Our God

Our God is greater

Our God is stronger

God you are higher than any other

Our God is Healer

Awesome in power

Our God.

--Chris Tomlin, "Our God"

The latest religious trend in America right now is tolerance. Now I agree with tolerance, because I think a forced faith is a fake faith. I don't think we can terrorize people into believing what we do. But I don't agree with tolerance in the same way that most people do. To me, tolerance is not saying, "well I think I'm right, but then again you may be right." And it is certainly not, "everyone's religion is right" To me, that is a lack of faith.

I've talked to people on the lines of salvation before. They ask me if I believe that if someone doesn't accept Jesus as Lord they are going to Hell. I always say yes and they always become furious. "How arrogant do you have to be to believe that out of all the religions yours is correct?"

This is an arrogance I can be proud of.

As the song goes. Our God is greater. That is my response to every mythology, every false doctrine, every idol, every worldly pleasure. Our God is greater and higher than any other (yes that means yours Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Atheists, Pantheists, etc...) He is awesome in power, He is love, He is Healer, He is Saviour, He is Merciful.

I ought never to brag on myself, yet I do. I don't know why. It's God I should be arrogant (though I believe arrogant is the wrong word) about. It's Him that I should brag on. It's a problem I've had for a while. We all want to be the hero of our own story. Jesus Christ was the greatest Hero of all time and if we submit to Him we become part of the body. We become heroes, but we become heroes in HIS story. It's the only story worth being heroic for. Worth risking everything and offering everything for. It requires bravery.

The world will try to tell us that we are adherents to only one possible solution in the great jigsaw puzzle of salvation. But they are wrong. They are wrong and we are right. If you know me, you've heard me say that before, "I'm wrong, you're right." This time, however, I am not trying to confirm my merely human stance on an argument, but I am defending the very sovereignty of God Almighty. The One, the Only.

We can be famous for any number of things, but as that pioneering Christian rock band Audio Adrenaline said, We're "never gonna be as big as Jesus." What are we doing to look out for His reputation? If you are a CHRISTian you are wearing His name. How are we truly proving that our God is greater? Are we proving it by looking like the rest of the world? I don't know about that. We can't really defend God, He needs no defense, but we are in many ways responsible for His reputation here on planet Earth. We are the body.

A Christian author I admire by the name of Philip Yancey wrote a book addressing the question, "Where's God when it hurts?" He summed it up extraordinarily well when he said, "the answer to that is another question, 'Where's the church when it hurts?'"

Our God is truly greater, but we aren't showing it. Other religions are. Mormons and Jehovah's Witness get evangelism, Muslims understand passion and being radically dedicated to their faith to the point of death, Hindus and Buddhists understand self-denial and leaving behind the love of this world. What do we understand?

I think there is much hope. That's understandably odd of me to say after a long string of critical responses to the American church and Christianity. I'm seeing more books and more pastors and more congregations becoming dedicated to the Gospel of the Bible. I'm in that backpedaling area also. Trying to brush off all the dust and debris of last decade's dumbed-down doctrine. I've never been Old Faithful. I'm no geyser I'm afraid. I've always kind of had to sputter and wheeze before I get any significant waterworks.

I just so believe in a body of believers that are not dipping their toes in the pool but diving in. With full-blooded heat or maniacal cold (whichever way you personify a sold-out Christianity just so long as it isn't lukewarm). We have to live like our God is the only God, greater than anything. We have to live courageous stories and know that if our God is for us, then who can be against us? Who can ever stop us?

Citizens, we have got to believe that.