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What Your Fantasies Reveal Finding the perfect partner Deep within us there seems an empty chasm that not even a hundred lovers could fill, yet still there is hope. Your dream can come true. Lasting love has eluded many of the most envied and lusted-after people in the world. For you, however, it can be different. Dare to dream How beautiful must a woman be before she no longer needs love? How many times does the average man need to see naked porn stars to block the pain of rejection? No matter how we try to suppress it, our need for love is inescapable. Behavioral scientists have discovered that even people who focus almost exclusively on impersonal sex – porn, phone sex, fetishism, solitary sex, exhibitionism, bestiality etc – are usually driven to their obsession by a need for love. (How cruelly misunderstood many of these people are.) Note: "Believe it or not, the driving force behind most sex addicts'compulsion is a desperate need for love." write psychologists Dr. R. Earle and Dr G. Crow in Lonely all the time: Recognizing, Understanding and Overcoming Sex Addiction New York, 1989, page 23 Being in love, however, is a risky, potentially agonizing experience. We might kiss with our eyes closed, but relationships are frighteningly fragile. Beauty sags. People change. Death or disagreement can so easily rob us of the one we love. The deeper our love the deeper our insecurity. But if reality is cold, dreams are too hot to hold. Our passions seem so insatiable that we shrink from them, yet still they haunt us. Just for a moment, release the iron grip that keeps your longings suppressed in the dungeons of your mind. Let your longings waft free before your gaze, no matter how unattainable they seem. Dare to see what they reveal. You burn for unwaning intimacy; a companion who will never fail you; a friend who can always be with you, no matter what the hour or place, the instant you want this special person. Too often you are misunderstood. You crave a lover who can slip inside your mind; ideally, someone who has not only heard of your every trauma and triumph from birth, but experienced them with you. You need to unburden yourself with an admirer who knows your blackest secrets, yet delights in you with unswerving devotion. When life’s blows send you reeling, you ache for someone who not only passionately longs to meet your deepest needs, but is always able to. You need a partner so capable that when crisis swallows crisis you can trust your friend to comfort, protect and power you to success. Yet you don’t want to be smothered. On the contrary, you want someone who will nerve you to reach the heights you were born for. You pine for someone changeless, yet someone you will never tire of; someone who fits your needs so exactly it feels you were made for each other; someone you will be forever proud of; someone whose love for you is so vast that it always satisfies; someone faithful, genuine, open and warm, yet so resistant to the ravages of aging, sickness and tragedy as to seem immortal. You don’t want death to rob you of the one you love, plunging you back into icy loneliness. There’s hope! Not a person on earth fits the bill, yet the ache remains. A few dreamers keep chasing the elusive high of starry-eyed love, forever groping for the perfect relationship. The rest of us give up. A person would have to be God to meet our criteria! And how could he help? We’re flesh and blood; God, if he exists, is some nebulous, unapproachable Spirit. The notion of a friendship with God is preposterous. Or is it? Within the realms of the unknown almost anything could dwell – even a God poised to shatter our insensibility to him. If there is an Intelligence behind creation, why were we made with cravings that could never be satisfied? Is God a sadist, or were those yearnings for the ideal companion planted within because he longs to fulfill them by being your most intimate friend? Could it be that God seems impersonal only because you’re not on close terms with him? If God were impersonal, that would make us superior to our Creator. That’s absurd. If we can speak, feel and love, our Maker can do all that and more. God is warm. But God is a killjoy! Or is it sin that ultimately kills joy – promising so much yet delivering the hangover, the downer, the unwanted pregnancy, the disease, the cancer, the rejection, the hurt, the shame? Ask sin’s victims – the victims of theft, violence, addiction, divorce, hate, selfishness and slander – whether God’s ways kill joy or make joy. But God is dull! Really? The God whose power and creativity defy imagination; whose wonders are inexhaustible? Wouldn’t it be a never-ending adventure to be in love with the one Person who is continually able to exceed your wildest dreams? This exciting Person, whose never-ending companionship and limitless power are able to fill the unfillable hole within us, is the perfect partner you ache for. But I need someone I can touch. God knows your every need. The ultimate romance You are passionately loved. In the eyes of the one Person who really counts, you are special. To other people you might be just one of thousands, but not to the One who made you. You mean so much to him that what God wants with you is like a perfect marriage in which you can enjoy each other forever. Believing in the opposite sex does not make one married. Neither does believing a creed give us the right to live with God. It is not enough to walk down a church aisle. True marriage is believing in someone so completely that you commit all that you are, and all that you have, to that person for life. Your Maker is eager to be that devoted to you, but for marriage to work, the commitment must be mutual. If a street kid married a millionaire, she would get his riches and he would get her debts. He would be tarred with her shame and she would gain his honor. For this to happen, she must turn from rival relationships and bind herself and her meager possessions to this man in marriage. Everything he owns would become hers, if she lets everything of hers become his. Similarly, if we entrust to God everything we have – our time, abilities, relationships and possessions – he will reciprocate, embracing us with divine extravagance. We hand our depravity to Jesus, relinquishing even our fondest sin. It becomes his. That’s what killed him. In return, Jesus’ sinless perfection envelops us, enabling us to be on intimate terms with the Holy God. In entering this love pact, we give God the right to do whatever he likes with our assets, but the Owner of the universe makes his riches available to us. We trade our talents, for his omnipotence; our attempts to run our lives, for his unlimited wisdom. We give him our time on earth and he gives us eternity. In every way we benefit from this proposal and God gets the raw end. But God is in love with you. He wants this holy union more than you can imagine. Don’t break his heart and miss out on the ultimate human experience by holding back. A marriage made in heaven The following corresponds to wedding vows in which you give yourself to the Lord, thus making him your God. In turn, the King of kings makes you worthy of spiritual fusion with him and pledges to devote himself unreservedly to you. If the following accurately describes your feelings, you can make it your prayer by reading it to God. Wonderful Lord, It hurts to admit how selfish I’ve been. I have caused you grief, yet you sent your Son who gave his life and defeated death to secure my pardon. You have given yourself totally for me and I long to respond to your overwhelming love, by dedicating all I have to pleasing you. I take you to be my God from this day forward. I will love, honor and obey you. I yield to your loving protection and guidance. I surrender my sins to you, renouncing even those things that entice me. And in exchange I receive your pardon, your purity, and your power to live a life worthy of you. Thank you that we have now commenced a union so unique and powerful that not even death can break it. The Lord of heaven and earth knows your secret thoughts. If you prayed the entire prayer honestly, you have entered a new spiritual realm. That’s hard to believe. Everything seems the same. But not from heaven’s perspective. The spiritual contract is sealed. The proof lies not in your feelings (such as whether you feel guilty or happy), but in the integrity of the Holy One. He has given his word (in the Bible) that whoever turns from sin and looks to Jesus for cleansing, has a radically new destiny. God is no liar! If this is the first time you have genuinely offered such a prayer, you need further support immediately. E-mail me now on grantley.morris@gmail.com . I’d love to hear all about you. Even the briefest e-mail saying you have prayed the prayer or asking a question allows me to pray for you and to send you more information. The perfect partner In old-fashioned romance, young lovers, leaving reality behind would let their emotions and dreams run wild. Not surprisingly, their language was laced with religious expressions: * She idolizes him * He adores her * You’re divine * He’s heavenly * He worships the ground she walks on * A marriage made in heaven Religious words dropped spontaneously from the lips of people who weren’t religious. As they discovered, throbbing just below the surface of our consciousness is the awareness that religion and the euphoric love we crave are inextricably linked. The craving deep within you will remain insatiable until you enjoy a thrilling and fulfilling union with the One who made you. God is the perfect partner you pine for. Yet his very perfection makes him unapproachable. The Almighty is awesomely holy; incomparably virtuous; incomprehensibly pure. We are not. If