Wrong Image
Wrong Image
24 “Then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25 And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.’
Matthew 24-25
Some people have a very twisted view of God. Oddly enough it can go badly in different opposite extremes. The man in this story saw God in one of those extremes. He saw a Lord who is brutal, unjust, cruel and evil. He is a man who fears God and tries to hide and stay as far away from God as he can. In the end he only shows God what he was given. He gives a person, a character that is unchanged. That might not sound completely bad until you remember that our original natures are against God. We all need to be changes to have a better character. In the end, he is lost even though he was within Gods home
The exact opposite person is the one that thinks that God is uncaring, unaware or foolish. They don’t respect God or his laws. They figure that God is such a pushover and foolish that they can live any way they want and God will simply accept them. They put ‘love’ above all but fail to realize that love can come in many forms, both positive, pure and good but also selfish, harmful and evil.
They see God as foolish but don’t realize they are looking in the mirror when they make that claim. They see God as a friend, which is good, but fail to also see his as Lord and Master. This person, like the one in the parable will suffer the same fate. They see the simple laws of God as legalism because it goes counter to their earthly desires which they believe God has to accept in them. They believe that God is love and therefore has to accept all that we do regardless of it being good or bad.
Both extremes occur because we many times create a false image of God. Most times it’s a God we created in our own minds. Only by having a true image of God can we avoid these two extremes. Only in the Bible do we see a clear image of the true God.
God bless,
Pr. Steven Couto