The Official Site of Andy Boucher

One of the things that has captured my attention recently is the Scriptural phrase “your God”. Every people had their god or gods—their local gods—their elohiym. Each nation had their various gods—the gods of Egypt, the gods of the Philistines, the gods of the Greeks, and the gods of the Romans to mention a few. Yahweh introduces Himself to the Jews as a local god and promises to them that He would be their own elohiym or local god (Exodus 6:7; Genesis 17:7). As Yahweh reveals Himself to Abraham and the Jews and to us throughout Scripture, He reveals Himself as not just being the biggest and bad-est god on the block, but actually as being the God of the block.

Today we once again live in a society and culture where our god is not recognized as the one and only God. Everyone now has or is their own religion and god. Some are “self made” gods and religions of postmodernism and others are the age old established gods and religions like Islam and Buddhism. This is nothing new to history, the Bible, Christianity, or our God. I believe that our God is willing to begin with simply being our own local god. It’s ok with Him to be one amongst a number of local deities to begin with. He is secure enough with Himself in order to establish as such a relationship with us.

Yet, He does so desire to reveal His real nature to us. His character demands it and His relational love for us demands it (just like we desire to share the reality of who we are with those we love). He strongly desires to tell us: “I’m not like those other gods.” “I’m so very different from them. Here, let me show you the difference between Me and them.” Our God desires to reveal Himself to us, where many of the other gods of this world continue to seek and scheme to hide their true and inferior identify from their worshipers. Our God desires to reveal Himself as the God who actually created the endless universe that the other gods claim to be gods of and have authority over. Our God, will beat up any other god we put up against Him—not because He’s a big supernatural bully, but because He alone is the one true God. In fact, the other gods are the supernatural bullies who are bullying us so they can try to replace our God by stealing away our allegiance and keeping others from know our God.

Not only is our God (the God of gods) bigger than these other gods and can (and will) beat them into an oblivion, but our God loves us so much that He actually chose to die for us so that all the things we’ve done to offend Him can be covered and so that we can have a relationship with Him. Even more than that, He raised Himself from the dead—conquering death—and came to live within us empowering us to live a life that pleases Him. Not only have the other gods—Allah and Mammon among them—NOT died for us to remove our sins and restore our relationship with him or her—Baal and Gaia included—but, those other gods have no victory over death and do not empower their followers to live the life those gods demand of their followers.

So, when I read where Yahweh, my local god, says, “I will make you My own special people, and I will be your God (elohiym)” (Exodus 6:7; 1 Peter 2:9-10), I want that!! When I read that I can “know Jesus, our God and Lord, better and better’ (2 Peter 1:2) and I read “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty (omnipotent) reigns” (Revelation 19:6), I want to have Him as my local and personal god God. I want to be one who “knows their God and stands firm and does exploits” for Him (Daniel 11:32).

And I want Him to be yours too. It’s ok to say, “Come worship my local God”. He daily loads His followers with benefits and daily carries our burdens (Psalm 68:19 NKJV/NIV). In the words of the Desperation anthem: “This is our God! This is our King!”