the intensity and purity of God’s moral perfection were thought of as blinding light, we are like darkness by comparison. And darkness cannot exist in the presence of light. Back to reality We come hurtling back to reality. There’s a solution, but to appreciate its grandeur, we must consider the magnitude of the problem. This is so distasteful that we instinctively shrink from it, like dungeon dwellers recoiling from sunlight. We’ll expose facts that challenge the limits of our ability to grapple with reality. Yet facing them is the most liberating experience a human can know. If we burst into a hospital and chanced upon a doctor sterilized for surgery, he could not touch us. We may seem immaculate, but not by the standards he must keep. We are like that in the presence of the holy Lord. We may be as good as the next guy, but by the unreachable perfection of God’s standards we are moral lepers. God must keep his distance. That seems an over-reaction. Being surrounded by imperfection all our lives has clouded our ability to see ourselves objectively. Deep down we suspect the worst but we flee from it like people refusing cancer checks, even though early diagnosis brings life, not death. We try to fill our lives with endless activity so that we do not have to think of it. Yet deep down we know we stand guilty in the presence of a holy God. Even when we imagine we have pushed it out of our minds, it controls us more than we realize. A favorite, rarely conscious, technique to silence our suppressed but nagging conscience is to concoct a doctored moral code that lets us entertain the delusion that we are morally superior to some people. What drives us to despise certain people, or to gossip, is not unkindness or snobbishness so much as a desperate attempt to drown the shrieks of our own conscience. We are driven to all lengths – even to accusing God of injustice – to try to ease our guilt. We spurn God’s laws, hurt each other, and then have the audacity to blame God for the mess. ‘Why do the innocent suffer?’ we sneer, conveniently forgetting the times our anger, greed and lies have hurt the innocent. For some suspicious reason, there is a degree of hurt we deem excusable, and the hurt we have inflicted happens to compare favorably with the standard we have arbitrarily set. God cannot be party to such hypocrisy. (I warned this horror story would take you to the edge of your tolerance. Rich rewards, however, await those with the courage to face facts we inwardly know to be true. When approaching a God who can make us more beautiful than we dare dream, we have no need to act like burns patients smashing mirrors.) If God is a God of love, why does he allow the evil that’s rampant in this world? For anyone not entranced by his/her own hypocrisy, the reason is obvious. God longs to destroy all evil, and the time is fast approaching when he will (2 Peter 3:9-13). But how, without unprincipled favoritism, could he do this without destroying you and me? Becoming beautiful Should we reform and never so much as think another wrong thought, it wouldn’t help. If water is contaminated, adding pure water doesn’t help – the water is still contaminated. There’s corruption in our past and we cannot change the past. Some things God cannot do without violating his integrity. Consider a man in court found guilty of dangerous driving. The judge happens to be a close friend of the defendant. Would it be right for the judge to declare his guilty friend innocent? Or could he fine the offender less because he is his friend? Only a corrupt judge could condone law-breaking or display favoritism. And God is our Judge, because there is no such monstrosity as a self-made person. None of us decided to come into existence, or can even design our offspring’s fingerprints. God formed the brain cells we think with. We owe him everything. The Lord is maker – and therefore owner – of every molecule and organism we have ever used or abused. Like it or loathe it, that makes us accountable to God for our every action. Our selfishness has hurt people. It would be an outrage for the Supreme Judge to ignore our offenses. We’re the ones who bellow at God when we see wrongdoing go unpunished. Though his devotion to you defies explanation, he cannot do other than declare you guilty. And justice demands the penalty be paid. That leaves just two alternatives. Either you pay the penalty, or someone pays it for you. It would be sheer conceit for me to consider taking your punishment. I have my own wickedness to answer for. But the eternal Son of God, two thousand years ago, left his celestial judgment seat and came to earth. He became the sole human who has lived a perfect life. In the brilliance of his purity, our highest moral achievements look like mud. So when Christ voluntarily endured the pain and shame of a criminal’s death, something of cataclysmic significance was happening. The innocent Son of God was taking upon himself full blame for your sin. Physical torment choked in a sea of spiritual agony. On the cross the only person who has enjoyed eternal oneness with God cried, ‘My God, why have you abandoned me?’ Father God was compelled to desert his beloved Son, treating him as the vilest sinner, until the horrific penalty was paid in full. After absorbing the full consequences of our depravity, Christ broke through to life again, blasting a path for us to follow. You are the focal point of this heart-stopping display of love, the greatest love the universe has known. Will you continue to spurn it? Enjoy the ultimate love affair Christ’s sacrifice has provided a legal way whereby anyone, though guilty, can go scot-free. But that does not make forgiveness automatic. To be intimate with the Lord of the galaxies; to have divine power flowing through your veins; to reach the peaks you were made for, requires a response on your part. To explain, let’s return to the reckless driver. A judge would have to fine his friend for breaking the law. It is quite legal, however, to offer a friend money to pay the fine. It is then up to the offender whether he accepts the judge’s gift. It would break Jesus’ heart if you slight his offer to suffer for you. The only alternative is for you to bear the penalty. That’s the last thing he wants. God is anxious to save you from the horrors of hell and grant you a fulfilling, life-changing partnership with him. But you must accept the gift. That involves admitting that you need the gift – that only Jesus’ sacrifice can absolve your guilt. There is one more consideration. If our lead-footed friend, the dangerous driver, intends perpetuating the same offenses, he is a danger to the community. It would be wrong to pardon someone who plans to continue flouting the law. Similarly, it would be wrong for God to forgive us until our attitude to sin has changed. I reel at the thought of the hordes who have tragically missed this point. A second analogy will confirm its centrality. You are trapped in a sea of sin. Bottomless waters lap towering cliffs. No one can tread water forever. The murky depths terrify you, except for one spot. You’ve found a place where the deadly waters seem beautiful and the sensual waves exquisite. How can anyone take seriously your cries for help if you’re splashing around enjoying yourself? And what’s the point of saving someone who is hell-bent on plunging back after every rescue attempt? No one with a suicidal commitment to a sin can be saved. This doesn’t mean you must initiate a sinless life to enjoy forgiveness. We’re in sin’s death grip. Only Jesus can break it. But do you want him to? Do you want to be rid forever of your favorite sin? The Almighty gives us dignity by respecting our wishes. If we don’t want him to be our God – ie in total control of our lives - it grieves and appalls him, but in his gentleness he will permit us to go our own way. No one has suffered the pain of rejected love like God. You can never be forced to love someone. Nor can you be forced to desire purity of heart. The Giver has done all he can. It’s over to you. To ignore our Creator is the height of selfishness. He is the Source of every good thing we ever enjoyed. (Even sin’s fizzle of pleasure, that slippery shadow of the real thing seized while defying him, is possible only because of our God-given ability to experience pleasure.) Every wonderful thing we take for granted comes from him. He even holds our atoms together. He protects and nurtures even those who ignore him, providing abundant opportunity for them to respond to his astounding love. They don’t want God to interfere, but he does anyhow – showering them with a myriad soft, warm, beautiful, delicious, refreshing, thrilling and inspiring gifts. At death, however, those who on earth wanted to be independent of God are finally granted their wish. That’s the ultimate horror. To be eternally severed from the Source of all love, beauty, fulfillment and joy is a prospect too terrifying to contemplate. With a repentant attitude towards ungodly ‘pleasures’, however, and a reliance upon the pardoning power of Jesus’ sacrifice, you give God free rein to do what he longs to do – pay your debt to justice and credit to your account the moral perfection of Christ. That makes you so pure in his eyes that you need no longer be isolated from him. You can then commence an endless communion with the most wonderful Person in the universe. Would you now like to pray to give your life to God? Yes Do you feel it is too soon to give your life to God? If so, choose one of the following: What’s in it for me? I want to think about it some more

