Day 08: Planned for God's pleasure

I found it! I lost my book… so traffic has been a little slow on this blog. My apologies for any who have been sitting at their computer waiting for the next installment.

The first paragraph is great and what lots of people need to hear but the second paragraph has the phrase “You are a child of God, and he considers you to be valuable enough to keep you with him for eternity…” and immediately my problem is back staring me in the face. What could be more dangerous that to say to a sick man “you’re healed” when his healing has not taken place? This is really what a suspected that the rest of the book is going to be built on the treacherous foundations of the earlier notions. The statement “you have prayed the prayer and you are now a child of God” is wrong and fatally wrong.

Did you know that “bringing pleasure to God is called ‘worship’”? Nor me. I suppose I I ought to be surprised that the author is more concerned with ideas than with words. His preference for ‘The Message’ is a sure sign. The problem is that if you begin to redefine words no one has any idea of what you are saying. I am reminded of the conversation between Humpty Dumpty and Alice;

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

I’m definitely with Alice on this one. Worship is conscious communion with God. To say that “anything you do that brings pleasure to God is an act of worship” is to seriously devalue the concept of worship. Worship is surrender and not the accidental byproduct of a life which is pleasing to God.

I suppose another thing which unsettles me with this author is his massive presumptions which are presented as biblical truth. This chapter also includes the statement “Adam worshipped in the Garden of Eden”. That, of course, is sheer speculation but presented with the same certainty as many other statements here.

The chapter ends with “That is what real worship is all about - falling in love with Jesus”. This is a horrible mixture of eros and agape. “Falling in love” is something which happens to us, loving someone is something that we choose to do, and worship is choice.