“Evangelicalism has become man-centered and, as a result, promotes a view of God that is far less than the reality set forth in Holy Scripture.
But even many who delight in Reformed truth seem to have lost their sense of the awe of God. As in the broader evangelical culture, God-centeredness has given way to man-centeredness in many Reformed circles. We aim too often at giving people what they want instead of following the example of the great Reformed evangelists, whose first objective was to confront men and women with God’s greatness and majesty.
Too many of us today present God as more user-friendly than His own Word does. We want to make people feel comfortable, so we avoid telling them anything that will make them uneasy. We are so concerned about losing our young people that we never ask them to gaze at the holiness of God or challenge them to live out that holiness in the childlike fear of God. We condone materialism, worldliness, and triviality because we have so little sense of an ever-present, infinitely holy God.
Our lives seldom testify that we are willing, at any price, to “buy the truth, and sell it not” (Proverbs 23:23). Dangerous compromises, subtle backsliding, Ephesian coldness, and Laodicean indifference multiply the “unreformedness” of our lives. How often we esteem ourselves and our reputation above the name of God and His reputation.
But when the Holy Spirit shows us the Father’s divine generosity to us in his Son, together with the absolute freeness of His grace, we wholeheartedly yearn to glorify our worthy, fatherly triune God with all that is within us.”