God’s Mysterious Ways   Help and InspirationWhen God Seems Cold and Indifferent   Insights into the Mysteries of Prayer   This is part of an inspiring series for those times when we fear that God has rejected us or is uncaring. Perhaps you fear you have abused God’s grace too often or secretly suppose you are not a high priority with God. In this page we will continue to plunge deep into the heart of God, as revealed in his Word. Our goal is to see if our fears and suspicions about God have a genuine basis or whether, despite surface indications, God is more loving that we dare hope and longs to lavish us with blessings. When the resurrected Lord walked with the two to Emmaus, “Jesus acted as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, ‘Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.’ So he went in to stay with them” (Luke 24:28-29). Taken in isolation, Jesus acting as if he had no desire to stay with them might seem peculiar, but we have already seen in previous pages ( Feeling Rejected by God,   Damned by God?  and  Punished by God ) that the Lord, through prophets, often seems to give no hope when in reality there is much hope. Jesus’ behavior in Emmaus fits the pattern that is beginning to appear. We see something similar in Mark 6:48. Jesus was on the land praying. The disciples were in the boat on the lake. Jesus saw them straining at the oars because the wind was against them, so he went out to them, walking on the water. What baffles Bible commentators is that the text seems to say Jesus acted as if he were going to walk on past the boat. This never eventuated because the disciples reacted and Jesus responded and the sea calmed. We, too, know what it is like to feel that Jesus is going to by-pass us. Urgent word was sent to Jesus that Lazarus was dying. Jesus stayed put. Eventually he turned up days late. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” sobbed Mary (John 11:32). It felt like Jesus was uncaring. The feeling was wrong. “God is love” means God  always  cares. No exceptions. The God who longs to pour out his blessings upon us keeps making it seem as if he has no intention of blessing us. He is forever trying to coax faith out of us, and faith can only grow where there seems good reason for doubt. Just as muscles will not only not grow but will waste away unless they repeatedly come against resistance, so faith can grow only when it meets resistance. Making it Hard for Us John 6:52  Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”  (53)  Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. . . .  (60)  On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”  (61)  Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? . . .  (63)  . . . The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.  (64)  Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” . . .  (65)  He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.”  (66)  From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.  (67)  “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.  (68)  Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.  (69)  We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” Note how Jesus did not make it easy for them. He could have simplified his teaching, making it far more intelligible, but he refused. Those worthy of salvation – those desperate for God – will cling to Jesus even when he doesn’t make sense and belief seems almost impossible. Never do we prove ourselves unworthy of salvation by our past, but only if for the remainder of our lives we refuse to believe in Jesus as our Savior. To say, “I don’t understand, so I’ll reject Jesus as my Savior,” or “I don’t feel anything but rejection, so I won’t believe Jesus is my Savior,” is to miss out. To say, “I can’t understand it or feel it, but I will still do my utmost to believe that Jesus is my Savior,” is to win eternal life. For top athletes to develop, they must be pushed to their limit. God knows our exact capacity for faith. He will not ask us to go beyond our capacity, but faith – more precious than Olympic gold – grows best by being stretched to its limit. So that is precisely what our loving Lord seeks to do. Wrestling With God It is startling to think that Jacob received God’s blessing not because he yielded to God but because he wrestled with God. Genesis 32:24  So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.  (25)  When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.  (26)  Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” This was a fight that seriously injured Jacob. “The man” asked him to let him go. Instead of complying, Jacob refused and held out for a blessing. Every indication was that this was not what “the man” wanted and yet we learn later that Jacob’s stubborn battling for a blessing thrilled God. From then on Scripture honors him with a new name: Israel, meaning “he struggles with God.” How peculiar! Doesn’t God want us to submit to him? Yes, but to submit to the true God – the God we know to be loving and longing to bless us – not the God of our nightmares whom we fear is out to crush us and cruelly rob us of what is best for us. The Lord is thrilled when we refuse to surrender to the fear that he is selfish and stingy and harsh. He wants not people who fight  him  but people who know him so well and love him so passionately that they fight any hint that God is less than infinitely good and kind and generous. Faith is not about selfishly getting our own way, but neither is faith resigning ourselves to supposing our prayers will not be answered. Faith is deciding that God is so generous and so in love with you that no matter how things seem, you will fight the doubts and stubbornly cling to the belief that he longs to gives you good things. The Mystery of Prayer Jeremiah 33:3  “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” Have you ever thought how strange the above Scripture seems? If God wants to show us things, why doesn’t he just do it? Why does God in Scripture over and over plead with us to ask him so that he can bless us? He obviously longs for us to have these things or he would not beg for us to ask him for them. And yet still he refuses to act until we dig our heels in and determine not to give in to all the superficial indications that God has little desire to bless us. In Jesus’ parable about how God wants us to pray, the widow was spurned over and over by the judge. She ended up with everything she had hoped for, but only because she refused to take rejection as the final answer (Luke 18:1-8). Clearly, this is the never-give-up, always-believe-that-God-will-bless-you attitude that God wants to build within us. The Lord, who always has our best interest at heart, knows that more important than instant answers to prayer is that we develop an unshakable conviction in the integrity of God’s character – a conviction that will withstand the strongest assaults from the evil deceiver who longs to slander the Perfect One. Our Lord is a prayer-answering God of compassion. Every indication to the contrary is a divine invitation for us to grow in faith so that not only is our Lord glorified but  we  will be praised forevermore, just like that Canaanite woman who had felt so despised. My friend Leona loves gardening. She told me, “When young plants that still have shallow root systems look wilted, I immediately want to revive them with a good dose of water. They quickly perk up and I seem to have done the right thing. If I always water them as soon as they seem to need it, however, the plants will never seek the water already available to them at a deeper level. Instead of developing a strong root system as God had intended, they will eventually die from root rot or fungus. For their sake, I must resist my urge to ‘rescue’ them the instant they seem to need it, or I will literally kill them with kindness. Too much of a seemingly good thing is not a good thing.” I keep getting the sulks when I don’t get instant answers to prayer. I keep thinking a loving God should shower me with constant blessings without me even having to ask, much less having to fight for years and years for them. I feel hurt, not merely because I don’t get what I want, but because I keep falling into the trap of wrongly guessing how a wise and loving God would act if he really wanted to build up my faith in his goodness and wanted to help convince me that I am special to him. It turns out that for God to act the way I want, would be like Leona giving in to her longing to pamper her plants. God’s pampering would seem to do wonders in the short term but it would actually stifle my faith. What would seem like building faith would actually be building a dependence upon circumstances and feelings, not building faith in the love and integrity of God. Faith is not about thinking of God as little more than a machine, but thinking of him as the passionate, tender-hearted person he truly is. It is not believing God is a vending machine – you push a button and out come goodies. Faith is about believing in the love and goodness and dependability and wisdom of your glorious Lord, no matter how many challenges to that belief occur in the short term. True faith comes not from being doted on but from having to hold on when all the outward signs keep screaming that God must be selfish, stingy and uncaring. God spoiling me would truly spoil me. Second Rate in God’s Eyes? I’ve endured years of fighting the feeling, and all the apparent evidence, that I’m second rate in God’s eyes and overlooked by him. I could have spared myself much of the pain. I should have known that the wise and loving God of the Bible is not like that. Nevertheless, with the wisdom of hindsight – I felt the opposite at the time – I’m so thankful to God for not pampering me but letting me endure seeming rejection. Those painful times when God did not respond to what seemed an urgent need for confirmation of his love, toughened me. What seemed a never-ending endurance test forced my roots deeper into God so