Finally Free: Part 1

God Loves Me If? (an answer to Lies I Used to Believe)

I've got to be careful as I write about finding freedom from the lies I believed. It would be easy to create a view that is not accurate. So, even though I’ve written about this topic for several weeks now, I’m going to take a couple more posts to explain “freedom.”

Freedom was not a sudden revelation, but a gradual increase in understanding of God and his word. For me, there was a gradual increase in knowledge that was then followed by a personal liberation from guilt.

I’ll tell you about the guilt later because the guilt was based on an improper knowledge. If I understood God and the Bible correctly, much of my guilt would have been removed or avoided. So, before the weight of guilt could be removed, I had to be retaught some basic truths.

For those of you who have said “we shouldn’t divide over theology,” I must point out that the term “theo” is Latin for “God” and the term “ology” is a Latin suffix that means “the study of.” Therefore when we look at theology, we are essentially committing to the study of God… until we get a headache, fall asleep, or lose interest.

It is in the study of God and His nature that I truly began to find freedom—and it is because of this that I would oppose those who suggest it is better to just “serve God and not analyze God’s word too much.” If the Bible is the inspired word of God (and I believe it is), then to study the Bible is to learn more about God and his nature. Why would you want to serve someone you don’t understand? (I certainly did for several years, and I didn’t enjoy it.)

The study of theology can be huge, so I won’t even begin to go over everything I learned. I will say that Joshua Harris’s book Dug Down Deep was a big help for my understanding and for wetting my desire to know more. I also found relief in the writings of C.J. Mahaney and C.S. Lewis.

My perceptions of God changed about the time I moved to North Carolina. My little church named Antioch Community Church helped with this quite a bit.

Exposure to families that love you anyway (perfect or not) works wonders for the burned-out soul. Exposure to solid Bible teaching helps even more.

I’ve tried for a week to write down a simple summery of what my opinions changed on. I have struggled because it takes so much room. I will save much of it for other posts—maybe even a book.

What it really comes down to, though, is God. I had him figured wrong. He wasn’t a divine meter maid making sure I paid my dues—he IS an adopted father telling me I don’t have to earn his favor.

Here’s a highly simplistic overview of how I now see God:

• ·         God is holy (perfect)
• ·         God is love
• ·         God desires to have a relationship with each person on the planet
• ·         Our sin (imperfection) is incompatible with God’s holiness (perfection)
• ·         Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection occurred so that we might have a way to gain a relationship with God
• ·         By placing our faith in Jesus, we are forgiven of our sins and handed a “free pass” to heaven
• ·         This acceptance of Christ’s free gift of salvation is a total surrender of our lives to God—but, we still have to battle the sinful temptations of the world, our flesh, and the Devil
• ·         Without God’s help, we would be unable to do ANYTHING that was pure and good—no matter how good our intentions might be, without Christ’s aid we are still imperfect humans
• ·         Therefore God does not look at our actions as the final say in our worthiness; he looks to Jesus who “takes up our case” and through whom we are counted as perfect, despite our flaws

The end of this is that, while I am an imperfect human, I am loved by God despite my imperfections. There is nothing I can do to change my standing with God. The day I surrendered my life to Jesus is the day God called me his own. There is no possible way to revoke that claim—and I must rest in the knowledge that I am owned by God, no matter what.

This revelation that God loves me anyway was a major step to freedom from guilt and the pressure to perform and please others.

[Please note: I am not saying that as a Christian, I am free to sin. God doesn’t like sin, even if it’s one of his children that sins. I AM saying that he does not love us less when we sin, because his punishment for my sin has been transferred to Jesus, who has effectively taken my place.]

There is more to the freedom I’ve found, but I’ll tell you about that in another post.

Next: Community Service

The Man I Called Grampaw

The man I called “Grampaw” died this morning.

I grew up calling him Grampaw even though he wasn’t any blood relation to me—he was just married to my grandmother. Whenever I called him Herb (his real name) my grandmother would get irate, so I soon learned that grandpa was Grampaw, even though he often reminded me that I was not his grandchild.

This is a short post because there was not a lot of love between Grampaw and me, even though that was not really my choice.

I grew up wanting a relationship with my grandfather, but never had one. For the last decade I have been keenly aware that he didn’t even like me and found me annoying.

When his Alzheimer’s was diagnosed a few years ago, I felt the detached sadness one feels at the news that an acquaintance has fallen into misfortune. 

Ironically, the nicest Grampaw ever was to me was last year, after his illness had robbed him of the reasons why he disliked me. For one brief visit he was smiles and conversation. Then I left… and now I will never see him again.

More than sadness I feel hurt that he would never want to be close to the almost-grandchild that wanted to call him Grampaw. But I still feel sadness, too.

Growing up, I saw that Grampaw’s faith was not in Jesus, but in reason and logic. While God wanted to call Grampaw his adopted son, Grampaw appeared to want none of that relationship, either.

Since it was Grampaw’s wish for his body is to be donated to science, there won’t be a funeral. In a way that’s fitting because he wouldn’t have liked anyone to make a fuss over him. But as his body is donated to science and no funeral occurs, I mourn the loss of someone I didn’t really know and who—to my knowledge—did not really know Jesus.

So instead of a funeral, I pray for the man I called Grampaw. I hope he found a relationship with the One who loved him most.