Then We Will Believe in God

My wife and I attended Palm Sunday services at a church across town.
It was so beautiful. Floor to rafter glass walls and lots of Light!

They read a very interesting section of Matthew's Gospel, the crucifixion of Jesus.

"Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their head and saying, 'you who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself!
Come down from the cross if you are the Son of God!
Let him come down now from the cross and we will believe in him." from Matthew 27: 39-42

I listened to the those words and smiled at the irony!

If God will do it my way - then I will believe.
"If he comes down from the cross then we will believe."

In effect, they were saying, 'stop what you are doing (humbly redeeming the world of sin) and fulfill our expectations for a 'god.'

This same impertinence is what I hear over and over and over again in our own time.
People think nothing of establishing their own limits or qualifications for an acceptable god (idol).

It's upside down. The question they - and we - should have asked was,
"How may we repent and come to know God and His plan for our lives?"
Not, 'how may we shape a god who accommodates our lives as we choose to live them.'

I asked, and then found God's answers in the rest of Matthew's gospel...

What do you believe?