Fear is not in love, but perfect love is casting out fear, for fear has chastening. Now he who is fearing is not perfected in love
First Epistle of John 4: 18, Concordant New Testament
Growing up in the mainstream church, I came to fear God. God held all the cards to my future. If I was good enough, He promised me that I would be rewarded with an eternity in heaven. However, and this is where the fear came into play, if I my behavior did not live up to His standards, then more than likely I would face an eternity in the fires of hell reserved for Satan and his angels {Matthews Account 25:41}. How is it that a God who loved me enough to create me in His own likeness could ever commit me to a place of punishment apart from Him? Yet this continues to be the message preached from the pulpits of the church, that we serve a God Who will undoubtedly condemn us if we behave badly. So it is that far too many believers profess a faith based upon the fear of what will become of them if they don't adhere to Gods holy standards. I was reminded of this last week when a good Gym Rat friend introduced me to a short video professing a "Day of reckoning" which all believers must face. Imagine that, that you can do all which God requires of you (Which is difficult to accomplish) and yet still face your own day of reckoning. My first question when I'm approached with this false belief is simple, what about Jesus? For it is Jesus who gave Himself willingly to take upon Himself that punishment which was meant for us {Paul to the Corinthians (2) 5:21}. Indeed, it is Jesus who is "The One not knowing sin" who is made to be a sin offering for all of mankind. Make no mistake, WE were the ones who needed to die on that cross, not Jesus. Yet God, in His love for us despite our sin condition, has declared us innocent through the work of Christ Jesus on the cross {Paul to the Romans 5:8}. Think about that, while you were still considered a sinner, God loved you enough to dispatch His only Son to die in your place. The trouble I have with the mainstream church, and why I have received a lot of pushback in the conversations which I have had with other believers, is that they have taken to invalidating the freeing work of Christ Jesus in our favor and preached the message of condemnation. So, I ask you, what condemnation is there for those who are in Christ Jesus {Paul to the Romans 8:1}. How is it that we who have been declared innocent by God will suddenly fall from His grace and mercy to spend an eternity apart from Him? That is the question which every believer should be asking of their local church pastor.
In Whom we are having the deliverance through His blood, the forgiveness of offenses in accord with the richness of His grace
Paul to the Ephesians 1: 7, Concordant New Testament
In recent years, I have been blessed with having the insight and advice of a dear friend who once spent his entire career behind the pulpits of the church. How he himself, in the final days of his career, began to question that which he had been preaching for so long. What caused his shift in thinking? Well, he began to delve into the writings of those speaking a different view of God than he was used to speaking. Men like author Norman Grubb and J Preston Eby among others. Granted, these were authors which I never heard mentioned in my years within the church, for good reason. For they speak of a God who is radically different than that which I grew up knowing. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and say that I have never truly known God until I stepped away from the church and began to look into these writings for myself. This is why I can confidently say that the God spoken by the church is NOT the God that I have come to know in my heart. For the God I now know within my heart does not threaten me with His judgement after He has declared me to be innocent through the work of His Son. The God that I know reminds me that it is Jesus who has died to sin "Once for all time" {Paul to the Romans 6:10}. That through the finished work of Jesus, that we should be considering ourselves to be "Dead, indeed, to sin, yet living to God in Christ Jesus, our Lord" {Paul to the Romans 6:11}. THIS is the God I know. The God I know has not burdened me with the church traditions of tithes, regular church attendance and support and devotion to the man-made church. For speaking this truth, I have been accused of professing false beliefs by those within the church. However, I am grateful for the truth in that the apostle Paul and Jesus Himself were also hated for the words which they spoke. The truth is, I do not believe in God through the fear of punishment, but through the truth that my life in now lived in Him {Johns Account 14:20}.
~Scott~
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