What If God Was One Of Us?

What If God Was One of Us?

Text: Numbers 23:19-20

19 "God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

20 Behold, I have received a command to bless; He has blessed, and I cannot reverse it.

Subject: What If God Was One of Us?

In 1996, the artist who was formerly known as Prince, and who was then using a symbol as his name, released an album entitled “Emancipation.” In this album, Prince, as he is once again called, released his version of a Joan Osborn song that was entitled, “What If God Was One Of Us.” This song was not a grammatical masterpiece nor can its lyrics be considered theological doctrine. But the song is none the less very thought provoking and served as my own personal launching pad for reconnecting with God.

Some of the lyrics to the song go a little something like this:

If God had a name, what would it be

And would we call it 2 His face

If we were faced with Him and all His glory?

What would U ask if U had just one question?

If God had a face, what would it look like

And would U wanna see it

If seeing meant that U would have 2 believe in things like heaven

And Jesus and the saints and all the prophets?

What if God was one of us?

Just a slob (slave) like one of us?

Just a stranger on the bus

Tryin’ 2 make His way home

Like a holy rollin’ stone

Back up 2 heaven all alone

Nobody callin’ on the phone

’Cept 4 the Pope maybe in Rome

But He ain’t home, He aint home, He ain’t home!

No, no, no, He ain’t home!

(What if God was one us?)

This song really led me to think about how much different we are from God. Although we were created in the image of God as recorded in Genesis 1:26, human kind has evolved so far from God’s image that it sometimes seems impossible that we could have ever been spiritually connected to Him.

From the inception of sin into the world through Adam and Eve, man has continually expanded the great spiritual divide by choosing worldliness over and holiness. This vast expanse led to a separation between God and man that culminated in a 400 year period that God silenced himself to man.

But God so loved the World that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him, shall not perish but have everlasting life. In other words, despite all of our faults, God still loved us. Despite all of our mistakes, God still cared about us. Despite all of our poor choices, God still would not condemn us to death eternal. Instead, He sent His Son, Jesus the Christ – the lily in the valley and the bright and the morning star – not to condemn the world, but that the world, through Him might be saved.

And yet even over two thousand years since Christ laid down His life for us, mankind has still made choices, time and time again, that are directly opposite to the mission and purpose that God has for our lives.

Let’s be real, we, as a people, are continually doing things that are not pleasing to God. We speak of being more like Christ and walking in His footsteps, but our actions speak a different tune. My mama, used to say that “actions speak louder than words,” and I believe that our actions as the created sons and daughters of God, is speaking a message of destruction to the God who made us.

My brothers and sisters, I’ve discovered that in the church, we are often, praying, singing, shouting, and tearing up the sanctuary on Sunday morning, but Monday through Friday our actions don’t measure up to our perceived holiness.

We are disobedient to the God that provides for our every need. We are out of line with His laws and His edicts for our lives. We treat people in a manner that is not acceptable in God’s eyes. We don’t love our neighbors or our enemies, because we don’t love ourselves. And that sad thing about that is that if you can’t love what is supposed to be the image of God, how can you possibly say that you love God?

Many of us have been deceived by someone that we love. We have been lied to by people that we trust. We have been disappointed by the actions of others towards us. And most of our responses to these situations have been less than godly.