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“If your god never disagrees with you, you might just be worshiping an idealized version of yourself” (Tim Keller). It turns out that the gods people design in their minds think pretty much like the people themselves. Here are five ways people go about designing their own god to worship.
1. They dismiss the existence of God.
People put it out of their minds that one true God could possibly exist who created them and upholds certain standards they must keep. The gods of people’s imaginations don't have any problems with their personal beliefs and actions. Thinking this way won’t change anything about the real God, but it will affect a person’s current and eternal relationship with him.
2. They decide what their deity should be like.
People give the god of their design the attributes and powers that they think he/she/it should have. They also decide what qualities they don’t want their god to have, including the right to require anything of them that they would prefer not to do.
3. They judge for themselves what should happen after they die.
Many people choose to believe in an afterlife that appeals to their own personal sense of what is fair and just. If they don’t like the Bible's teaching regarding the reality of hell, they may design in their minds an eternity where everyone gets to live in some kind of paradise—except, of course, for the really bad people.
4. They discount evidence of God in creation and the Bible.
People look away from God’s revelation of himself in creation and the Bible and choose to believe alternate explanations regarding how the world and humans came into existence. Even though the earth is filled with countless varieties of creatures and elements that all point to an ultimate designer, many people choose to attribute the world’s existence to happenstance. Instead of investigating the truth claims, historical accuracy, and divine inspiration of the Bible, they prematurely dismiss Scripture as mere writings by men that are a mixture of truth and fable.
5. They choose to be the ultimate authority in their own life.
Self-ruling people refuse to bow the knee to their Creator. They insist on being the masters of their own ships without ultimate accountability to anyone—except their own will.
God wants—and commands—everyone to worship him alone (Deut. 6:13; Luke 4:8). The gods of our imaginations have no power to love or rescue us from anything, including ourselves. Seek to know and love the one true God who created us in his image, and sent his Son into the world to redeem us and restore us to a right relationship with him.
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Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope That Matters by Timothy Keller
This adapted article was originally published at corechristianity.com.
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