How Do You See God?

2006/9/30

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@ 10:42 AM (23 months, 18 days ago)

What is your concept of God? Do you view Him as mean and punishing? Just waiting for you to mess up so He can strike you with lightening? Or do bad things to you? Or do you see Him as loving and on your side?

The truth is that most of us see God as mean and punishing even though intellectually, we know that God loves us. Maybe it's years of watching, and sitting under, the teaching of the hellfire and brimstone preachers or watching too many television shows that portray God striking people for doing wrong.

I don't know, but for so long, this had been my concept of God. I knew the Bible. I started memorizing Scriptures when I was five. I knew at least twenty-six verses when I was in kindergarten--one for each letter of the alphabet.

But somehow even after sitting in church two or more services a week, going to Christian schools, memorizing the Word and going to tent meetings (remember those? With the fold-up chairs, dirt floors and Port-a-Potties?), I still didn't get that God is love. No matter how many times I sang "Jesus Love Me" or read or heard that Jesus loved me enough to die for me, I didn't get it.

And forget the father image part of the equation because to me, a father was a man who when he pulled into the driveway, you ran to your room and hid because you didn't know what kind of mood he would come home in. A father was a person who could be sweet when he wanted to but didn't want to be most of the time. A father, to me, meant walking on eggshells and keeping secrets because we didn't know how he would react. So, for me, God was like my earthly father. Every thing that happened with my Dad, I transferred to God because I believed that's how all fathers were. Can anyone relate?

Even as I grew up, I still couldn't grasp the concept of God being good. I had never seen Him do anything for me. My birth, in itself, was a miracle, yes. My mother had toxemia and eclampsia, and I was born with my hip out of joint.

But everything good that happened to me happened at a price. I was finally part of a clique in junior high school. I finally fit in, but the girls viciously turned on me when I didn't do things the way they wanted.

My Dad was around when I was growing up, but he yelled so much and hit everything from cars to doors that it caused a spirit of fear to take root in my life.

I had been engaged, but the man broke it off to pursue someone else.

Everything good that happened came at a price.

It never occurred to me that the reason I didn't see God doing anything good in my life is because I didn't see Him as good.

Joyce Meyer says that God is for you as you believe He is. I believed He expected perfectionism because that is what my Dad and I expected of me. As far as I was concerned, I couldn't live up to God's standards.

I knew what the Bible said. I knew that because Jesus died on the cross for my sins, because I had accepted what He did, that I was put in right standing with God. Not because of what I had done or not done. My right standing with God had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the blood--the innocent, sinless blood--Jesus shed on the cross (Romans 3).

Does that mean that I don't have to try to be good and follow God's standards? Of course not. It means that when I do slip up, when I don't follow every rule because it is impossible to do so, I have an advocate with the Father.

Jesus was made sin for us that we might be the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (II Corinthians 5:21). I am righteous in the sight of God because of Jesus' shed blood.

But even that revelation, until it is deeply engrafted in your heart, is lost if you have a bad concept of God, like I did.

In my head, I knew I was the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. In my head, I knew God loved me, but in my heart, I believed God, like my Dad, was just waiting to pick me apart, criticize me and put me down supposedly for my greater good.

I had to make a decision to view God through the eyes of His Word, to believe what His Word said about Him. I found it difficult to believe that the Bible was anything more than a bunch of pages with words written on them, as were so many other books that I had read. But the Bible is so much more than that. It is a living book. Every word of it is inspired by God Himself (II Timothy 3:16).

John wrote in John 1:14 that Jesus is the Word of God made flesh. Jesus is the Word of God. The living, breathing Word of God.

So I made a decision to take what God said about Himself and believe it. The Bible says God loves me (John 3:16) and that He thinks good thoughts toward me (Psalm 139:17-18). The Bible says that His plans for me are not to harm me but to prosper me (Jeremiah 29:11), that He will never leave me or forsake me (Hebrews 13:5), that He will not reject me (Psalm 37:24).

That's what the Word says about God. That is what I believe because the Word is the final authority in my life. And that settles it!

God is for you as you believe he is. God is a good God. Why not make a decision to believe that today?