Why You're Not Who You Want To Be
(Let God Prune)August 17, 2025
Pastor Patrick presented today's message, "Why You're Not Who You Want To Be." A video of today's message is here on YouTube. The discussion that follows assumes you are familiar with the message content.
The Greek word for transform in 2 Corinthians 3:18 is much bigger than you might imagine. The word is meh-tah-mor-FOH-oh (μεταμορφόω) as in metamorphosis (you know, as a caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly). It's beyond impressive. It can also be translated as transfigure, an even more impressive change as in the Transfiguration of Christ. For a more complete discussion, see Strong's entry.
Toward the end of his message, Patrick talked about the need to allow God to prune away imbalances in your life. Things you've become too attached to, perhaps. He came very close to calling them false gods, to which my mind went immediately. God warns against false gods way back in Exodus with the delivery of the Ten Commandments. Here are some snippets on the topic of false gods already included elsewhere on this website:
"You shall have no other gods before Me" (Exodus 20:3). This is from the Ten Commandments, of course. It's relevance to this conversation becomes clear when you fully understand the meaning of "no other gods." We have all kinds of "other gods" or "false gods." Anything we hold as more important than God and His will is a false god: career, reputation, wealth, family, fame, blood/nationality, nature, art, etc. Think of false gods as something that always tempts us to focus on it/them to the exclusion of everything else, including God.Toward the end of the message, Patrick talked about the need to "get into the Word of God." That is, study the Bible, study scripture. This is not easy. Let me offer some insight to how difficult it can be along with some process solutions to that difficulty...
"For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God (Deuteronomy 4:24). That's a little scary. A fire that eats all. I think that qualifies as a warning that following God may be hard, and risky.
Ridding yourself of distractions (false gods) in order to make God #1 takes time. Consider Jacob's name change to Israel. The name change is predicted in Genesis 32:28, "Then the man said, 'Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel..." But God did not actually change Jacob's name until Genesis 35:10. So what happened in between? Jacob took the time to rid himself of all his idols. Sometimes waiting periods are to get rid of one's false gods.
It's interesting to note that "false" mathematically equals zero. Worthless.
This first of the Ten Commandments is far more than not choosing other gods from the pantheon of gods available in the Ancient Near East (ANE), nor even any of the all-to-available pagan ways of today. This command is as relevant today as ever. We chase all kinds of false gods that ultimately do not satisfy. You may think of a false god today in Prager's terms: "when anything is made an end in itself rather than as a means to God and goodness."
One comparison that I relate to is the notion that in some ways demons are the same as false gods. This is more like I thought of as demons. It's more internal, how we think. Demons tempt us, which is exactly what false gods do (like fame, art, wealth, power, etc.).
Be free. Literally, the entire Exodus story is about being free. But it's far more than getting out of slavery. One could argue the entire Torah is about getting free of "false gods," as the anti-pagan language of the Torah would say. We might call these "addictions" today. Be free of chasing things that matter less than God, like fame, money, drugs, ratings, etc. Be free to chase God.
Isn't it true that we sacrifice for whom and what we love and that we love for whom and what we sacrifice. This is why God and the Torah are so focused on loving and sacrificing for others (God, family, neighbors, and strangers) and not for self (wealth, fame, power, etc.). Those "self" targets of affection are generally referred to as false gods.
My favorite podcasts are about aviation. This includes industry news, trends, incidents, accidents, etc. I mentioned a few weeks ago that my favorite podcaster in that realm is Petter Hörnfeldt (Swedish): Mentour Pilot, Mentour Now, and Captains Speaking. See: Normalization of Deviance.
Petter uses an acronym born in the aviation world to help deal with difficult situations: PIOSEE. The letters stand for Problem, Information, Options, Select, Execute, and Evaluate (repeat as needed). In his world, it's an effective decision making process for figuring out how to overcome issues in an aircraft.
In my world, I saw it as a way to understand what you're up against when studying scripture, how to overcome issues, and ultimately get to truly understanding what's being said. So let's look closer...
