“If God is for us, who can be against us?” – Romans 8:31
For many years I somehow had this idea that God was against me. Perhaps it had a lot to do with my misunderstanding as a small child, sitting in a pew at church one Sunday morning and listening to our pastor preach a sermon on the topic of sin, eternal damnation and hell. “Thrown into a lake of fire?!!!”
And not that hell does not exist, nor that eternal damnation doesn’t await those who take their last breaths without having accepted Christ in their hearts. The Bible makes this clear throughout Scripture.
But my vision of God at that very moment became very misguided.
From that sermon forward, I would often picture Him sitting up there in Heaven watching my every move, listening to every word I say, reading every thought that entered my mind. And I knew He was just waiting for me to make a mistake so that he could teach me a painful lesson.
As a 12-yr-old assuming such a warped concept of God, who wouldn’t believe that they had to earn His favor and approval? That somehow I needed to persuade Him to love me? That His love was something I had to earn and deserve? I saw God as that of Santa Claus. He was going to make his list, check it twice, and gonna find out if I was naughty or nice. I had to find a way to get on that Nice list.
I had no comprehension of just how much God loved me. Between reading and hearing John 3:16 recited over and over in Sunday school, and then listening to my pastor that day talk about sin and hell, I was completely confused. Is He for me? Or against me?
That was a long time ago. And since then, I’ve made it through enough trials and hardships in life to better understand that while God indeed hates the sin I commit, His love for me is unconditional. But sometimes I still find myself struggling all these years later with the concept of Grace; going back to my childhood practice of seeing God as Santa Claus and trying to earn His favor, forgiveness, and love.
And Satan rejoices every single time I do it.
It is in the balance of these moments when we feel completely inadequate to receive God’s abounding grace that we must remember the exact reason why Jesus came.
Christ didn’t suffer for 40 miserable days in the wilderness, being tried and tempted by Satan, just so we could live in fear of our imperfections. He didn’t endure the constant ridicule and harassment by the religious elite just so we could keep score of our rights and wrongs in life. Jesus didn’t allow himself to die a criminal’s death on the cross at Calvary just so we could doubt His Father’s love for us.
But if we give Satan the foothold he desires, he will build a strong case against us. He’ll convince us that God is selfish, condemning, and impossible to love.
This is why we must keep the Cross at the center of our lives. It is there that God expressed His unconditional love for us, and it is there where we find all the proof we will ever need.
Former Blackout Artist 