that now, after years of feeling hard done by, I  know  that the Lord is not like the God I had feared he might be. No one is second rate in his eyes. To seem singled out for special rejection by God is to be blessed with unique opportunities to grow in God. Like a little boy having a fun filled wrestling match with his daddy, play fights with Father God make us strong and prove how special we are to him. It takes great faith and spiritual maturity, however, for us to see it that way at the time. While we are in the midst of our trial – which in some cases will last for years – it doesn’t feel as if God is building our faith and making us stronger. On the contrary, everything within and without screams that we are getting weaker and weaker. It seems God is killing our faith. We’ll think that if he cared he would give our faith the boost it desperately needs by giving us some sort of sign that he has not abandoned us. It seems unthinkable that a God who cares about our faith would treat us this way. If we puzzle at the enigma long enough, however, we’ll discover that it makes perfect sense. Consider an athlete during a training session. Perhaps his coach has him doing bench presses with weights, but it applies to any attempt to strengthen him. The athlete lifts the weight and is immediately asked to lift it again and again and again. Each time he lifts the weight, it feels heavier, even though it is exactly the same weight. There is no denying that he is getting weaker with each bench press. Eventually, he ends up exhausted and, for a few moments, almost unable to move, much less lift a weight. It seems almost unbelievable that the only way for him to get stronger is to go through a process that, in the short term, makes him weaker and weaker. If the athlete were not smart enough to understand the coach’s wisdom, he would find the process bitterly discouraging. It would seem that a caring coach should encourage the athlete by making the weight significantly lighter each time the athlete lifts it so that he feels he is getting stronger. With such a training schedule the athlete’s spirit would soar. He would feel he is improving but in reality he would be blissfully heading for shame as he trains in ease for the event he has set his heart on winning. This is why Jesus indicated that there will be many shocks when we stand before our Judge. Many who were sure they were miserable failures will be crowned as heroes. Many whom everyone thought to be strong will be shown to be weak. They had seemed to excel only because life had been a breeze for them and they had coasted when they should have striven. On that momentous Day, many praised on earth as great men and women of God will be shamed, and many who had seen themselves as insignificant or even failures, will suddenly find themselves acclaimed as spiritual giants and forever exalted. So when God seems harsh and seems to be favoring everyone but you, keep pressing on. You are headed for spiritual greatness. It is when life seems easy that we are most in danger of shrinking our eternal reward. Prayer Puzzles The first lie the Evil One ever attempted with humanity was that God is selfish. The slimy snake conned Eve into thinking that by forbidding certain fruit, her loving Creator was trying to keep something good from her (Genesis 3:1-6). The lie worked so well that the Evil One has been trying it ever since. The fact that God is love, combined with the intensity with which he does everything, means that your best interests are more important to God than they are even to you. Either God is longing for you to press through the challenges and receive that good thing you have not yet received, or eternity will prove that what you have craved is not as good as the alternative God is planning for you. If you fear God would rather condemn you to hell than respond to your sincere longing to be rid both of your sin and its eternal penalty, your fear is groundless. There is no way that hell could be better for you than finding the forgiveness you long for. There are other prayer requests, however, when not knowing every fact in the universe, nor having the ability to see the future, nor having infinite intelligence, means that your certainty that you know what is best might be misplaced. Take careful note of our Lord’s prayer life. Jesus said that if he had asked, God his father would have answered Jesus’ prayer to send angels to rescue him from crucifixion (Matthew 26:47-54). I shudder to think of the consequences for our eternities had Jesus prayed that prayer. Nevertheless, Jesus insisted that God would have answered that prayer. Three times he wrestled in prayer with this issue. The stakes were so horrific that his sweat was like blood dripping from him. Nevertheless, he each time battled through to the point where he told God he wanted God’s will, not his own (Matthew 26:36-44). Jesus is our role model. He could have got his way with God and ended up with less than God’s best. So can we, I believe – although often God has mercy on us and holds off on granting us a request that would end up disastrous for us. So there are two dangers. We must be careful not to settle for less than God’s best by not persisting in faith-filled prayer. On the other extreme, we could miss God’s best by insisting God do a certain thing when he has a better plan. Scripture makes it easy for us to know that God wants for us to ask in faith for his forgiveness. With less obvious things, however, knowing what to ask for can sometimes be beyond us. That’s why the Holy Spirit comes to our aid, helping us to pray (Romans 8:26-27). What you can know with utter certainty, however, is that God wants the best for you and that he is thrilled when you refuse to settle for anything less than heaven’s best.

Punished by God?     Understanding the Love and Grace of God   When you Feel God is Angry at You       We saw in the previous webpages ( Feeling Rejected by God  and  Damned by God? ) that when it seems certain that God has rejected us and even damned us to eternal destruction, it is simply our Lord displaying his love and mercy by doing all he can to jolt us back to reality and get serious with God so that we can receive his cleansing and the eternal fulfillment he longs for us to enjoy with him.   If God’s words can sometimes lead us to wrongly suppose we’ve been rejected, an even easier to make but way off-the-mark presumption is to suppose that God’s discipline or punishment implies his rejection or lack of love. Over and over Scripture stresses the very opposite. It insists that God’s punishment is proof of his love for us, and confirmation that we are genuine children of God. Hebrews 12:5  And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,  (6)  because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”  (7)   . . . God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?  (8)  If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.  (9)  Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live!  (10)  Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.  (11)  No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.   And there are many similar Scriptures.   Correctly administered, parental discipline is short-term discomfort that protects loved ones from long-term pain. It should be an act of parental care provided for their loved one’s safety and well-being. As implied in the above Scripture, parents often get it wrong, but God never gets it wrong.   We all die. To “save” someone’s life is merely to delay their death for what, relative to eternity, is an infinitesimal speck of time. So if, when it is a matter of life or death, severe action is sometimes required, how much more must this be so when one’s eternal destiny is at stake!   God’s punishment is temporary unpleasantness tailored to maximize our eternal pleasure. It is a loving act designed to nurture and protect and train. To mistake this act of love for rejection would cause enormous confusion and needless distress.   The loving necessity of punishment when one’s eternity is in danger is something we need to understand, not just when we ourselves are being punished, but also when reading in Scripture of God punishing people. For God to strike someone dead means that person did wrong and a strong warning needs to be sent to his or her contemporaries and perhaps even subsequent generations but it usually says little about that person’s eternity.   Of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, the Bible says:   1 Corinthians 10:9  We should not test the Lord, as some of them did – and were killed by snakes.  (10)  And do not grumble, as some of them did – and were killed by the destroying angel.  (11)  These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.   In Scripture we see people losing a ministry, or even dying prematurely, through God’s judgment, but this does not necessarily mean those people were sent to hell. What might send thunderous shockwaves on earth – God striking a Christian dead – might hardly rate as a ripple in that person’s eternity. In stark contrast, the peaceful passing of an elderly person destined for hell is a cataclysmic event for that person and can lull observers into a dangerous spiritual complacency.   To be punished by God might be most unpleasant now but when viewed from eternity it is one of life’s greatest blessings. It is our God-given opportunity to come to our senses, learn from our mistakes and find God’s forgiveness while we still have time. If a person’s eternity is at stake, after death is too late. God’s punishment in this life is a manifestation of his love and grace. In contrast, the greatest conceivable horror would be the Lord letting people go in blissful ignorance of their fate as they drift towards everlasting disaster.

