(See Ten Lies About God by Erwin W. Lutzer; Knowing God by J. I. Packer; The Holiness of God by R. C. Sproul; The Attributes of God by Arthur Pink; The Concept of God by Ronald Nash; Our Idea of God by Thomas Morris.)

What we think about the nature of God is foundational for all else in religion. This doctrine of God is the most important distinguishing trait of who we are as Christians. God is the foundation for all religious notions and practices. These conceptions will affect us deeply, probably more than we have ever realized. There are only two sources of information about God: either man draws up his own image of God, or God reveals himself to man. We embrace the second of these.

Opinion polls have revealed for years that about 92% of Americans believe in God, yet the God we believe in is often not the God of the Bible. Social scientists tell us that there is compelling evidence that each culture creates its own gods. Such gods are often indistinguishable from the culture itself. For example: agricultural people develop gods of the sun and rain and fertility. Ocean people worship the gods of the sea and moon. Americans, obsessed with consumerism and pleasure, have created a god who is tolerant of our lifestyles, lets us be in charge, and serves mainly to help us fulfill our potential. God serves us.

Probably, no one would dare create the idea of the holy, transcendent God of the Bible. This Sovereign One probes our most hidden thoughts, tells us that we must repent, and commands worship that ends all thoughts of personal self-aggrandizement. The Holy Spirit has revealed this God to us from heaven. Our task is to understand Him as He has chosen to reveal Himself, not as we think He ought to be.

"Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God." (Romans 1:21.) This is a most telling passage.

A careful study of the nature of God is essential for the following reasons: 1) We must know the God who is revealed; otherwise, we will re-create a god of our own, 2) The clearer we see God, the clearer we will know ourselves, and 3) The better we know God, the more fervently we will worship Him.

Art Linkletter talked to a little boy on his show, "Kids Say the Darndest Things." The little boy said that he was drawing a picture of God. Linkletter asked, How can you do that? No one knows what God looks like. The boy confidently asserted, They will when I get finished!

What kind of spiritual image do you have of God? What we all think about God is the most important "doctrinal matter" that you will ever embrace. Yet this doctrine is rarely discussed. We assume so much about this; even worse, we bypass it and go to lesser important things. When we do, it reveals much about us and our pursuit of the knowledge of God. J. I. Packer’s book Knowing God emphasizes the difference between knowing things about God and knowing God. The Pharisees failed to understand the "law of the Sabbath" because they misunderstood God. They criticized Jesus for eating with sinners because they did not know God. The Jews killed Jesus because they did not know God. The Sadducees denied the resurrection of the dead because they did not know the power of God. We argue and divide over thousands of religious issues, in large measure, because we do not know God.

A Common Misconception

One of the most common misconceptions of God is that He will be whatever you want him to be, however you conceive him to be. This led Lutzer to write, "I believe in God" is perhaps one of the most meaningless statements we can make today. There are many gods among us in our culture. We have manufactured them to suit us. Thus, the gods we have and worship are idols, if we do not accept the biblical revelation and description of God. Paul wrote, "For though there be those who are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth (as there are gods many and lords many), but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things and we in Him and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things and we by him." (1 Cor. 8:5-6.)

Here are some examples of how men make gods of their own.

Alcoholic Anonymous openly urges those who are addicted to trust in a power that is greater than they are. A pamphlet reads, "We discovered that a key factor in this progress seemed to be humility, coupled with reliance upon a Power greater than the alcoholic himself. While some prefer to call this Power ‘God,’ we were told that this was purely a matter of personal interpretation; we could conceive of the Power in any terms we thought fit." ("This Is A. A.," 1953, 14.) They simply argue that those addicted need psychological help, and this help can come from trusting in any imagined power that is greater than they are. It need not be the God of Scripture. This is simply psychological manipulation.

We should not be surprised that a special Western god has emerged in the last decades. He is the god of my health and wealth. Some claim to have found him in the Bible, but this god reflects American capitalism more than any serious consideration of Scripture. A TV minister’s wife wrote, "The Word of God simply reveals that lack and poverty are not in line with God’s will for the obedient. Allow the Holy Spirit to minister the truth to your spirit until you know beyond a doubt that God’s will is Prosperity." She is talking about diamonds, BMWs, and a new house---not spiritual riches.

