Sometimes God lets you hit rock bottom so that you will discover He is the Rock at the bottom.
These systems attempt to box God into a government confined within the perspective of man. Yet when humanity is used as the starting point for interpreting and interacting with God's creation, faulty theology and sociology emerge as mankind attempts to fashion God into the image of man.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques systems that limit the understanding of God to human perspectives, leading to flawed beliefs and societal structures.
Tony Evans reflects on the dangers of interpreting God through a purely human lens, suggesting that such an approach restricts divine understanding and can foster erroneous beliefs and social systems. When humanity takes center stage in understanding God's creation, it often results in a misrepresentation of God, as humans may be tempted to reshape the divine in their own image rather than acknowledging a higher, unconfined intelligence.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a sermon on spiritual integrity, this quote can be used to caution against anthropocentric views of God.
More from Tony Evans
All quotes →A kingdom man is a man who visibly demonstrates the comprehensive rule of God underneath the Lordship of Jesus Christ in every area of his life.
Peace doesn't mean that you will not have problems. Peace means that your problems will not have you.
Government can run and fund programs, but it can't love, it can't show compassion, and it can't embrace. Our faith is designed to have social implications, not just heavenly ones. The spiritual and the social must be connected.
The reason so many believers are struggling is that we have voted in the past asking God to bless our plans rather than casting our votes based on seeking His agenda. We want God to sign off on our decisions rather than us following His.
Every four years, the eyes of America become riveted on the national election returns. But God's first concern during any political season is not the same as our first concern - it is not about what is happening, or going to happen, in the White House. God's first concern is what is happening, or not happening, in His house.
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I am lost if I attempt to take count of chronology. When I think over the past, I am like a person whose eyes cannot properly measure distances and is liable to think things extremely remote which on examination prove to be quite near.
Few revolutions succeed, and when they do, you often discover they did not gain what you hoped for, and you condemn yourself to perpetual fear, as the parties you defeated may always regain power and work for your ruin.
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversation?
Lord of Lords, grant us the good whether we pray for it or not, but evil keep from us, even though we pray for it.
The human heart has a tiresome tendency to label as fate only what crushes it. But happiness likewise, in its way, is without reason, since it is inevitable.
Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live.