![\"selling_god_black_low\"](\"http:\/\/192.185.166.32\/~davidfoster\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/selling_god_black_low.jpg\" "\\"selling_god_black_low\\"")
Yesterday was Sunday and in literally tens of thousands of locations, people gathered to worship God, not just in this country but all over the world.\u00a0 And while I don\u2019t know everything that happened, I am absolutely sure that there were in some places the over-hyping and over-selling of God.<\/p>\n
It happens every Sunday of every week of every year and it\u2019s been happening forever I suppose, and that is people standing on stages and pulpits, arenas, gymnasiums, and anyplace people gather feeling as though they have to make God look better and sound better than He really is.\u00a0 The question is, \u201cHow can that be?\u201d\u00a0 How could any<\/em> of us use human language to describe how good God is, how big and amazing He is?\u00a0 And yet, we do.\u00a0 Here\u2019s how we do it.<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0\u00a0 We make promises God never made. <\/strong> We tell people if they\u2019ll love God, work hard, stay in their marriages, and keep their nose clean, nothing bad will ever happen to them.\u00a0 That\u2019s not true and God never promised that.\u00a0 That\u2019s the over-hyping and over-selling of God.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0\u00a0 We tell people if they have enough faith, they can do anything. <\/strong> The truth of the matter is, there are just some things that you\u2019re never going to be able to do.\u00a0 You\u2019re not equipped, you don\u2019t have the talent, it\u2019s not your calling; ten thousand different reasons.\u00a0 But we give people false hope when we shouldn\u2019t. That\u2019s the over-hyping and over-selling of God.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0\u00a0 We make life with God sound easy and simple;<\/strong> as easy and simple as attending a class, getting a certificate, reading the Bible, throwing up a prayer.\u00a0 And if you do all of those things, the deep things of God will yield to you easily, effortlessly, and continuously.\u00a0 The truth is, a relationship with God is difficult.\u00a0 It\u2019s mysterious.\u00a0 God sometimes feels very near and at other times feels very far away.\u00a0 The only constant is the promise of God.\u00a0 He will never leave us or forsake us.\u00a0 His love drives Him to do what is the most generous and loving thing for us even though the circumstances seem to betray that truth.<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0\u00a0 One of the biggest things we tell people, and something that God doesn\u2019t promise, is that there is a place at which we can go where everything in life works.<\/strong> The truth is, everything in life is set up to disappoint us.\u00a0 Truly, we don\u2019t want to accept this, our dirty little secret.\u00a0 We tell people that if you do the right things in the right ways, come to our church, tithe, give, volunteer, a thousand other things, then everything will work.\u00a0 Your marriage will work, your work will work, and your children will work.\u00a0 And the truth of the matter is, there are disappointments waiting for us all along the road.\u00a0 And the question is, \u201cWho do we run to when the world promises us one thing and life delivers another thing?\u201d Will we run to the foot of the cross?\u00a0 Will we run to a relationship with God where there is no need for \u201cwhy,\u201d just the comfort of knowing that something bigger, better, and more amazing than us guards our soul, our life, and our well-being?<\/p>\n If you\u2019re a speaker for God, stop trying to over-hype and over-sell.\u00a0 Tell the truth, honestly, that life will not be easy, just worth it; that we will be lonely, just never alone. These are the promises of God and they are more than enough to sustain us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday was Sunday and in literally tens of thousands of locations, people gathered to worship God, not just in this country but all over the world.\u00a0 And while I don\u2019t know everything that happened, I am absolutely sure that there were in some places the over-hyping and over-selling of God. It happens every Sunday of … Continue reading “The Over-Hyping and Over-Selling of God”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"series":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}