It is easy to see how this could be preached in America, but the Gospel must apply in every nation. How would such sound in Haiti, Angola, Belarus, Afghanistan, India or Africa? Does God not love those people as well? Or are they disobedient to God and that is the reason that they are poor? What we preach must be true in war as well as in peace, in poverty as well as in wealth, in life as well as in death.

How can we believe in such a god when Jesus said, "Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head?" (Matt. 8:20.) Paul wrote, "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances." (Phil. 4:11.)

Others have a god of their emotional need. In our self-centered society, knowledge of our needs and ourselves takes preeminence over knowledge of the Almighty. Robert Schuller wrote, "What we need is a theology of salvation that begins and ends with a recognition of every person's hunger for glory. The Gospel message is not only faulty, but potentially dangerous, if it has to put a person down before it attempts to lift him up." According to this gospel, a person’s greatest need is not repentance, but rather to learn how to be comfortable with his true and unique personality. This god exists to serve man; man does not exist to glorify God.

Our emotional needs are met in Christ Jesus the Lord. Being justified by faith we have peace with God. (Rom. 5:1.) The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. (Psalm 23:1.) God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. (2 Tim. 1:7.) God sanctifies us wholly in body, soul and spirit. (1 Thess. 5:23.)

Radical feminists seek to refashion God according to their desires and inclinations. They have created a god according to their gender preference. Some men have abused women and exerted power over them. God is described in the Bible using pronouns and analogies that link him to the male. In order to remove this imagery, they have redefined God as female so that they have a god in step with their feminist cause. Rosemary Ruether, perhaps the leading feminist writer, defines her goddess as "the Primal Matrix, the great womb within which all things, gods and humans, sky, earth, human and nonhuman beings are generated."

Feminists have changed the words King and Father to Queen and Mother. We should all know that God is neither male nor female. But in Scripture, God has chosen to reveal himself using masculine language. There are some reasons for that. First of all, until recently, we could use the masculine pronouns, he and him, in a generic sense including both men and women. Secondly, in marriage God has designated male leadership to demonstrate the relationship between Christ and the church. Even if we do not know all the reasons involved, the Scriptures should not be changed to fit our desires. We must change in order to comply with Scripture.

Others, not willing to allow Scripture to define God, have changed God into someone about like man. Perhaps, one of the worst concepts imagined by man is to think that God Almighty thinks about like I do. This is a most dangerous concept and doctrine. In arrogance, some think that they can speak for God. They imagine that they know exactly what God would do. Listen to Isaiah,

"Seek the Lord while he may be found and call you upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:6-9.)

Others not willing to accept the goodness and severity of God (Rom. 11:22) have imagined that God is much like their kind and permissive grandfather. One woman said to me that the only way she could accept God was to imagine that he was much like her aged father. This is a common and dangerous matter to begin our pursuit of God from below, down here on earth looking for God. We must allow God to reveal himself to us; then have the faith and submission to acknowledge God as God.

Idolatry is worshipping something else other than God Almighty. We have a limited conception of idolatry when we think only about the wooden, stone, gold or silver images of the Old Testament period. The apostle John ended one of his epistles by saying, "Keep yourself from idols." (1 John 5:21.) Why did John end his epistle this way? What did he talk about in this letter that made him end this way? He did rebuke those who rejected the notion that Jesus came to earth in a real flesh and blood body. He called them antichrists. (4:1-3.) This doctrine sought to change what God could and did do. He did send his Son. John wrote, "This is the true God and eternal life." (5:20.) If man does not love and obey God; man will bow down before many different idols or gods of his own making.

Erwin Lutzer writes: "A serious study of the biblical God is counter-cultural; that is, he stands in sharp contrast to all options on today’s spiritual smorgasbord. To be thoroughly biblical is to be controversial. It is to challenge cultural myths that have developed over generations. It is also to be confronted with a God who will not leave us as He finds us. Regardless of how much we have studied the Scriptures, our knowledge of God is always partial---not false, but partial." (Ten Lies About God, 15.)