Someone said, “Sunday morning is the greatest hour of idolatry of the week”. He might be right. I say that because many who think they are worshiping God aren’t worshiping the God of the Bible. Man has created a god in his own image, a figment of his imagination. He has created a god that is more like Santa Claus than the true and living God. When you tell them the truth about who God is and what He does and they are repulsed. They imagine a God who jumps through hoops on command, one that they can comprehend and control. They want a god in a box– where they can shut Him in while they sin and let Him out when they have a need.
Even people who acknowledge that there is a God often do not see Him as He is. The only attribute they acknowledge is love, and even then it is tainted. To them He is seen only to give and help, rather than command, control and condemn. They speak of Him as being terrific rather than “terrible” as He is described in the Bible. Even when sin is mentioned it is not generally labeled as such, nor feared as something destructive. Rather than calling it what it is they give it another name or dismiss it as a “disease”.
The Bible describes man as coming short of the glory of God, but that doesn’t trouble the average person. He yawns and shrugs his shoulders as if to say “So what?” Failing to see that God made us for Himself they suppose that He exists for the sole purpose of providing help and happiness for them. If we are to truly worship God we must acknowledge Him as He is described in the Bible, adore Him for who He is, and appreciate what He has done. We have no right to redefine God, so as to make Him pleasing to us. God is what He is and we should never make foolish assumptions about Him. We know what He is and what He wants by what He says, but sometimes that doesn’t match up with what people say about Him.
Guessing about God isn’t acceptable,and even sincerity isn’t sufficient. Our beliefs about God must be according to the truth, not tradition; the Scriptures, not suggestions or subjective experiences; fact not fantasy. Indeed, Sunday morning just might be “the greatest hour of idolatry of the week”. Your “god” might not be God at all. We cannot “worship God as we please”–as people say. True worship must be “in spirit and in truth“(John 4:24). To do anything else you might as well be dancing around a totem pole, worshiping the creature rather than the Creator. If we are not worshiping the true and living God one religion is just as good as another and it is idolatry– even when done on Sunday morning in a church.
