God of Persons

What kind of God do you want? 

It's an important question. When we go back to some of the gods of the ancient peoples (think: Greece, Egypt, etc.), we have all kinds of myth stories about these gods warring it out in the heavens and on ancient mountains and whatever. The primary function of gods was to fight among each other for dominance and, if they had a little time left over, offer benevolence to mere mortals who were stuck in this physical world. 

For example, if you wanted to have a child or harvest an abundant crop, you had to appease the goddess of fertility, who would probably give you good favor if you got it just right, but her actual life was spent dating the god of good cheeses and arguing with the goddess of donkeys. 

These are the gods that men worshiped. 

And it's tempting to want to do that with our God. We understand the realities of spiritual dimensions in our world, and we have some kind of understanding of Satan - of God's enemy. Of the "ruler of this world." Of the cause of all evil. Of the Deceiver. Whatever you want to say about the very real spiritual battle that we're all caught up in. 

And what we want is a God, a Lord, our Lord who puts the devil in his place and comes out victorious. We want to think about a God who is the God of all Gods, who exerts His dominance in the pantheon of the heavens, who keeps showing that He is the Lord. And if this is the God that we want, then our God has to defeat Satan at every turn. 

That's what we want. 

But that's not what God is interested in. 

We get a glimpse of spiritual warfare nowhere more clearly than in the Gospels, than when Jesus (the Son of God) is walking this earth, declaring the Kingdom, and putting demons in their place. Except that for Jesus, it's not about putting demons in their place at all. 

Jesus is never like, "Hey guys, watch this. I'm more powerful than the demons." Jesus never draws attention to the spiritual battle. Jesus never lets the humans get distracted by the spiritual realm. Yes, there are demons. Yes, they are real. Yes, God is bigger than them. 

But God is a healer of persons, not a dominator of demons (Matthew 12:22). So every time we see Him encountering the forces of darkness, the emphasis is on the human being He is setting free. The emphasis is on the boy who isn't going to have seizures any more. The emphasis is on the naked man fully clothed and in his right mind. The emphasis is on the human being created in the image of God who is set free. 

Demons be damned. 

Jesus came to love us. God came to demonstrate His love for us. Not to show us how big He is on the mountains or in the pantheon or whatever other fantastical stories we want to make up about the place where the gods live. 

Our God lives among us, on the same dusty, dirty streets that we do. And when He looks at us and sees us troubled by a lesser being, He's not looking at that lesser being; He's looking at His beloved. At us. 

Because that's where God shows us who He is. In our real lives...the very lives He came to redeem.