God is Love

Since we got settled in Eugene, Sarah and I have been blessed with the company of  a few adults in their 20’s and 30’s. We get together and talk about our lives, deep things of the heart, and our personal growth and pursuit of Truth. Our last meeting inspired me to write this and I’d like to share it with you. It’s not a story but I hope you’ll benefit from it in some way.

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To be honest, based on my personal experience and knowledge of our invisible, ineffable God, I’m still mostly in the dark. The thing that is most real to me is this: God is love.

In my life, like so many others, I have experienced joy and suffering. I’ve been healthy and strong and I’ve been sick and injured. But I cannot think of one time in my long life when I believed my suffering or misfortune was judgment from God. It has always been a consequence of my own doing or an affliction imposed on me by circumstances or another human being.

Do you think God intervenes in the affairs of men? I know some people think that way and pray accordingly, and some people think that God uses circumstances and natural disasters to punish us, our cities, and our country. Some pastors claimed that hurricane Katrina was God’s judgment against America because of moral decadence. What if natural disasters are just that, natural–nature being itself in response to the forces and laws that govern it?

Are there laws or principles of the spirit that God created to govern creation? Let me suggest a few. There’s the law of return: give and it shall be given unto you. And the law of grace, that mercy triumphs over judgment. What about the law of attraction? When we seek and keep on seeking are we attracting that which we seek? And the law of forgiveness: forgive and you will be forgiven. I’m sure there are more.

God’s divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. He has already granted everything! If this is true, why do we pray? Well, I think we pray for ourselves and for others to appropriate and activate what has already been provided. I don’t believe God is running around serving up our wants and deciding which football team will win. He established laws in the beginning so he wouldn’t have to do that. Plus, we have Jesus and Buddha and neighbors and family and friends and ancestors and angels and others who are able to help us in our time of need. I’m not saying God isn’t doing it, I’m saying he’s doing it through his laws of Spirit and through other beings of light he created as ambassadors. I know this is speculation and may or may not be true but I consider it a possibility.

There is no Fear in Love

I’m interested in alternate possibilities besides a God who is constantly intervening in the affairs of men to bless some and punish others. A Catholic priest counted the number of people that Jehovah killed according to Old Testament scriptures. Not counting those killed in the flood and others killed but not counted, Jehovah killed 2,821,364 people, and thousands of those were his chosen ones. Are those stories true? Where is the God of unconditional love in all of that?

At Mount Sinai the Israelites begged Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we shall die.” That is a far cry from Jesus telling us to go into our secret place and talk directly to our Father. Why is there such a contrast between Jehovah and our Father?

• • Did God reinvent himself once Jesus was born?
  • Was Jehovah a tribal God, and not the Most High God whom Jesus knows as Abba Father?
  • Was Jehovah’s persona created by man in man’s image like other deities with tendencies towards human emotions like jealousy, vengeance, anger, favoritism, and regret?

At any rate, Jesus and his teachings seem far different from those of Jehovah, even though the image of God as a punishing deity still appears in some New Testament scripture. The author of Hebrews wrote, “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Perhaps this mindset was so woven into the Jewish psyche that it was hard to dismiss. And Christians who accept Jesus’s gospel also seem to accept a demanding God who condemns his enemies to eternal damnation. In any case, their conquering God served Christians quite well in crusades and inquisitions.

According to scripture the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge. The translators could have used the word “awe” or “reverence” but they purposely chose “fear.” Perhaps “fear” was the most appropriate choice considering their paradigm of God–a paradigm that has been passed down to us through generations of Christian leaders.

Fear can motivate people and at times it is beneficial in turning a wandering heart back into the fold. Fear can also be used as a tool to control the masses and enforce loyalty to a god, person, or organization. Think about governments, church hierarchy, corporations, and criminal enterprises.

If fear is the beginning of wisdom, what is the end?  In First John we are told, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

Imagine a sliding scale with fear on one side and perfect love on the other. Probably most of us are somewhere along this scale believing to let go of fear and embrace the love of God, a love that is patient, kind, believing, hoping, enduring, and never failing.

Matthew 7:22-23

The reason all this is important to me is because I still think the fear of God keeps me from fully trusting God’s love. Here’s a scripture that has bothered me for a long time, so much so that I questioned if Jesus really said this or if someone added it to disparage splinter groups (heretics) and encourage obedience to the true Church. But on further consideration, I find it useful.

Jesus just finished telling his audience to beware of false prophets and gave them a plumbline, “You will know them by their fruits.” And let me just say that miracles, anointings, a charming personality, and good sermons are not fruit. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.

In verse 23 Jesus tells us what he will say to false prophets who come bragging to him.

“Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.’”(Matt 7:22-23)

There have been times when this verse scared me, especially because of the God-will-judge-you paradigm so prevalent in Christian circles. But if I remember that mercy triumphs over judgment, and if I can see God as a righteous and loving judge rather than a vengeful punishing judge, then this scripture takes on a different tone. Judgment isn’t always a punishment, sometimes it’s an opportunity for the truth to set you free and bring you to repentance and forgiveness.

If I interpret Jesus saying, “depart from me” as “Go burn in hell, I never want to see you again,” perhaps I’m seeing through a lens of fear. Maybe Jesus is simply saying, “Sorry, go away and come back when you figure out what you did wrong.”

Being lawless in Jesus’ mind could only mean one thing: they were not loving God and their neighbor as they should. The apostle Paul knew that if he had the gift of prophecy and faith to remove mountains, without love he was just a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal–he was nothing.

So how does this verse of scripture help me? First of all, when I’m in the presence of a false prophet I can respond like Jesus, “Depart from me.” I don’t have to say it out loud but I have no obligation to listen to that person. And secondly, if the verse causes me to be fearful, I can see that I’m not yet perfected in love; I’m still somewhere in the middle of the scale between fear and love. The verse is a mirror into my own spiritual health and gives me the opportunity to open up to more love–for myself, for my neighbor, and for God. Reading this verse in this way makes room for my deepest belief: God is love.