I recently listened to a worship leader sing extemporaneously. His song had no title. In fact, the title of his song video is “Spontaneous Worship.” He sang,
“Yahweh, Yahweh, you don’t change, you don’t change. Let my worship stay the same … I am, I am, I am, You are I am.” Then later in the song he proceeded to sing, “You were not yourself at the burning bush. Whatever you are is great, whatever we need you to be is great … you are everything I need you to be.”
The first part of this spontaneous song is non-problematic. All Christ followers believe God is great. The Bible testifies of God’s greatness and power. verses about his greatness are manifold. Deuteronomy 10:17 says, “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.” Psalm 145:3 declares the greatness of God, “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.”
Furthermore, God reveals himself in Scripture as the “I am.” He reveals his name to Moses in Exodus chapter 3, “God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” Some believe the Hebrew can also be rendered, “I will be who I will be.” The spontaneous song points to the burning bush, but forgets God calls to Moses out of the burning bush. The Hebrew literally can be translated as “from the midst.” So how was God not himself at the burning bush?
All I Need Him to Be? No!
The latter part of the song is the most concerning. The worship leader declares, “Whatever we need you to be is great … you are everything I need you to be.” First, God cannot be who we need him to be. Why? Simply because he is God. He cannot be manipulated, nor can he be conditioned to our own volitions.
We cannot fall into the trap of conforming God into our own image. The greatest example of this error is found in Exodus 32. The Bible records, “He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool.” Then after completing their apostasy, Aaron said, “This is your god, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” Aaron and the Israelites tried to conform God into their own image. A created an image, into what they wanted God to be. The golden calf incident is a reminder that we can carve anything into our own liking and call it “God.”
Earlier in Exodus 20, God warned the Israelites not to make for themselves any idols to worship. I guess they didn’t really listen! (The third of the 10 commandments). God’s anger and fury almost destroyed the whole nation of Israel (Exodus 32:10).
Janet Ross offers us some words of wisdom,
The God of the Bible – the Great I Am – is not a mere changeable being who will transform Himself to fit our circumstances. Oh, my friends … He is so much more than that! He is everything regardless of what you may be facing, limitless in power, boundless in might, and sovereign over all creation both great and small. He doesn’t merely sit on His throne waiting for us to beckon Him into some circumstance we can’t handle by ourselves!
God is totally other. He is totally holy. He is not who I need him to be, because often times whom I need him to be is not good. If God is to be who I need him to be, then he is simply like a “genie in a bottle.”
A Word of Caution
If we are not careful we can fool ourselves into thinking God can be manipulated. Aaron’s words should make us cringe! “This is your god who let you out of the land of Egypt!” Really? An idol made out of gold? Built by human hands? An idol that would easily be destroyed? (which it was…Moses melted it like it was nothing!).
If God is everything we need him to be, then he is merely a divine “vending machine.” Our worship to him should be a declaration of who he is, not who we want him to be. He is indeed the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). But he will not be whoever we desire him to be. He is who he says he is, period.
Stephen declared that God cannot be contained in human temples (Acts 7:48). Further, listen to Paul’s words in Acts 17:24, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.” The pagans in Paul’s time created gods to fit their own whims. However, God cannot either be created nor be subjected to our whims.
Perhaps the words of the old hymn Have Thine Own Way are more appropriate. We are not the potter, we are the clay. Instead of “Have it my way Lord,” we should declare “Have Thine own way Lord”:
Have Thine own way Lord / Have Thine own way / Thou art the potter I am the clay / Mold me and make me after Thy will / While I am waiting yielded and still
May we never attempt to conform God to our wishes and desires! God does not need us. We need him … but not whom we need him to be!
Simply worship him for who he is! You can’t go wrong with that!
Written by Daniel Messina
