing of God. I had opinions and have followed other peoples opinions, but I didn't know anything about the God of the Bible. Yes, I've been to Sunday schools and have attended church all my life, I even led youth services before and preached in small groups, and yet I still found myself stuck in sin, and I sinned a lot. And because of my deeds and actions and what I knew was missing in my theology, I agreed with what Harris wrote, let me quote him.

We're either building our lives on the reality of what God is truly like and what he's about, or we're basing our lives on our own imagination and misconceptions.

We're all theologians. The question is whether what we know about God is true.

I knew I was running on my own opinions and misconceptions about God. I argued with Christians a lot all to protect the things that I want to do. The smoking, the drinking, the weed, the flirting, the influences in my life and basically everything that I didn't want to lose when I wanted to get serious with "the Christian life". I defended the constraints that the church goers would frown upon because I thought God was totally fine with it. As long as it wasn't on the Bible, I would always argue that it's fine. I find it funny now because I've always said, in my arguments, that these things aren't found in the Bible even if I haven't read the book at all.

I had my own golden calf, a god of my own. Someone who would give a thumbs up on the desires of my heart even if it meant to lead me elsewhere. I was basing my life on my own imagination and misconception, which was also the issue that the Romans had which led Paul to say "for although they knew God, they didn't regard him as God" (Rom 1:21). I knew God to the point wherein I could repeat what the Sunday school teachers taught us back then, but I never got to regard him as God. Same problem led to same actions, the same dilemma led me to live a life of sin.

And this is where our Theology should start. To get down and get serious with your Christian walk, it doesn't begin with your decision or it doesn't begin with New Year resolutions. It all begins with God. We need to see and capture the majesty of God and we need to know God in a way that we'll be able to join everyone who saw him and drop our jaws in awe. God is awesome, God is majestic, and He can make you drop anything that you're doing to just make you stare at his awesome beauty. I don't know what He looks like, but I'm pretty sure that the creator and the mind that thought of the universe and the beautiful display of supernovas in space would be a million times more majestic and beautiful than that.

The Bible begins with this verse, and thus we shall have to begin with this thought. We need to sit down, forget everything that we've learned from the outside and be like little children all over again trying to know this magnificent creator that created everything else. He shouldn't come at us as someone we need to figure out and fit in our plans, we need to come to the Bible humbly seeking God and figuring out how we fit in His plans. We should see him far above our thoughts and deeds (Isa 55:8-9) and beg for mercy and grace from him bowing down and not act like He owes anything to us.

God is God and we're missing a big part of our lives if we don't get to regard Him as God. The Bible begins with "In the beginning God..." because it's all about God. So I urge you to think about this, have we been walking around thinking that God is someone who owes us a good and peachy life here? Think again, we might be fashioning one out of our own imagination and misconceptions. If we want to know of God let's get back to the Holy Scriptures and find Him there. 

It all begins with God and will eternally be about God for God is God our reward, our joy, our goal, our prize.

Soli Deo Gloria!