Ending the God-Delusion
Introduction
This teaching touches on a massive idol holding the Church back from the glorious fullness of her relationship with God in Christ (Eph 3:14-21). This idol keeps us from entering into the rest of God the Lord showed me is essential to sustainable revival (http://cross-connect.net.au/a-prophetic-picture-for-perth/ ). Let me give a few examples of the opposite of Jesus’ promised rest. The Welsh revival burned out with the psychological breakdown of the famed ministry of Evan Roberts (https://www.revival-library.org/revival_heroes/20th_century/roberts_evan.shtml). One morning, years ago, under sustained pressure through interpersonal conflict in a local parish, I cried out for help to Donna because the muscles in my neck were so tight it was paralysed. (I’ve had many minor meltdowns since then.) Recently, I received news that a youngish local leader famous for this teaching had to take extended stress leave. Then I personally witnessed a minor breakdown of an outstanding international leader totally overwhelmed by the demands placed upon him. If there are as many today who have left local Church ministry as are still in it (http://www.jmm.org.au/articles/8061.htm) this subject is of critical importance to the sustainability of a move of God.
Becoming Like God
When the serpent proclaimed to the first couple, ““You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”” (Gen 3:4-5), this ancient deceiver (Rev 12:9) sowed death into the hearts of our first parents. The murder which he committed in “the beginning” (John 8:44) was not physical but drove Adam and Eve involved inward as they appropriated godlike authority for themselves. “God created man in His own image, and man has been trying to repay the favour ever since.” (Voltaire, cf. Feuerbach). From the time of the ancient Greeks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophanes) people have observed every culture makes images of G/gods like itself. God says this about us, “you thought that I was one like yourself” (Ps 50:21 cf. Rom 1:22-23). Spiritually, the root problem underlying burnout/psychological collapse amongst Christian leaders is that they allow, often unintentionally, their “followers” to place God-like expectations on their lives. (Mothers of young children submit to this all the time.) These expectations are impossible to meet. The only remedy for the God-complex is the gospel.
Fully God and Fully Human
If Satan’s grand design was to annihilate the image of God in humanity his ultimate and primary target has always been to undo the perfect union of deity and humanity in Jesus (Heb 4:15). Jesus was NOT like the popular miracle workers of his day, or now! He was not God-on-display as people desired (John 6:15). He refused to perform miracles when tempted to prove himself to divine (Matt 4:3-7; 12:39). The liberty of the Son of God allowed him to quietly draw aside to heal only one person amongst many ill (John 5:2-6). He was an entirely Father-directed zero-driven person who operated free from cultural expectations (Mark 3:31-35; 4:38; John 5:19). When asked for a legal ruling he retorted, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” (Luke 12:14). He was the perfectly free Lord of all. Most importantly, Jesus did no signs prior to the Spirit coming on him at his baptism (Luke 3:22). Later he commented, “if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” (Matt 12:28). Jesus’ holy mind taught him that there was a gap between the abilities of his deity and his humanity that could only be crossed from the side of eternity if he was to be fully human. This is the secret of the glorious rest into which you and I are called as those offered a share in “the mind of Christ” (Matt 11:28-30; Phil 2:5; 1 Cor 2:16).
A God Worthy to Worship
The crucified God who is worthy of our eternal worship is not the “God…God…God…” I hear in many sincere prayers. Nor were the Father or Spirit put to death for us. Jesus is God as a frail, weak, mortal person. This comes across emphatically in his heartfelt prayers; God-as-such need never pray but God in the flesh must pray (John 1:14). “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.” …greatly distressed and troubled. 34…he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.”35…he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36.. “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” … “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (John 12:27; Mark 14:33- 36; 15:34). If the beloved Son in his human form always saw himself in the mirror of the Father’s love through the revelation of the Spirit, he became more and more aware that in walking to the cross this experience of paternal love must be removed. Removed, because this is how he would take on himself the sin of the world (John 1:29; 2 Cor 5:21). This is a crisis in Christ’s human self-consciousness of his Godhood. In the moment of his extreme anguish on the cross and its perfect humiliation Jesus can find no testimony in the Holy Spirit to his human spirit/heart that he himself is God (Phil 2:5ff; Heb 5:8-9). This lowliness is totally incompatible with any human aspiration to “be like God” beyond our likeness to the Lamb.
Follow Jesus Only
The “man of lawlessness” has long been active in “the temple of God”, that is, the Church (2 Thess 2:3-4; 1 Cor 3:16; 6:16; Eph 2:21;1 John 2:18) where he incites God’s children to expect more and more from each other. That these expectations are the work of the spirit of antichrist (1 John 4:3) is evident in the breakdown of outstanding Christian leaders who, despite their godliness, lack spiritual discernment of what it really means to follow the man from Nazareth. When the “meekness and gentleness of Christ” abounds amongst us NOW every satanic strategy operating in our midst will fail (2 Cor 10:1-5). God’s people will joyfully enter the glorious rest the Saviour promised in the fullness of his Spirit (Matt 11:28; Luke 10:21; 1 Pet 1:8).
Conclusion
Jesus has endured the overwhelming burden of all our ungodly efforts to act like God, and to be treated as if we were divine. For the true Son of God in the phase of his earthly humiliation this became totally crushing. In his glorified freedom with the Father as a human being (John 17:5) Christ now offers us the liberty of the sons of God (Rom 8:21): freedom from all drivenness, burdensome personality traits (A type and the like), and from feeling we have to submit to the expectations of others. If in Adam we ridiculously sought to be higher than the Lord, in Christ we can learn to be just who our Father designed us to be. What a blessed relief. I pray that none of us will have to go through breakdown and burnout to discover this blessedness. May we pray the same for others; especially the most gifted.