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The actual posted date of this blog entry is April 12, 2012. You might remember from history class (or the recent movie previews that air about every 5 seconds on TV) that this date is exactly 100 years since the sinking of the Titanic. According to legend (and the Titanic movie that came out in 1997), one of the workers on the ship proclaimed as it was being boarded: "She is unsinkable. God himself couldn't sink this ship!" Talk about the ultimate open-mouth-and-insert-foot comment! This particular worker had assigned "godlikeness" (see Katie's blog post from Monday) to a man-made machine. I'm sure that most people admired this masterpiece of a ship as they looked upon it, whether they were boarding or just standing at a distance. After all, it was 1912. There probably wasn't much else to compare it to in terms of man-made accomplishments at that point.

Now, I am not saying that we cannot or should not admire the gift of creativity that comes from our Creator when it is shown through human beings. Just the opposite is true. I believe that every gift we have was given to us by God for the sole purpose of using it to let Him be seen by others. When you go to church and hear an amazing music team, solo singer, or preacher, it is completely appropriate to compliment the individuals on making the most of their God-given talents, so long as we remember that said talents are indeed "God-given". While we may know this mentally, it's not often how we act. We associate the talent with the one who has it instead of the One who gave it. If that worker on the Titanic would have amended his statement to be something like, "Wow, praise God for giving mere men the creativity and ability to build such a massive ship", then it wouldn't have been blasphemous. The reason that this is so important is because we don't ever actually admire inanimate objects. We admire two things: either God or man. When we admire something that is man-made, it is not the thing we are admiring, but man. As human beings, we love to steal credit that belongs to God and God alone.

As I read Katie's blog post from Monday, which included thoughts about what it means to allow other "deities" to block our view of God's face, I couldn't help but think of the chorus to one of my favorite hymns. "Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace". It's a simple, yet powerful message. We get caught up admiring men and men's accomplishments not because of an unhealthy view of man, but because of a wrong perspective of God. When we truly look FULLY into His face and realize how big and amazing He is, everything else that once seemed so glorious "grows strangely dim". We realize that the only true Deity is God.

The interesting thing about those hymn lyrics that some of you may have already picked up on is that it equates Jesus with God. For those of us who are Christians, that's a no-brainer. But this is the major sticking point for Jews and others who cannot submit to Jesus for fear of blasphemy. They take the command to "have no other gods beside the one true God" seriously. Jews quote the Hebrew prayer known as the "shema" several times a day. It begins with the words in Deuteronomy 6:4: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one". When Jesus came to the earth and claimed that he was one with the Father, it instantly offended many of his fellow Jews. Blasphemy was punishable by death, and was the legal reason why he was eventually crucified. How can a mere man claim that he is God? How is it possible that a man who was physically seen by others can be one with the Father who cannot be physically seen? These are the questions that kept the Jews from following Jesus as the Christ.

When it comes to the deity you choose to follow, you will also have to answer those questions. For Christians, we believe that Jesus was indeed "one with the Father". We believe this because only God could save sinful man. We believe this because he fulfilled the prophecies of the Christ from the Old Testament, and the odds that every prophecy could have been fulfilled as it was written by someone who was actually not the Messiah are astronomical. And we believe this because the Christ was with God in the beginning and WAS God (John 1:1). There is also reference to this at the beginning of the Bible. "Then God said, 'Let US make man in our image, in our likeness'" (Genesis 1:26a [CAPS mine]). We believe that there is only ONE Deity, but that the Christ and the Holy Spirit are ONE with God. We believe that the Christ came to the earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, which is why we celebrate his life, ministry, and death. The great thing about the one Deity is that He offers you a choice. Choose whom you will serve. But know that you cannot go half-way. "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money" (Matthew 6:24).