Our gods expect us to be perfect, pure, and in constant control of our feelings and thoughts.
Our God is the God who flung from His fingertips this universe filled with galaxies and stars, penguins and pulsars, geese and wild grass, Mastiffs and mountains, elephants and evergreens, parrots and potatoes, pacific cod, pears, and potato bugs, and a world full of children, all made to receive from Him everything as gift. This is the God who loves billions of constellations and a coffee bean with astounding sameness.
This is also our Savior God who's come close—closer to us than our next breath. He has become our salvation. The Savior God who is all faithful, loving, kindness. The Father who out of love for us sent His only Son to rescue us from our sin, the fatal me-first attitude that has doomed us to death and hell. Jesus learned how to walk, stumbled and fell, cried for His milk, sweated blood in the night, was scourged with a whip, showered with spit, and was nailed to a cross and died declaring forgiveness on us all.
Other gods, the gods we invent, are unpredictable, erratic, and capable of all kinds of prejudices. As a consequence, our view of our heavenly Father falls in this direction, too. We feel compelled to engage in some sort of magic ritual to satisfy Him. Sunday worship then becomes a superstitious insurance policy against His whims.
Our gods expect us to be perfect, pure, and in constant control of our feelings and thoughts. When we fail to worship and serve them, when we eventually break down—as inevitably we must—we usually expect punishment. So, we push on doing the religion thing while we struggle to maintain a hollow image of a faithful and obedient Christian. The struggle itself is exhausting. We can never live up to the expectations we project onto our heavenly Father. After all, we must make our father proud of us!
But, our Savior God isn't moody or fickle. He knows no seasons of change. He has a single relentless stance toward us. He loves us Jesus-much. He is the only God anyone has ever heard of who loves unforgivable, unlovable failures. No other religion has made that claim. Not one. Ever.
Our gods expect us to be perfect, pure, and in constant control of our feelings and thoughts.
False gods—the gods conjured up from our shame, from our fear, from our guilt, and from our insecurities—these gods despise sinners. The Father of Jesus loves us all, no matter what we do. Of course, this is almost too incredible to believe. But it does not matter. The central confession of the Reformation stands. We do not deserve God's forgiveness and love, but by the Father's mercy, we have been restored to a right relationship with Him through the life, death, and resurrection of His beloved Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. This is the Good News. This is God's message of Salvation for us.
So, whether we do it right or wrong; whether we obey or disobey; whether we run from Christ in fear or run to Christ in hope; whether we choose to become a wholly faithful Christian or a half-assed kind of Christian; whether we cry, cuss, spit, laugh, sing, or dance; whether we read a novel or the Bible; whether we watch television or pray, Jesus holds us up. We can trust in that fact yesterday, today, and forever. For behold, God is our salvation!
