How do you see God?

Tonight I was in a conversation that disturbed me a bit. The discussion was around how God would judge some people who discovered that their life was "wrong". Now in all fairness these Christians were more merciful and gracious than most I know. However I couldn't help but not recognize the God they described. There was a time when I saw God as they did but not anymore.

How do you see God? Do you see God as a judge who although loves the world is committed to justice and will send all to Hell who do not conform to the written Word of God?

Maybe part of the problem is the way we define judgment. Judgment and justice in it's truest sense is a setting things right. It is about restoring, reconciling, and redeeming not about punishment. Punishment does not set things right, if it did the prisons of America would be turning out an abundance of Righteous people who would cause our nation to be swept up in a whirlwind of redemption and revival of justice.

Faith or religion that is built on fear and punishment is not a faith at all. Is faith a system of beliefs or the way we live our lives? If it is a system of beliefs then anyone who lives contrary to what we believe must be wrong or must be the devil, because if we believe anything less we would have to consider maybe we are wrong.

But if faith is about how we live our lives then it is also about growth and change. Brian Mclaren said, " statements produce only states, but questions produce Quests."

Our faith should be a journey not about some state of being or about some "some day".So much of religion puts living off until the afterlife. So our view of God, our faith and the way we live is all about the future. But Hebrews 11:1 say, " NOW Faith is.........".

God is a God of Love. God desires to liberate, create, and reconcile right now in the lives of all. The Bible is a book of stories that give witness to God moving in the lives of people for these ends.

Now you might ask, what about the times in scripture where God is Violent, full of Wrath. The Bible was written by men who were limited by what their perspective of God was. It is literature (inspired though it is) through their eyes.

Nowhere are we told to gain our perspective of God from this one source. In fact only Christ is said to be the total revelation of who God is.Hebrews 1:1-3, Colossians 1:15

How has the church come from a group of people who followed Christ to now a group who worship the Bible in the place of Christ. Don't get me wrong, I love the Bible and I believe it is a gift from God to inspire, teach and reveal things about God to us. However, my faith is in Christ, and it is He that I follow. The Holy Spirit guides me into all truth. The Bible is just one tool he may use to speak to me.

If you view the Bible as a literal law book or as Brian Mclaren puts it a "Constitution" than I am afraid you will be disappointed and find many inconsistencies in your faith.Your faith will be about legalities, judgments,and will always leave someone on the wrong side of God and Heaven.It will always be a cut and dry one way or another proposition. it will never speak to the gray, messier harder parts of life. The Bible was never meant to govern every aspect of life, if it could then God would have simply given Moses the Bible and there would have been no need of a Savior.

However if you understand the Bible as a inspired set of books that tell a story and give witness of God's redemptive, restorative love and reconciliation, then your faith will be inspired and invigorated by this same love and you will know that God is a God of Love and who will go very very far to restore, redeem and rescue the life of even one who has gone astray.

Which one of these perspectives of God match's the example of Christ? That is the one that should be your perspective of who God is.

This post is inspired by my reading Brian McLaren's book "A New Kind of Christianity". I highly recommend this book if you want your faith transformed. However if you are happy with the regular packaged faith and religion this book is probably not for you. It is not about who is right or who is wrong. It is about what works here and now. I believe faith is about how we live our lives now and if we get that right, the afterlife will simply be a reward for a life well lived. Jesus said, " I have come that you may have Life and that life lived to the full". Eternal Life begins now not in Heaven, or maybe I should say the Kingdom of God is at hand now, not later....this is the gospel and the message Jesus preached.