PROBLEM. There are numerous issues in regard to understanding scripture. The Bible was written thousands of years ago (specifically, anywhere from 3400 to 1900 years ago). We have trouble grasping Shakespeare that is only 400 years ago or so. We have very little conception of the societal/cultural world back then. It's hard for computer users to identify with sheep herders. It's written in a foreign language that doesn't exist any more (modern Hebrew is similar but not exactly the same; I'm told it's similar to a modern-English-to-Shakesperean-English comparison). Same with Greek. There are loads of translations and even more commentators who, by the way, are all fallible. Some tend to focus on extraneous issues (like who put quill to scroll) rather than the message. We have reason and faith to bring with us, but these can conflict (at least initially or superficially). Some events have archeaological evidence, some don't, and there's much arguing in between. The Bible contains many forms of literature (history, law, poetry, music, wisdom, personal letters, etc.) that are sometimes hard to differentiate and have different ways of being meaningful. It's fair to say that there are gaps large and small in nearly every story. And let's not exclude our sinful selves - we can mislead ourselves with selfish intentions. Fallible human beings chose what to include and what to exclude.
INFORMATION. Interestingly, many of the problems mentioned above are actually part of the information available. You can read what various translations say. You can read what various commentators have said. You can use sources like Strong's Concordance to see how Hebrew or Greek words have been translated and see how they've been used in other contexts. You can read about the life and times of Ancient Near East (ANE) peoples. In addition, you can converse with people you know and trust on such topics. If you can dream up the information source, use it, all the while using your own reasoning abilities to make sense of it all. Other information is also available in the context surrounding any verse in question (what happened just before and after). It's helpful to know how often the word or phrase is used.
OPTIONS. Ponder the various understandings that could be reached from all the information. For example, when trying to understand what God meant when he said His name was "I am what I am," four options are readily available simply by translation (because there is no Hebrew word for the present tense of "to be"):- I am what I am
- I am who I am
- I will be what I will be
- I will be who I will be
SELECT. At some point (as your plane is plummeting to the ground), you have to choose the action(s) you're going to take. Likewise, choose the understanding you're going to use.
EXECUTE. Go with what you choose. Begin it. Do it. Feel it. In our Biblical understanding scenario, there are at least two forms of select and execute. You could get feedback from others regarding your (new) understanding. Or you could go directly into an execute mode, changing behavior and/or attitude based on your (new) understanding.
EVALUATE. In the airplane, this becomes a little more obvious. Did your action(s) get the plane back under control? Or not? If things are getting better, continue with the plan. If and when things don't seem to be fixed, go back to the PROBLEM step and run the process again.For our discussion regarding Biblical understanding, the EXECUTE and EVALUATE stages may be a bit more complicated. For instance, when you come to a complete understanding of what "Do not steal" means, it may take time and effort to get it all right, that is, execute. Here's a paragraph I wrote earlier about stealing: "Note that this is a totally unqualified imperative. That is, "what" you can't steal is not stated, so the bottom-line is you can't steal anything from anyone. This includes not just property. One could say that this command covers at least three of the other commandments because you can't steal another's life (murder), their spouse (adultery), or justice (truth). This law would also preclude stealing another's reputation, intellectual property, and dignity as well as not returning loans, plagiarism, engaging in false advertising (stealing a purchase), and seducing the opposite sex (stealing use of their body). I'm sure you can think of more." Actually, this is one where EVALUATION should be in play all the time.
The only thing that I couldn't really link to the PIOSEE model was prayer. Seems to me that prayer could apply and be helpful to any of the steps. Let the Holy Spirit help you, too. Psalm 145:18, "The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth." Actually, that last part is quite applicable to PIOSEE as well: if you lie to yourself in the process, the process is doomed.
Another possible modification of the PIOSEE model for Biblical study is to not force yourself to select only one understanding to try on. It may be valuable to "run with" a couple options for a while and see which one, if either, seems to work best. You can keep an open mind, in other words. (That doesn't work as well in an airplane when you can only act one way at a time.)