Damned by God?     Could You Have Exhausted God’s Grace and Patience and be Condemned to Eternal Damnation?     There is Still Hope     The Mysterious Nature of Prophecy     In the previous webpage ( Feeling Rejected by God ) it was becoming evident that behind even dramatic displays of divine rejection is a surprise hidden motive. It is typical of the God of the Bible that the driving force behind divine declarations of doom is God’s longing to inspire the apparently damned people to receive great blessing.   We’ll continue to explore this astounding discovery; examining Scriptural instances of people seemingly rejected or even damned by God. In the process, we will gain fascinating, little-known insights into the nature of Old Testament prophecy. Our aim, however, is not mere head knowledge, but the heart-warming discovery of how loving and forgiving God really is, and the immense comfort this brings us when we feel condemned or rejected by God.   Hidden Love   Jonah was not an evangelist. As clearly stated in Scripture, this man was a prophet (2 Kings 14:25). His prophecy from God to the Ninevites was that in just forty more days, they would be destroyed (Jonah 3:4). That was his entire message. The prophecy held not a shadow of hope. God’s chosen instrument to pronounce this death sentence was a man who hated these people with a passion. He wanted them annihilated. You can be sure there was nothing about the body language or tone of voice of this messenger from God to hint to these pagans that the God of this foreigner might be loving or merciful. Everything hitting their senses told them they were doomed. They were wicked. They deserved destruction. Their time was up. And yet, desperately longing to find hope where there was no hope, the Ninevites repented and earnestly sought God, just like Jonah had dreaded and the Lord had secretly yearned for.   The prophet had tried to flee from his mission because he knew the tender heart that beat beneath the stony exterior God typically presents to the world. He knew God would delight in turning the Almighty’s prophecy into a false prophecy. He knew the Lord’s apparent harshness and rejection was only to inspire God’s enemies to change into people he could pour out his love and mercy upon.   I doubt very much that you have had a personal word from God pronouncing your doom. If you were convinced you had received such a word it would almost certainly be a trick from the Enemy of our souls, whom Scripture calls the Deceiver, the Accuser and the one who masquerades as an angel of light. He lusts after your relationship with God; yearning to rob you by sabotaging your faith in God’s eagerness to bless you. He would get his fill of sadistic pleasure out of you believing him when he slanders the Faithful One. How dare he suggest that God – who commands everyone to forgive seventy times seven – would himself have a limit on how many times he will forgive you, who long for forgiveness! That is accusing the Holy One of hypocrisy! The Deceiver’s hope is that, weighed down by gloom and doubts about God’s faithfulness, you might give up on the One who would never give up on you.   Nevertheless, let’s just suppose you were genuinely told by God that you are doomed. Even then, that pronouncement would not be the final word. If the reversal of Jonah’s prophecy does not convince you, let’s examine yet another biblical example of God’s eagerness to trash his own prophecy of doom.   Isaiah 38:1  In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, “This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.”  (2)  Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD,  (3)  . . . And Hezekiah wept bitterly.  (4)  Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah:  (5)  “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life.  (6)  And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. . . .   What makes our relationship with God so perplexing is that he has intelligence that is infinitely beyond our own. Only a genius could have guessed the effect of the Lord’s negative prophecy through Isaiah. Because of the Almighty’s pronouncement, “Hezekiah wept bitterly.” Suddenly in Hezekiah’s eyes it was no longer a matter of sickness or health, but life or death. The message of doom intensified his prayers, powering him to a life-changing miracle. Hezekiah’s breakthrough hinged on two things: God implying his fate was sealed, and Hezekiah refusing to accept it as final.   Rare Exceptions to the Rule?   I’ve gone way outside mainstream Old Testament prophecy to find a couple of highly exceptional examples, right? Wrong. Many Christians are like me in having wrongly supposed that if God prophesies something, it is final. The startling truth is that Scripture emphatically and repeatedly declares that whether God’s prophecies come true depends on the response of the people the prophecy is aimed at. We’ve looked at famous minor prophet Jonah and major prophet Isaiah. Let’s now seal it with the pronouncement of yet another renowned prophet: Jeremiah. This time, the Lord, through the prophet, clearly states the very principle we have discovered:   Jeremiah 18:7  If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed,  (8)  and if that nation  . . . repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned.   We are plunging into some of the blackest parts of Scripture and yet even here we keep finding enormous hope for any condemned person or nation that repents. The Bible was written not as an historical curiosity; it was written by God for  you  (Romans 15:4; 1 Corinthians 9:10; 10:6,11). So if ever you feel damned and utterly rejected by God, take seriously Scripture’s words of hope to people who likewise seemed doomed.   Later in the same book the Lord again reveals the intent of his prophecies of disaster:   Jeremiah 26:3  Perhaps they will listen and each will turn from his evil way. Then I will relent and not bring on them the disaster I was planning because of the evil they have done.   Jeremiah 26:13  Now reform your ways and your actions and obey the LORD your God. Then the LORD will relent and not bring the disaster he has pronounced against you.   Jeremiah 36:3  Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about every disaster I plan to inflict on them, each of them will turn from his wicked way; then I will forgive their wickedness and their sin.   These verses in Jeremiah are like islands of hope in a terrifying sea of fire. Prophecies of judgment are often worded as if God hates the people and that their fate is sealed. Our Lord goes to such lengths in firing words of doom at people not because there is no hope of them escaping the prophesied disasters, but precisely because there is hope. Prophecies are worded to seem final, not because everything is set in concrete, but to arm the prophecies with sufficient power to blast people back to reality. Our loving Lord goes to the extreme of what seem angry, hate-filled words as a last-ditch effort to snap his loved ones out of the complacency that is threatening their eternity. In his grace, he is giving them a foretaste of what it would be like unless they get serious with God, the only one who can save them. So most prophecies are not declaring the inevitable future but are detailing what the target audience can expect if they do not change their hearts.   Again in Amos 7:1-3 the prophet is shown in a vision a swarm of locusts that devastates the entire land. Amos intercedes, asking the Lord’s forgiveness, and the Lord relents, promising it will not happen. Then in the next verses we read:   Amos 7:4  This is what the Sovereign LORD showed me: The Sovereign LORD was calling for judgment by fire; it dried up the great deep and devoured the land.  (5)  Then I cried out, “Sovereign LORD, I beg you, stop! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!”  (6)  So the LORD relented. “This will not happen either,” the Sovereign LORD said.   It is not our purpose here to explore prophecies of blessings, but Scripture is clear that the same principle applies: a change of heart – this time a change for the worse – can also nullify prophecies of blessings (1 Samuel 2:30; Jeremiah 18:7; Ezekiel 33:13).   If your mind is reeling as your entire view of prophecy comes crashing down, I can well understand your reaction. We’ve now looked at four prophets. Scripture says that the truth of a matter shall be established out of the mouth of two or three witnesses. To God, for a prophecy of doom to “fail” is the ultimate success. Nevertheless, the notion that divine prophecies can fail to materialize is so shattering to common opinion, that perhaps you are demanding a fifth Scriptural witness. No problem. This time we will go to yet another major prophet: Ezekiel.   Ezekiel 33:14  And if I say to the wicked man, “You will surely die,” but he then turns away from his sin and does what is just and right . . .  (16)  None of the sins he has committed will be remembered against him. He has done what is just and right; he will surely live.   The yearning of God’s heart is not to waste people’s time by giving them information they can’t do anything with; much less to torment them by letting them know there is no hope. What drives our Lord to talk about future disasters is a longing to avert tragedy. As God, through Ezekiel, said just moments earlier:   Ezekiel 33:11  Say to them, “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. . . .”   God’s purpose in telling people they are facing destruction is to motivate them to call upon him, because “Everyone [no exceptions] who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Joel 2:32; Romans 10:13). If God truly wanted people damned, he would keep them blissfully ignorant of their fate because once they realized their fearful predicament, they might call out to God for help. Then the Lord would be compelled to keep his word and save them!   Now that I have cited two minor and three major prophets, for any reader to have the tiniest doubt would be ridiculous. If, after all of this, someone wanted still more confirmation, I would be astounded, but I would be quite unfazed. You see, Scripture heaps up even more proof. Let’s look at yet another minor prophet. Micah’s ministry is summarized in one of Scripture’s historical comments.   Jeremiah 26:18  “Micah of Moresheth prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah. He told all the people of Judah, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty says: “‘Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets.’   Here, yet again, we have a prophecy of doom, offering no hope. Let’s read the next verse:   Jeremiah 26:19  “ . . . Did not Hezekiah fear the LORD and seek his favor? And did not the LORD relent, so that he did not bring the disaster he pronounced against them? . . .”   Let’s examine Micah’s prophecy to see if it really was as damning as the above quote suggests:   Micah 1:1  The word of the LORD that came to Micah of Moresheth during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah – the vision he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. . . .  3:9  Hear this, you leaders of the house of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel, who despise justice and distort all that is right; . . .  (12)  . . .  because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets.   Perhaps you are sometimes tempted to feel as doomed to destruction as Jerusalem was in this prophecy. If so, remember that Hezekiah repented and the Lord relented.   We’ve noted that even prophecies of blessing can be nullified. That means we can’t be complacent. If you are fearing that you have gone beyond God’s grace, however, that very fear means that, regardless of how you felt other times, you are anything but complacent right now. It would be a mistake to take Scriptures intended for the complacent or rebellious, and apply them to yourself if, as of this moment, you are no longer complacent or rebellious. You might have appallingly abused God’s grace right up until ten seconds ago, but because of the power of Jesus’ blood to wipe out the past, all that matters is your present attitude.   There’s More: Don’t miss this next page Punished by God   Warning:   These Pages Won’t Help Everyone   Some people terrified about being unforgivable just need Bible-based reassurance or an explanation of a disturbing Scripture. If vast amounts of rational support and biblical exposition are the answer, keep following the links. Many Christians, however, presume this is what they need but it turns out that no amount of biblical proof or sound, theological argument or even spectacular spiritual experience can put their minds to rest. If you have already sought much help but worries keep resurfacing, you most likely need a totally different approach. You should skip these pages (you can return later if you wish) and go straight to  Scrupulosity .

