You can't let people, no matter who they are, fashion for you an image of God. He is someone you have to see for yourself before you can fall nauseatingly in love with Him. Prior to my conversion to Christ, I hated church and Christianity all together. I let the country-style hymns, stained glass windows, and endless sermons on good behavior create for me an image of God. In the late winter or early spring of 2006, for whatever reason, I found myself sitting alone in my room, thinking. Thinking about God and heaven. What were they really like? There was no call for me from a preacher to come down the aisle and no resolve to dedicate myself or turn a new leaf over on life and begin to live as a good person (In that, I have failed miserably). Rather, for the first time, I thought of God in a new light. I really can't describe my train of thought at that time other than having the sudden idea that maybe God is something so much higher than what I had seen in church or from church-goers.
God will hold each person accountable for what they believe. You can't claim ignorance or play the victim of false or misleading teaching (though people who teach falsely will bear their own judgement). It will be every man's own fault for what he or she has allowed to shape their view of God.
If I could just get every man and woman to sit and to think for themselves for once in his or her life, I could convert millions. It doesn't matter so much as what I say but Who I point you towards. As Morpheus told Neo, "I can only show you the door; you're the one who has to walk through it." It's fitting in this case that Jesus refers to Himself in the Gospel of John as "The Door".
I don't think there is a man or woman, alive or dead, who, when presented with God in His true form, would not fall utterly in love with Him.
