Are you Done with Your God Project Yet?

With the end of the school year approaching, tis the season for year-end concerts and final projects. The future America’s Got Talent talents are perfecting their harmonies. The would-be scientists are testing their variations of the great Coke and Mentos experiment.

And tomorrow’s artists are creating…something.

I was never much of an artist. Or a scientist. Or a carpenter, IT specialist, power hitter…you get the idea. My life’s work consisted of a clay ashtray I made for my dad in elementary school, and it looked like an elementary school project. (The fact that, 40 years later, he developed lung cancer is between me and my therapist).

I have tremendous respect, bordering on amazement, for those real artists who bring stunning beauty to a blank canvas, or a lump of clay. Multiply that admiration exponentially when I’m at the school art fair and see some of that early genius on display. Such creativity is truly a gift, a living reflection of the Creator.

Such gifts – all gifts, really – originate in the heart of God. His creative genius is on display for all to see, and then He reveals His heart when He opens the heavenly vault of grace, revealing His power, presence and peace right here for us, and in us. This is Who He is and how He is, loving so completely and unconditionally every single child He creates so much, He steps into our daily lives, picking up the broken pieces of our failed projects and putting them back together again.

He doesn’t let our weakness and selfishness end the relationship He established with us. He gives us Himself when He gives us Jesus, the Righteous One who becomes sin for us so that we become righteous ones. He talks to us daily, feeds us at our tables and at His, and reminds us of the perfect path of life He has prepared for us, encouraging us to stay on it.

He gives us life, in body, heart and mind. He is our life. And we are His masterpiece, created and recreated in Christ Jesus as the potter shapes and reshapes the clay, a truly Divine art project that He proudly and joyfully presents for all to see.

But for some, that’s not good enough. They think they can do better. They like to take His handiwork and smash it or trash it, believing that their vision of what should be far surpasses that of Almighty God. In their distorted view, He even made some mistakes they have to fix, totally ignoring, if not rejecting or even replacing, the Creator with the creature.

Yet they still want to acknowledge the obvious, that He’s still out there, needing their help and awaiting their clever revisions to His work. He’ll be so delighted when He sees how they cut off pieces here and added enhancements there! Of course, they’ll hit the dumpster with the projects they didn’t want, because it really isn’t art until they decide it is.

And they think He’s fine with all that. He won’t mind if they play God. To them, that’s better than dealing with the real One. Just to be sure, they’ll come up with catchy slogans to gloss over His slogans, things like “My body, my choice,” rather than His Word that says, “You are not your own; you were bought at a price,” or “You shall not murder.” They’ll be sure to pepper their conversations with talk about “love,” when really they’re glorifying lust.

God saw it coming. He knew people would lose all sensitivity to His way, His will and His Word, and give themselves over to sensuality: if it feels good it must be good, and if it makes you happy, it must make God happy. The further they get from His creative blueprint, the further they descend into darkness and depression, with a continual lust for more. Their gratification is in how many people they can take with them.

Ultimately, those who try to remake God’s artistry and rewrite His literary perfection are actually trying to remove Him completely from the art fair, and replace Him with their golden calf and their profane pornography. They crave the affection and attention that comes with the blue ribbon they give themselves, congratulating themselves for beating God.

We have a politician in Texas trying to recreate God in his own warped image, claiming seminarian status while spouting satanic sewage like “God is non-binary.” Such blasphemy will get him a cell in Hades. Neither first nor last.

We have a president who depicts himself in messianic images, coming dangerously close to a level of self-idolatry that would separate him from the One who spared his life in Pennsylvania. Again, not the first.

We also have an overabundance of media personalities, pundits, celebrities and preachers who like to tell audiences what Jesus is and who Jesus says, when clearly they have no idea who Jesus is and what Jesus says. That they’re heading toward Hell doesn’t mean you have to follow them.

Author John Saul wrote a horror novel in 1983 called, “The God Project.” The premise is that genetic engineering experiments have led to children mysteriously dying, one after another, in a small town that has no idea the cause or the cure. It seems as if an entire over-enrolled school of would-be sculptors and novelists are working on a sequel, a God Project of their own. No matter what the product, it will still be horror.

As for me and my house, this is what the Lord says, He who created you, O Jacob and Steve and Debbie and… and… and… He who formed you, O Israel and Erin and Ryan and Andy and Saylor and… and… and… “Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine.

When you pass through flood waters and raging rivers, I will be with you. When you walk through fire, you will not be burned. I will not let the flames consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One, your Savior. Because you are precious in my sight, and I love you, I will give Someone for you, Someone who will take your place when death would destroy you.

It is by My grace you have been saved, through My gift of faith to you. This is not your doing; it’s Mine. You are My masterpiece, whom I created in Christ Jesus for good works.”

​Not your works. His. And forget the ashtray.