Feeling Rejected by God Has God Really Forsaken You?   Could You Be Damned And Without Hope?   This is part of a series of webpages exploring why it is not uncommon for people in a good relationship with God to mistakenly think they are spiritually doomed. If you have not already done so, I suggest you start at  Supernaturally Confirmed Unforgivable or Damned by dreams, Visions & Miracles?   God has rejected me!  There is hardly a Christian on the planet who has not at some time been haunted by that fear. Feeling rejected by anyone is painful, but for a devout Christian to feel rejected by God can be devastating, even terrifying.   In this webpage we will discover that not only did people in the Bible suffer such feelings, it is actually a manifestation of God’s loving goodness. As astounding as it seems, it was feeling that God had rejected them that catapulted various Bible heroes to spiritual greatness. They became heaven’s superstars precisely because God made everything seem hopeless for them. You will even discover that the Bible teaches that even if you were to receive an authentic – that’s right,  authentic  – personal word from God proclaiming that you are doomed, you still have oceans of hope.   Through reading this webpage most of us will see God in a way we have never before seen him and the result will be both thrilling and life-changing.   God is terrifyingly holy and yet more loving than we could imagine. The Almighty’s fearsome holiness can force him to reluctantly reject people, but a person’s sin is the sole reason for any divine rejection. So if you or I could truly be made as if we had never messed up, any reason for the Holy Lord rejecting us would vanish. All that would be left is God’s incomprehensible love for you.   You might be familiar with some of the words in the next few sentences, but bear with me. It will lead to the unfamiliar. It has rightly been said that the biblical term  justified  means to be made  just as if I’d  never sinned. If this were really to happen to you this instant, it would be impossible for you to be rejected by the God of the Bible, since it would remove the only reason for divine rejection.   The exciting thing is that Scripture promises that this total removal of sin is possible – not just some time in the past when your sins were less blatant, but right now, when you have abused the grace of God more than ever before. Moreover, the Bible not only says that  anyone  can be justified, it stresses that this divine miracle becomes ours not by works – not influenced by our achievements or shameful repeated failures or depravity – but solely by faith. This being so, we need a new understanding of the biblical conception of faith. So let’s examine what Jesus exalted as a prime example of faith. It reveals some startling things.   Matthew 15:22  A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.”  (23)  Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”  (24)  He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”  (25)  The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.  (26)  He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”  (27)  “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”  (28)  Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.   We find the woman pleading with Jesus, detailing her desperate plight to him. Without so much as uttering a word, he turns his back on her and walks away.   Despite reeling in the pain of rejection and being emotionally flattened by the hopelessness of it all, she still follows Jesus, crying out to him.   As if Jesus’ reaction were not enough, his chosen followers soon pile on their own rejection. Her persistence so annoys them that Jesus’ disciples plead with him to tell her to get lost. So Jesus tells her that his divine mission – the command of God on his life – is to minister exclusively to Jews, not Gentiles like her. Instead of resigning herself to the sovereign will of God, she begs even harder. Jesus is unyielding. He states even more emphatically that it was not right for him to do what she is asking.   This woman was a Gentile before Jesus’ sacrifice opened the way for Gentiles to be included in God’s Covenant. But not only was she a Gentile, she was a Canaanite – the worst of the Gentiles. She should not even have been born. Had God’s people been obedient to God’s command, her family line would have been wiped out generations ago.   Then, as astounding as it is to imagine our loving Savior doing this, he seals his rejection by calling her a dog – a bitch, if you like. This was the grossest possible insult. Jews despised dogs as unclean. Jesus refers to the people he is called to minister to as “children.” She, however, he labels as not even human but an animal – and an unclean one at that. On another occasion Jesus said it is not right to give what is holy to dogs, nor to cast one’s pearls to swine. Not only did Jesus say it should not be done, in the same breath he linked dogs with pigs, as does Scripture elsewhere. So, in biblical thought, dogs are the most repulsive of creatures, totally unacceptable to God, and yet this is the label Jesus slaps on this woman.     By now her devastating feelings of rejection could have turned to anger and a determination to reject Jesus like he has rejected her. Yet despite all the pressure to give in to feelings of hopelessness and bitterness, she still refuses to take ‘No’ for an answer.   Why was Jesus so hard on her? Because he knew she had what it takes to rise to the challenge and that her doing so would bring her rich reward. Jesus’ seeming rejection brought out the best in her. Yes, she got her miracle like so many other people, but because Jesus let her seemingly suffer rejection, she soared far beyond getting her miracle to gaining Jesus’ high praise resounding through the tunnels of time for two thousand years around the world and continuing for all eternity. Her refusal to accept Jesus’ apparent rejection not only thrilled the heart of God, it has inspired countless multitudes of Christians throughout every successive generation.   And the same is true for you. God has faith in you. You can rise to the challenge and refuse to be defeated by all the surface indications of rejection. You can ignore all the worrying superficialities and by faith see past them to the loving heart of Jesus. You can keep following Jesus even when he seems to have turned his back on you and walked away. And as you persist, you will thrill the heart of God, gain for yourself eternal glory, and inspire other Christians.   Singled Out for Special Rejection   The Canaanite woman’s experience was not an isolated case. For assurance, let’s consider another woman. Ruth was not just a Gentile; she was a Moabite, and as such she was singled out for special rejection from God.   Deuteronomy 23:3  No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even down to the tenth generation. . . .  (6)  Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them as long as you live.   How’s that for rejection! In contrast, this Scripture immediately goes on to mention other Gentiles:   Deuteronomy 23:7  Do not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. Do not abhor an Egyptian, because you lived as an alien in his country.  (8)  The third generation of children born to them may enter the assembly of the LORD.   Ruth wanted to join the Israelites, but every indication was that God did not want her. Her only contact with God’s people had been with a family who seemed cursed. They had arrived in her country as economic refugees – hardly a sign of God’s blessing. Moreover, their impoverishment – due to God withholding rain – had forced them out of the land of God’s people. Then, one by one, every male member of the family died, including Ruth’s own husband. Then the surviving family member said:   Ruth 1:11  . . . “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? . . .  (13)  . . . the LORD’s hand has gone out against me!”   Over and over, Naomi kept insisting that it was unwise for her daughters-in-law to go with her to the land of God’s people. They would be better off where they were. Eventually, Ruth’s sister-in-law gave in to Naomi’s pleas. Ruth, however, kept pushing through all the objections and rejections. The result? God chose her over all the women in Israel as ancestress of King David and of the Messiah.   It is said if you take pity on a moth struggling to break free from its cocoon and make its passage out easier, the moth will be forever deformed. What seems an act of kindness ends up being cruel. The hard struggle to emerge is essential for the initial pumping of blood into its crumpled wings. I don’t know enough about moths to know if this is an urban myth, but I know my Lord well enough to be certain that if he makes something hard for us, it is for our own good. It is because making it easier would ultimately be less loving and cripple our spiritual development.   