An Idolatrous Conception of God

     The Bible’s concept of God:  One (Ephesians 4:6).  Our Creator (Genesis 1:27).  Omnipresent (1 Kings 8:27).   Omniscience (1 John 3:20).  Omnipotent (Job 42:4; Jeremiah 32:17).  Eternal (Psalm 90:2).  God of love (John 3:16).  Judge of mankind (John 8:50).   These only begin to describe the attributes of the God of Heaven.   God has expressed His truth (2 Timothy 3:16-17) and He expects us to honor it by obeying it. 
     Christianity is not a shopping mall or an online marketplace where we can shop and purchase whatever suits us or satisfies our desires religiously!  Tragically, Satan has been successful in sowing the seeds of false teaching and division and the harvest is man-made denominational churches. 
     Denominational idolatry patterns itself after the idols of old where each idol had divergent attributes.  Denominations have differing doctrines, creeds and disciplines and therefore have their own god.  The God of the Bible has one body of truth / doctrine (2 John 9-11) and cannot be the God of the thousands of diverse denominations and world religions!  The destructive advice that promotes the “Church of your choice” is essentially saying “the god of your choice.” 
     Moses and the children of Israel found many idol gods in Egypt.  This serves as an example of man creating his own god through his own ideas and beliefs.  John J. Davis observes: 
The Egyptians were just about the most polytheistic people known from the ancient world. Even to this day we are not completely sure of the total number of gods which they worshipped. Most lists include somewhere in the neighborhood of eighty gods. As William Ward observes, "The many gods of Egypt acquired a variety of attributes and the many statements about them in the literature often make it impossible to describe a specific deity in logical terms." This confusing situation is a product of a system known as syncretism in which one god may assume the name and attributes of two or three other gods. As time went on the associations became more complex and intertwined (Moses and the Gods of Egypt, p. 94). 
     The tendency to follow after other ways instead of God’s has always been a source of trouble for man.  “Yet they would not listen to their judges, but they played the harlot with other gods, and bowed down to them. They turned quickly from the way in which their fathers walked, in obeying the commandments of the Lord; they did not do so” (Judges 2:17).  While many denominations claim to be acknowledging and following the God of the Bible, they deny that practice through their varied and conflicting doctrines.  God’s Word reminds us:  “If it is not the Lord who builds a house, the builders are wasting their time” (Psalm 127:1).  “For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints” (1 Corinthians 14:33).  Christ is the builder of only one church (Matthew 16:18. 18).  He purchased only one church with his blood (Acts 20:28). He is the head of only one church (Colossians 1:18). He is the final savior of only one church (Ephesians 5:23). 
 
Steve Miller