If I Was God

How many times have we heard someone say that?  How many times have I been the one saying it?  It's one of those ludicrous statements we think makes us sound clever; when in reality it magnifies our human failure. It sheds light on the very thing the enemy used to destroy humanity.  Remember the lie recorded in Genesis chapter 3 that we swallowed hook, line and sinker?  "If you devote yourself to knowing good and evil, you will be like god."  Liar!   

That twisted thinking remains our great challenge today.  We don't see things the way God sees them...but we think we do.  Why?  Because we think knowing good and evil makes us like God.  It doesn't.

Romans 9:14-15  deals with this issue.  What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not!  For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion."  (NKJV)

And because we labor under the delusion that knowing good and evil is what it means to be god, God's compassionate promise morphs into something other than He intended. How? By our insistence that His love is reserved only for the deserving.  Our god complex causes us to think He agrees with us.  He doesn't.

We say, "If I was god I'd be merciless to those evil, ungrateful so and so's." 

God says, "I Am God and I have mercy on whomever I want. Your opinion on who is deserving and who is not carries no weight in my decision. My love, mercy, and compassion is extended to all.  I Am God, you are not."

Like Adam and Eve, we are faced with a choice: pursue the things that lead to Life by knowing Him, or continue on the path we were born into. That second option causes us to think being god-like means tipping the scales in the direction of good. 'Good' being based on my definition.  Jesus said it this way, "Why do you call me good?  There is only One Who is good, and that is God."

I've wasted too many years stomping my feet, scratching my head and wondering how God could be merciful and compassionate to a goof-up like me.  May I spend the remaining years celebrating the fact that He simply does.