He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not....

I grew up in the Church. Some of my earliest memories were of tent revivals where a sweating preacher would yell and scream hellfire and damnation. People clapped and shouted "Amen!" amid a flurry of paper fans, provided to them by the local funeral homes. But even though I don't recall any specific sermons growing up, I do remember that there was a lot of emphasis on keeping the Ten Commandments and warning us to avoid those who broke the Law.

In recent years there has been more teachings on grace and mercy, but for the most part when you turn on a TV, you're still assaulted by a God of holy justice; the same God who committed ethnic cleansing in the Old Testament and Who rained down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah and Who threatened humans with the fires of Hell if we didn't love this fierce, righteous, unbending, and quick to condemn us, God.

Then we read the New Testament and see a different God, a God of love, peace, mercy and grace. We're left wondering what happened to God between Malachi and Matthew? Did God repent of His ways and get saved? How do we resolve the conflicting Gods of the Old and the New Testaments? If God is truly schizophrenic, which of Him do I wake up to each morning? It's kind of like a child plucking the petals off a daisy while repeating, "He loves me; He loves me not; He loves me; He loves me not.

I got a raise at work: He loves me.
I failed to pay my tithes: He loves me not.
I met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with: He loves me.
The doctors have given up on chemo and radiation to fight my daughter's cancer: He loves me not.

I spend most of the day wondering whether I'm in God's good graces, or whether I'm a breath away from waking up in Hell. With this concept of God, I'm more like the slovenly steward who hid the talent the Master gave him in fear of losing even that and displeasing the Master. If the only reason I’m even responding to Him is to serve my own self-interest and escape Hell, am I really loving Him or myself?

Having grown up with that kind of theology, it's no wonder that churches are still preaching judgment over love. We're told that God judged America on 9/11, or that He judged New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina. I think that most Christians are like me, having learned in churches that focused more on obeying God than on loving Him. Most of us, truth be told, turned to God out of a fear of Hell than out of love for Him. I mean, how can you love someone you can't trust? How can you trust a God who demands that you love Him while dangling you over a fiery pit, and threatens to drop you unless you say what He wants you to say? Didn't Jesus Himself say that the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, your soul and all your strength? It seems the church's response has been that the fear of God is equivalent to loving Him.

It’s no wonder that Christians are turning so many away from God at a time when the world needs Him more than ever. They don’t want one more drop of God’s life other than the minimum required to escape Hell. How do we reconcile that God with Jesus who loved us enough to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, and forgive murderers, thieves and prostitutes?

Wayne Jacobsen observes that, “We live in a day when millions have made a commitment to Christ and yet so few lives are really transformed by His power. It has been said of this generation that our Christianity is a mile wide but only an inch deep. People claim to know God but show no transformation in their daily lives. We challenge them as hypocrites and attempt to badger them into more righteous lifestyles, but in the end most believers end up as much a part of the world’s ways as their nonbelieving neighbors.”

Recently I picked up a book that's opened my eyes to God's love. I've mentioned it on another post here: "The Shack" by William P Young. If you go to the author's blog, you'll see testimony after testimony about how this book has positively impacted people's lives. It has done the same with me. I now have an inkling of understanding this Father that Jesus presented in the Gospels.

In The Shack, Mack suggests to Sarayu (the Holy Spirit) that he has tried to keep the Law and lead as good a life as possible. Sarayu’s response was, “How’s that working for you?”

I think now that I have a better grasp on how God can love me in spite of my sins and failures. Before Jesus came, we could only see God’s actions and assume He was moved by motivations similar to our own. Jesus presented God as a loving Father, One who is willing to allow His children to sin in order to show them how destructive sin can be. Jesus’ message was not to come to God or you’ll burn in Hell; His message was that God’s kingdom has come near and you can become a participant in it.

Jacobsen goes on to say, “He allows us the consequences of sin, not because He delights in our anguish, but so we can see its devastating effect and run to the only one in the universe who can set us free from them. His wrath against sin was not His rejection of us in anger, but only a reflection of the depth of love that cannot look away unconcerned as sin destroys us. There is no one that God does not love with all that He is. His love reaches beyond every sin and failure, hoping that at some moment they will come to know just how loved they are.”

So here I am, on the cusp of a new revelation of God. Finally understanding that God is not conflicted, but that He has always wanted a personal relationship with me based on love and trust; I feel that it is time to cast off the old cloak of shame and put on this new cloak of belonging to God. Rather than ask you to counsel and save me from some new false doctrine, I ask you to do what Sarayu did when you see me revert to my old religious ways: Say, “How’s that working for you?” With the new life-partner God brought into my life (my fianc'e, Pamela), I look forward to the future and our journey in loving God more.