Like a good coach giving an athlete tough training sessions, God makes it hard for you because he longs for you to succeed.   I know this because I  know  God is love. Scour the planet, seeking the purest, selfless compassion. When at last you’ve found this rare and priceless treasure, blend in full-blooded passion. Add empathy – the ability to feel other people’s pain and their every emotion. Stir into the mixture flawless wisdom. Then multiply the result to infinity. What you now have is a shadow of God’s love. God is warm, passionate, highly personal and yet consistent and utterly dependable. His intelligence soars far too high above us for his ways to be predictable by mere humans, but his loving heart never changes. Everything God does – even his anger and judgments – is driven by love. Behind his every action beats a tender heart that longs to forgive and bless.   My certainty that God is like this is not book knowledge – though Bible knowledge was the critical starting point – it is something I know in every cell of my body. This unshakable conviction became mine only by enduring years and years of tough times. I cannot give you your certainty about God’s nature. I could hand you spiritual maturity no more than I could hand you physical maturity. It only comes through prolonged experience with God. It slowly forms after years of feeling you are forever hanging on by your fingernails to what seem almost unbelievable Bible truths. There are no shortcuts. What I can do in this webpage, however, is share some of those Bible truths and urge you to hold on in the exciting, hair-raising, and sometimes lonely, roller coaster ride to joy and fulfillment.   The process whereby hard times slowly transform Bible knowledge into heart knowledge is difficult to explain. For insight into one aspect of the process, we must understand that immature Christians tend to be spiritual honeymooners who think they are in love with God but are actually more in love with his gifts that anything else. The trials I have endured have refined my love for God. I no longer need God to bribe me to keep me loving him. By holding on to God when there seemed no obvious benefits, my love has become genuine. You, too, can reach that point by clinging to God when the illusion is strong that he seems to favor everyone but you.   There’s More: Don’t miss this next page   Could You Have Exhausted God’s Grace and Patienceand be Condemned to Eternal Damnation ? Warning:   These Pages Won’t Help Everyone Some people terrified about being unforgivable just need Bible-based reassurance or an explanation of a disturbing Scripture. If vast amounts of rational support and biblical exposition are the answer, keep following the links. Many Christians, however, presume this is what they need but it turns out that no amount of biblical proof or sound, theological argument or even spectacular spiritual experience can put their minds to rest. If you have already sought much help but worries keep resurfacing, you most likely need a totally different approach. You should skip these pages (you can return later if you wish) and go straight to  Scrupulosity .

How Much does God Love Me? Receiving a Personal Revelation of God’s Love for You I sometimes wonder if attempting to describe the most magnificent sunset to someone blind from birth would be easier than making this introduction believable to the disillusioned millions of us whose taste of love has so far been largely limited to human imperfections. The bitter disappointment of being let down by humans causes many of us to lose hope of ever finding genuine, selfless love of Godlike proportions – even in God himself.   At least until crushed by the harsh reality of human failings, however, it seems everyone longs to be in love.   Both thrilling and fulfilling, being in love is a continual source of wonder and delight, bringing joy and contentment like nothing else. It makes life worth living; transforming a drab, dour existence into sheer exhilaration. It is what we were made for, even though human relationships allow only elusive, often frustrating, glimpses of it. God alone has the divine perfection we crave in a lover, but what holds us back is the unfounded fear that God’s love for us is shallow – more aloof and clinical than the red-hot passion of someone exciting who is head-over-heels in love with us.   It seems too good to be believable, but the mind-boggling truth is that the awesome God of Perfection, for whom nothing is impossible, is more passionately in love with you – yes,  you  – than any human has ever felt for anyone. No one can expect to feel convinced of this in just a short webpage, but we have to start somewhere.   We know that fervent love for God and love for all humanity is God’s top priority for us (Mark 12:28-31) and yet we struggle to love as we should. This is largely because we get things back to front. We try to love in order to win God’s love. That’s like trying to drive a car without fueling it. What starts the whole process is a revelation of how stupendously in love with us God already is.   1 John 4:19  We love because he first loved us.   The key to falling in love with God – and staying in love with him and loving humanity as well – is found not so much in trying to love but in simply dwelling on God’s love for us. Discovering and clinging to the truth that God is thrilled with us continually draws us to him and transforms us. It is also the secret to victorious living. As I have written elsewhere:   When feeling defeated, one of the most important things is to focus on God’s great love for you and not let deceptive spirits trick you into thinking that God frowns on you when you fall into sin. Yes, God is disappointed, but when a little child with good parents runs off and falls, what’s the first thing he does? He looks to mommy or daddy for comfort. You, too, should run into Daddy’s arms for the comfort you need. God is on your side. He cares deeply for you. Your spiritual enemies, however, want to make you feel uneasy about running to God. They know we instinctively shrink from anyone we fear might be angry or displeased with us and we will keep that person at arm’s length. Your enemies want you to be standoffish from the only One who can truly deliver you and defeat their attempts to bring you down. They don’t want you to rejoice in God’s forgiveness but to feel miserable and isolated from the warmth of God’s comfort.   Your whole life will light up when you know in every fiber of your being that Almighty God is, to use one of the closest human expressions, madly in love with you.   Nothing is so exciting, fulfilling and heart-warming as being loved by the most wonderful Person in the universe.   No one understands you like your Maker. He alone has been with you every moment from your conception. No one feels your every pain and delights in your happiness like God. No one longs to exalt you and shower you with gifts as much as him.   More than anything else in the universe, glimpsing the immensity of God’s personal, passionate love for you will flood your life with peace and security. Thereafter, neither death nor disaster could ever rob you of the eternal love throbbing within you. Suddenly life will have meaning like never before.   Yes, the God with powers beyond our wildest dreams delights in you, loving you more passionately than the most devoted mother or proudest father or grandparent, and more than any starry-eyed lover has ever loved.   And yet God’s spiritual enemies are relentlessly scheming ways to undermine your awareness of the purity and intensity of God’s boundless love for you. Every Christian on this planet is subjected to this repeated assault. Remaining continually conscious of God’s love for us and convinced of its magnitude is one of life’s greatest and relentless challenges.   The groundless fear that the loving, forgiving Lord frowns on us is like an oppressive fog. It saps us of enthusiasm and weakens our eagerness to cooperate with God in receiving the wonderful things our loving Lord longs for us to enjoy. Contrast this with the assurance that the King of all kings is thrilled with you; that there is a real sense in which you are the center of his universe and that he is selflessly devoted to maximizing your eternal happiness. A glimpse of God’s never-ending love for you will spur you to victory in every area of your life. Your faith will soar and you’ll be inspired to mind-boggling heights of achievement.   