We often determine the character of God by the way we’re treated by others, and particularly by those who profess faith – including ministers. Our view of God can be a reflection of our experience with people, so that our entire lives and even our eternal destiny is shaped by what others do or say. This is a dangerous and deceptive trait in us.
If you’re surrounded by supportive, loving people you’re uncommonly fortunate and blessed, and you probably have a positive view of God, but if the opposite is true you may see God more as an enemy or an ogre. Significantly, we are all those “other people” to someone, and whether we’re aware of it or not our own words and actions shape the minds of the people around us. Someone you know sees God as being at least a little like you – are you giving a good or bad example? I’ve seen people turn away from their faith or be offended because of the way they were treated by family members, friends, people in authority, or the lies passed onto them wrapped up in distorted political or social views. This is a dangerous, destructive way of thinking. What’s the cure?
The problem can only be tackled by spending considerable time focusing on who God really is. If your professed faith is in Jesus Christ as mine is, there’s only one infallible source of truth for us to draw from – the Bible. The Bible tells us what God is like. John’s gospel tells us, for example, that, “God is light, and in him is no darkness”. The Bible also tells us that God’s nature is vastly different to ours. He doesn’t think as we do or as our friends do. He isn’t like those around us or those in our news and social media. He isn’t flawed, he isn’t selfish, he isn’t two-faced, self-serving, unjust, profane, scheming, unfaithful or sinful He is altogether different, He is altogether lovely. He is great, and merciful, and kind, and as Jesus himself assured us, “God is Love”. God loves us so much that He took the darkness of the world upon Himself and paid the price of our sin.
Why, then, would God turn His back on us and let us down? The answer is that He would not, and when people do, we have to remind ourselves that what just happened to us was not the work of God, it was not the will of God, and it was not the way of God: it was the work of a fallen human who, like us, will face God’s justice unless he turns from his ways. When we eventually face the Lord to give an account of our own lives, we will not be allowed to blame anyone else for our actions: the blame game does not work with Him.
We all need to consciously apply our minds to the Biblical truth that God’s ways are far above our own, and far above those around us and in our world. There is one who is faithful in all the world and in all of creation, and that’s our creator. He is the one to trust. He is the one to lean on and to follow. He is the one and the only one to place all our hopes and dreams in. Everyone else is going to let us down, sooner or later, and perhaps many times over.
I’m not saying you should turn your back on your loved ones just because you can’t entirely trust them, and I’m not saying don’t go to church because everyone in there is a hypocrite. I’m saying love them and forgive them, because you and I are just as human as they are. To expect them to be perfect, particularly when you are also imperfect, is a huge mistake. Jeremiah, writing the words of God said, “Cursed is the one who trusts in man” (Jeremiah 17:5). When your loved one – who may even be a professing Christian – stabs you in the back or treats you like dirt, don’t think of him or her as the ambassador of God in your life or as the worker of God’s will in your life, but as an imperfect human being who’s having another off day, or who isn’t living the Christian life.
The Christian life isn’t “all God” – it’s teamwork, so that God expects and wants us to consciously apply ourselves to living it out. We can’t passively let human nature shape the way we act or the way we view God. Ultimately endurance in the faith, no matter what goes on around us, is what Jesus Christ prescribed for us all, and he gave no clearer warning than this one:
“Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:12-13).
Dealing with the latter truth first, we know that real faith changes lives and hearts and minds. It’s important, then, for us to examine ourselves to see if we really are in the faith. Do we love those who don’t love or even like us? Are our minds set on things above and not on the flesh? Are we bringing glory to God or are we just fooling ourselves and those who love us? The evangelical (and I am one) often fools himself or herself with the thought that no matter how we live or how many people we offend as believers we’re practically in heaven already, because Jesus paid the price of all our sins. No doubt Christ did die for our sins, and no doubt we can’t save ourselves, but we are saved “unto good works”: we are supposed to repent; to turn in a different direction and act like a child of God rather than just another pagan. How often Ephesians 2:8-9 is quoted as an insurance policy, while the next verse is never memorized:
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10).
In other words, a profession of faith is meant to be followed by suitable fruit in the lives of the professors. It’s true that works don’t save us, but works are the evidence of genuine faith. No fruit, no real faith.
I’m not very good at seeing my own faults. Don’t sneer, because the likelihood is that you aren’t very good at seeing your faults either. However, I’m pretty good at spotting faults in others (as I did just then) and what I see even in professing Christians gives me a sinking feeling daily. They’re living with their latest girlfriend. They blunder through relationships like pigs in the pig pen. They’ve bought into the gay lifestyle. They lie to family members and employers with the assumption that it’s just a little white one which God doesn’t care about anyway. Only murder, depending on who the , and voting for Donald Trump is going to upset God, in the minds of many who profess faith. They live as they did before they professed Christ and are convinced that the Lord just smiles and thinks they are the bee’s knees. Perhaps many of us are in for a terrible shock, when on that Day of reckoning, Christ says to us, “Depart from me, you workers of iniquity – I never knew you”.
Fuel for Faith, Food for Thought 