When God Plays Hard to Get : Part 1

Out of Your Comfort Zone: Is Your God Too Nice?
by R. T. Kendall

What is so wrong with being nice? Nothing. But the God of the Bible is not nice. This book will bring us back to the God of the Bible. Not the God we like or the way we wish he were. But the very God of the Bible-unembellished, unvarnished-as he really is. This does not mean we will like him.

Many times, we are embarrassed by the God of the Bible, especially the God of the Old Testament-and even the teachings of Jesus when it comes to his being the only way to be saved, as well as God's right to judge and reward or condemn.

We attempt to manage God's public relations and fix his image in the modern world. We are tempted to modify and mold God into what we want him to be-what we think he should be. Instead, we should be finding out where God is and meet him there. Even if that takes us out of our comfort zones.

Chapter 1

If I were hungry I would not tell you . . .

Psalm 50:12

It seems to me that the modern Church has drifted so far from the biblical revelation of the true God that any resemblance between Him and the popular God of today's generation is quite remote. I think we are in a Romans 1 situation:

Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. (Rom. 1:22-23)

It is a case in which the God of the Bible is either too holy or too terrible for us, so we have come up with a God we are at home with. We can thus feel sufficiently religious without having to identify with the ancient God of Israel and the earliest Church.

During seminary I was required to read a book about God in which the author managed to concoct a God whereby one need not be regarded as an atheist after all, even though the God of the Bible was rejected. Theologian Paul Tillich (1886-1965) even suggested that an atheist might be a believer when faith was defined as "ultimate concern."

This book is not an attack on liberalism in the modern Church. I fear that those who deny the historic truths of Holy Scripture are beyond the pale and most likely very hard to reach. Rather, those closer to home worry me, those who seem to want to hold on to the Bible up to a point yet distance themselves from disturbing realities we all know are contained in Holy Scripture.

As Ludwig Feuerbach opined, people want to believe in something, especially a God who will take care of them in times of trouble and then give them a home in heaven when they die, and so they mentally project such a God and claim He really does exist. Of course such a God does not exist, says Feuerbach, outside of their minds where He brings comfort.

It is my view that many Christians do this. They know full well there are things in the Bible they don't want to believe, but they are not prepared to throw out everything in the Bible so they fancy a God who approves of their own comfort zone. This God is happy with Christians who reject Bible-denying liberal theology while at the same time approving of their unease with the total revelation of God as revealed in the Old and New Testament. In fact, some of these people will go so far as to claim they believe in the whole of the Bible - from Genesis to maps while ensuring they are at ease in their folk religion. They have been baptized and, in some cases, confirmed; they are almost certainly approved of by their church leader; they attend church to varying degrees of regularity and feel quite right in themselves.

What does God think of this? Is He so neglected by the masses that He is simply thrilled to have anybody anywhere, whatever their level of conviction, give Him any attention at all? Is God so starved for recognition that He will make any measure of concession to any person who makes an effort, however small, to acknowledge Him? Will God therefore show His approval toward any kind of profession of faith because some tipping of the hat toward Him is better than nothing?

The nice God of today's religious people might do just that, but not the God of the Bible. Unless He chooses to withhold His real feelings and intentions from us for awhile, which is the basis of this chapter.

One reason I abandoned "Your God Is Too Nice" as a title is because I didn't want to make the reader feel guilty or think I feel qualified to judge you. I write out of my experience of over fifty years of preaching, most of which have been as a pastor.

If God is too nice, what does this mean? Perhaps you have been worshipping a God you can be comfortable with but who is not the God of the Bible at all. And yet it could mean that the true God has decided to be nice to you for the moment and let you remain in your comfort zone, undisturbed. "But this isn't being very nice at all if He will eventually show that He is unhappy with me," you say. True, but what if He tried for a while but you wouldn't listen? He then let you carry on as if nothing happened. What if He simply decided to be "nice" to you by letting you remain in your comfort zone and instead seeking a person elsewhere who will listen to Him?

Rodney Howard-Browne told me that the Lord put it to him like this, "If you don't do what I tell you I will find someone who will." Jesus said to the church at Ephesus, "If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place" (Rev. 2:5). This is what happens when a church goes astray or soft and God raises up movements to carry on with what ought to have been the Church's own mandate.

Arthur Blessitt, the man who has carried a cross around the world, said that as a university student he prayed in his dormitory room, "God, give me a work nobody else will do."

A woman once asked Arthur, "Why does God speak to you but not to me?"

"Have you ever felt an impulse to speak to someone about Jesus that you didn't know?" he asked.

"As a matter of fact, I have," she said.

Arthur then said to her, "Start obeying that voice and it will become clearer and clearer."

Copyright © R. T. Kendall 2005

About the Author

Dr. R. T. Kendall served for 25 years as Minister of Westminster Chapel in London and now lives in Florida. From there, he continues his career as a popular Christian preacher and writer. His best-selling books include The Thorn in the Flesh, Total Forgiveness, and The Anointing.