Most of us also, probably because of the first thing, have a distorted version of who “God” is. Ask people about Him and they believe He hurts us. “It’s all part of God’s perfect plan” they’ll say when something hurtful happens to them.
The Bible tells us what Love is…and who God is…
1 Corinthians 13 in the New Testament says the following about what LOVE is…and by extension, because the Bible says “God IS love” (1 John 4:10)…therefore God is all these things.
Love (God) is patient
Love (God) is kind
Love (God) is not jealous
Love (God) does not brag and is not arrogant
Love (God) does not act unbecomingly
Love (God) does not seek its own
Love (God) is not provoked
Love (God) does not take into account a wrong suffered
Love (God) does not rejoice in unrighteousness
Love (God) rejoices with the truth
Love (God) bears all things
Love (God) believes all things
Love (God) hopes all things
Love (God) endures all things.
Love (God) never fails
Note: You don’t find harsh, judgmental, condemning, punishes, stern, wrathful, or angry in this list…
God’s not sitting up there on a cloud watching your every move judging you waiting to hit you with lightning bolts.
If you’ve gone thru hard times, God was not “punishing” you.
And, this is why for those of you who have been dumped on by people you love…why even tho’ your friends get mad at you for “taking them back”…this is why you do it. Because love is this way…and if you really love someone you will take them back.
Foreigner sang, “I want to know what love is! I want you to show me!”
That’s probably the cry of all our hearts…(which starts getting squashed the 1st time our moms don’t come when we cry but I’ll save that for another day)
So, God showed us what love is.
The perfect revelation of LOVE and of GOD is in Jesus Christ. Not in the picture painted by the churchgoers who point fingers at you and tell you to “repent or burn!” Not the loud screaming preachers with dramatic southern accents. Not the picture painted of God in the stern guy with the big knees in the Chick Tracts.
If you want to know what LOVE looks like…if you want to know who GOD is…you need to look at the life of Jesus Christ who was the complete revelation of God to mankind…
Colossians 2:8-10
See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. For in Him (Jesus) all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form…
Don’t be robbed of your right to know who God is…don’t be robbed of your right to choose for yourself what you think of God. If all you do is read the 1st 4 chapters of the New Testament…do just that…and look at who God is…and what LOVE looks like…and know that that love is for YOU…
God indeed has a “wrathful side”…it’s true…as do we all…but remember…
“…the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” (Romans 1)
When we know better and choose to ignore it that’s what makes God mad.
If you look at Jesus in the Bible…when He felt WRATH…it was not directed toward the prostitutes and tax collectors, but, toward the religious…the religious people who were such smarty pants that they weren’t friends with Jesus because their heads were so full of “religion” they couldn’t even see Jesus…God was RIGHT THERE…right there in their midst but they couldn’t even see Him because they were so full of their religion!!!
SO! Far from being “ticked off” at you and wanting to toss lightning bolts at you…check out Jesus in the 1st 4 books of the New Testament…He wants to “marry you”…’cause He’s wildly and madly in love with you…
Check it out…don’t let the angry critical religious people who you’ve known in your life hide this from you…check it out yourself…
Like the cloud formation that my daughters and I caught one day in the sky…one of us saw it and said, “Look!” and the rest of us looked. I’m telling “you” to “look”…there’s a “heart in the sky”… Judgmental religious people will want you to not “look up”…they’ll want you to look down and look at yourself and at all your flaws and tell you that you’re not good enough to see the love God has for you, but, they’re wrong. Just like this heart appeared in the sky for ANYONE to see, God’s love is open to you…and it’s way more photo-worthy than this cloud…
