Jesus becomes who you are and you become who he is. His kindness and patience and courage are given to you, and your lust and meanness and impatience are reckoned to him.
What happens when our children are taught to read the Scriptures as evidence that God is a heavenly Santa Claus? When happens when they think God rewards or punishes them depending on whether they've been naughty or nice?
There’s something very attractive about both the cross-ladder and the cross-crutches. In fact, there’s something about both of them that the woodworker within us finds eminently more appealing than the simple cross of Jesus.
And there was heard, all round the world, the boom of a pounding hammer. And there resounded, all around the world, the cry of a righteous man who prayed for an unrighteous world.
“You shall have no other gods,” God says, and we, spurred on by the prohibition, roll up our sleeves and get to work fashioning gods like there’s no tomorrow.
He may be a good sport about it, smile for the camera, congratulate the better man, but secretly he hates the loss and covets another chance at victory.