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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman What
God? As I have heard for
decades, I have heard it all again this second last week of January, 2025.
When I hear politicians, religious and ethnic leaders of all
stripes claiming to be persons of faith as they pray to God, thank God,
and believe God is blessing them, I ask; "What God?" When I hear politicians
claiming belief in God when their lives fail to prove their claim, I
question what God they believe in. When
I hear various world religious leaders standing together in unified
corporate prayer to God I question what God they are praying to.
Similarly, I sometimes wonder what God some Christians are actually
talking about. Back in 2005 I surveyed
some church meetings by counting how many times God was mentioned in
relation to how many times Jesus was mentioned.
In one gathering of Evangelical churches that lasted ninety
minutes, for example, the name Jesus was never spoken except in the hymns
we sang. It was all about God.
So I asked; "What God?"
Let's be clear.
Christians believe in, pray to, and serve the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 15:6, 2
Corinthians 1:3, 11:31, Galatians 1:3, Ephesians 1:3, 6:23, Philippians
1:2, Colossians 1:3, 1 Peter 1:3). I
now ask; "Who is Jesus?" According to Hebrews 1:2
and 3 (NIV) Jesus is God's Son "whom he [God] appointed heir of all
things, and through whom also he made the universe ... is the radiance of
God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all
things by his powerful word..."
Jesus in fact while on
earth was God in human form and right now is God in a heavenly form whom
we fail to fully comprehend. If,
then, you remove Jesus from God, you believe, serve, and pray to another
god who is not God, making your claim to be Christian a false claim.
As Christians living in
a multi-cultural religious world we must never reduce our God to a
"one god fits all generic god" by leaving Jesus out of the
Trinitarian equation. If we
do, the world will fail to know what God we believe in, pray to, and
serve. They may think our God
is their generic god, and He is not. We'll
also fail to represent God who has authorized Jesus to send us into the
world to promote Him and His gospel.
When I see a politician
or a so-called person of faith speaking of God yet living like the devil,
I ask; "What God?" Am
I being judgmental? No, I am
not. Jesus said that we will
recognize true Christians by observing the righteous fruit of their lives
(Matthew 7:16 - my paraphrase). Jesus
also did not say we must not judge. He
told us not to pronounce hypocritical judgments (Matthew 7:1-6) but
righteous judgments (John 7:24). For me, I believe in,
pray to, and serve the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Hopefully you don't need to ask "what God" when reading
my articles. Postscript
To learn about my view
on judging, you can buy my book "Clarifying Biblical Judging" on
all Amazon sites. Scripture
Reference (NIV) 2 Corinthians 1:3 "Praise be to the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the
God of all comfort," 2 Corinthians 11:31 "The God and Father
of the Lord Jesus, who is to be praised forever, knows that I am not
lying." Matthew
7:5 "You
hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will
see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye."
John
7:24 "Stop
judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly."
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