I know a lady who was raised by a very abusive Christian minister father.
As a result her understanding and concept of God is skewed and harsh in a sense.
For you see most of us will have a tendency to project to immensity our own fathers as to what God is like.
My alcoholic father, for the first few years of my young life was always out at sea, on a Navy battle ship for thirteen months at a time.
He would come home for just a few weeks, abuse my mother while drunk at home and then take off for another long period of time.
Since I was a little boy I wanted to be with my dad when he was home.
He would sit on the couch filling an ash tray with cigarette butts while drinking beer and watching baseball on the old black and white TV.
I was required to sit still, in that smoke filled living room, and not say a word if I
If I talked at all he would thump me on the head hard and I would cry, to which he would say, "That's the way the ball bounces lad!"
So for me my concept of God deep down inside, subconsciously, is of someone who is always far away and only comes near once in a great while.
My concept of God tended to be harsh and demanding, a walking mood swing, not at all like God actually is.
I have known many people who have a very hard time with their subconscious concept of Almighty God.
They had fathers that were not nurturing and loving.
We seem to always project to immensity our own fathers in our concept of God.
So how do we get a correct concept of God?
A concept that is as God actually is and not as our fathers were?
The dear Christian lady that I started this post about is a very sweet person.
But I could not help but notice that she serves God out of a compelling fear of reprisal if she doesn't do what she thinks Her easily angered God wants her to be doing.
What I mean is that the underlying motivation to all of her actions seems out of fear that she might easily upset the God she has in her concept.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
1 John 4:18
She serves an angry walking mood swing God out of fear.
And she is always telling us how she really knows God well and understands him better than others understand Him.
I think not.
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
1 John 4:16
Speaking of love:
... it keeps no record of wrongs.
1 Corinthians 13:5
The reality is that Almighty God desperately loves us and has done all that He could to bring all of us into a loving relationship with Himself.
God covers us in the blood of Jesus Christ which gives us the forgiveness of sins.
We are walking in His grace now, He is not keeping records of wrongs, there is no clip board that He is recording our every mistake on.
All of our sins are thrown into His sea of forgetfulness.
You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.
Micah 7:19
"Come now and let us reason together, says the LORD, though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool."
Isaiah 1:18
"For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us."
Psalm 103:11-12
It is true that God forgives our sin when we are saved, but we do confess our sins when we sin after that:
"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
1 John 1:9
However, it is like a child confessing to a father, it is a matter of fellowship; the child is not kicked out of the family.
As born again Christians we are not judged at the Great White Throne judgment. This is for the unsaved and there they are judged for every sin they have ever committed.
The judgment that Christians will face is about reward and loss.
Once saved, forgiven sins never haunt us again.
God will never bring them up.
It is the good and wonderful things that we have done that God will review.
If there are many, our rewards will be great, but if there are few, we won't receive as many.
So dear believer, if you are saved and have trusted in Jesus Christ as your righteousness, don't dwell on past sins.
They are gone forever!
They truly have been cast into the Sea of Forgetfulness!
If you read this easy to understand book, I believe you will come to understand God as He is and not as you think He is.
Knowledge Of The Holy
By A.W.Tozer
"The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a
hundred lesser evils everywhere among us." God wants to bring us into the most incredible loving relationship with Himself.
The Bible clearly tells us of this eternal loving relationship that is ours to enjoy!
I have done an indepth Bible study that will clearly explain this relationship and how God wants us in it with Himself.
David Sloane
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