God or the devil?

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Permalink Reply by Amanda on September 20, 2014 at 7:36am

There is a unity that we are to have as well as there is a diversity in the Body of Christ. Additionally, it is important that we agree on the doctrines that are essential to the Christian faith.

I like this quote:

“Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers met together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become 'unity' conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

I also like this excerpt from The Knowledge of the Holy by Tozer:

The idolatrous heart assumes that God is other than He is - in itself a monstrous sin - and substitutes for the true God one made after its own likeness. Always this God will conform to the image of the one who created it and will be base or pure, cruel or kind, according to the moral state of the mind from which it emerges....
 
The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. It begins in the mind and may be present where no overt act of worship has taken place. 'When they knew God,'wrote Paul, 'they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.'

Then followed the worship of idols fashioned after the likeness of men and birds and beasts and creeping things. But this series of degrading acts began in the mind. Wrong ideas about God are not only the fountain from which the polluted waters of idolatry flow; they are themselves idolatrous. The idolater simply imagines things about God and acts as if they were true.
 
Perverted notions about God soon rot the religion in which they appear. The long career of Israel demonstrates this clearly enough, and the history of the Church confirms it. So necessary to the Church is a lofty concept of God that when that concept in any measure declines, the Church with her worship and her moral standards declines along with it. The first step down for any church is taken when it surrenders its high opinion of God.

Before the Christian Church goes into eclipse anywhere there must first be a corrupting of her simple basic theology. She simply gets a wrong answer to the question, 'What is God like?' and goes on from there. Though she may continue to cling to a sound nominal creed, her practical working creed has become false. The masses of her adherents come to believe that God is different from what He actually is; and that is heresy of the most insidious and deadly kind.
 
The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him - and of her. In all her prayers and labors this should have first place. We do the greatest service to the next generation of Christians by passing on to them undimmed and undiminished that noble concept of God which we received from our Hebrew and Christian fathers of generations past. This will prove of greater value to them than anything that art or science can devise.

http://www.ntcg-aylesbury.org.uk/books/knowledge_of_the_holy.pdf

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Permalink Reply by Leonard T on September 20, 2014 at 1:47pm

Amanda,

I have read what you posted several times and am not seeing how this connects with what I said that Watchman copied and posted above. Please give me some clarity on the point being made in response to my comment or are you responding to JB's or Watchman'a statements in the above posting?

Lord Bless,
LT

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Permalink Reply by Amanda on September 20, 2014 at 2:33pm

I'm simply stating that both things are true -- unity and diversity --"in essentials, unity; in doubtful matters, liberty; in all things, charity." Author unknown to me
Some things we must agree upon; secondary issues are often doubtful matters, or debatable.

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Permalink Reply by Leonard T on September 20, 2014 at 2:34pm

Yes, thanks for the clarity.

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