So bookmark or note the web address of this page to ensure you won’t lose it and then pamper yourself by exploring every link below. Each is prayerfully crafted to intensify your awareness of, and enjoyment of, the most exquisite love anyone could ever dream of. As you proceed through the links you will find comfort and help in squashing your doubts that God sees you as special and is in love with you; doubts that God is lovable and doubts that he is truly good and kind and selfless and fair.   You wouldn’t believe how excited I am about taking you on life’s most thrilling and fulfilling adventure. If, however, I wanted to help you experience the heights of playing sport, as much as I might wish to do it all for you, much would depend upon you as to how far you go. So it is with life’s greatest adventure: I’ll do my utmost, but the more  you  put into it, the more astounding the result will be. In fact, no matter who you are, if you exceed my resolve to seek the heart of God, there is no reason why you cannot end up surpassing my enjoyment of God. I challenge you to shame me by doing just that. Obviously, I cannot take you beyond where I have been, but I’d be deeply honored if God granted me the privilege of pointing the way.   Before we take the plunge, we need to pray. Please join me.   Loving God, I long for you to be the love of my life. I hear of others having gooey feelings about you and dramatic spiritual experiences but at times it seems my only feeling is that of being left out. I want to find you warm and intimate and perfect in all your ways but sometimes you seem cold and aloof and more interested in other people.   If you truly are the God of infinite love, the God whose love is so staggering that it surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:19) with the power to go far beyond what I can ask or think (Ephesians 3:20), I dare to ask for love that surpasses my wildest dreams.   Nevertheless, I crave not just excitement and fulfillment but reality. I don’t want to be duped by sentimental nonsense. Neither do I want to be sidetracked by superficiality so that I miss the wonders that you offer. I don’t want to delude myself, nor miss out on the best you have for me. Please open my eyes to your real nature. I want to know you as you truly are and to have the courage and conviction to devote my life to what you reveal. So I seek you for a spiritual revelation, a divine encounter so powerful that, whether it comes slow or fast, it ends up adding an entire dimension to my life. If you are so beautiful that – as they say even of nice humans – to know you is to love you, and if to know you is to truly live (John 17:3), open my eyes to the perfection and stunning beauty of your goodness. Captivate me. If the greatest commandment is to love you, my God, with my whole heart, soul and mind (Matthew 22:37-38), empower me to seek you tenaciously until I receive a revelation of your love that is so real and vast that I truly fall in love with you.   Not out of pride or selfishness but out of a yearning to thrill you, I want more of you than even what the average Christian settles for. May I become determined to do whatever it takes not to rob myself and break your heart by settling for less than the unique fulfillment and heights of ecstasy and intimacy with you that Christ suffered inconceivable agony for you and I to enjoy.   I’m a little apprehensive of where this might lead but perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18) and you are meant to be Perfect Love. If you really are Perfect Love, you alone are truly safe, and I open myself up to you. Come with me as I read the following pages. Empower me to use them as a diving board to plunge deep into spiritual reality.   Before I can expect you to do this, however, there is one nagging issue I need to settle. Facing up to this should not be as hard as it feels since one of the liberating things about drawing close to you is that I can truly be myself. I don’t have to hide my faults because you already know them. Moreover, you say over and over in your Word that you are eager to cleanse to spotless purity all who admit their failings, and that you lift high all who humble themselves.   I cannot expect you to open my eyes to your love if I have blinded those eyes with arrogance. So I need to come clean with you. I have called you God and yet criticized you as if you were the foolish one and I were the one with infinite knowledge and wisdom. I have called you Lord (meaning Master) and ordered you around – “Lord do this, Lord do that” – as if I were the master and you were my slave. In reality, you owe no one anything; we owe you everything. You have given and given and given, and in self-centered arrogance, each of us have taken and taken and taken. You have never wronged us; we have wronged you too many thousand times to count, and yet you have kept turning the other cheek and kept on forgiving, while we have had the hideous audacity to falsely blame you.   It’s not just other people who have done this, Lord: I’m guilty of it, too. I not only seek your forgiveness and cleansing, I ask that you show me anything I need do to cooperate with you in eradicating from my life arrogance, bitterness and any other blemishes that could spiritually blind me; fogging my ability to behold your beauty.   So now, if I have given myself enough time to settle these key issues, come with me as I walk through these webpages.   Having skimmed the surface in this webpage, I beg you to plunge into the helpful and inspiring reading below to deepen your awareness of God’s love for you. To maximize your enjoyment of the most wonderful Person in the universe, it is important to read prayerfully every page. They are part of an enormous Christian website, so to avoid getting lost, don’t forget to bookmark this webpage.

Spiritual Riches   One with Christ! Our union with Christ is like that of a perfect marriage in which there is a total merging of assets. Since this is the perfect union, however, the oneness extends far beyond what normally occurs in marriage.  Everything  that is ours becomes Christ’s (our sin – that’s what killed him – time, talents, possessions, relationships, etc) and everything that is his becomes ours (his perfection, endless life, abilities, achievements, honor, riches, relationships, etc).   The principle is stated in general terms in many different parts of the Bible. For example, in 1 Corinthians 3:21,23 we read, ‘All things belong to you . . . and you belong to Christ. (See also Song of Solomon 2:16; John I6:15,23; Romans 8:32; Philippians 4:13; 2 Peter 1:3.)   ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours,’ the father (representing God) told the prodigal son’s brother in Jesus’ parable (Luke 15:11-32). The older brother had missed out on so much because he had failed to realize the extent of his father’s love and generosity. He hadn’t realized that he only had to ask. In fact, having full faith in his father’s generosity, he should simply have taken and used his father’s things. We, too, can so easily miss out, if we don’t realize all that God has lovingly given us.   A true Christian has Christ (2 John 9) and this includes Christ’s:   *   Knowledge  – John 15:15; 16:13-15   *   Riches  – Philippians 4:19   *  Glory  – John l7:22; 2 Thessalonians 2:14   *  Throne in Heaven  – Ephesians 2:6; Revelation 3:2l   *  Peace  – John 14:27   *  God’s Kingdom  – James 2:5; Revelation 22:5; 2 Timothy 2:12   *  Joy  – John 15:11   *  Moral purity  – 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Corinthians 1:30   *  Miracle-working power  – John 14:12,13   *  Victory over Satan  – Romans 16:20 (1 Corinthians 15:25)   *  Spirit  – Romans 8:9   *  Mind  – 1 Corinthians 2:16; Philippians 2:5   *  Power over death  – 1 Corinthians 15:55-57   *  Likeness  – 1 Corinthians 15:49; 1 John 3:2   *  Inheritance  – Romans 8:17   *  Life  – Galatians 2:20; 1 John 5:12   *  Ministry  – John 17:18 (compare John 8:12 with Matthew 5:14)   *  Presence  – John 14:23; Ephesians 3:17   *  Relationship with God  – John 17:23,26; Galatians 4:6; Hebrews 2:11   *  And there’s probably more!   Any eye can glide down that list but to grasp anything like the full ramifications demands much prayer and deep thought.   Truly,  ‘in him  [Christ]  you have been enriched in every way . . .’  (1 Corinthians 1:5)! Your potential is  limitless  (Philippians 4:l3). But we can still make the mistake the older brother made and fail to enjoy what is rightfully ours. We must take the gifts that cost God so much to make available to us. We do this by believing God has given them to us and then, while nothing seems to have changed, acting as if we have received them. That might sound strange, but that’s the way God operates. Displaying faith in God’s generosity is the greatest way to thrill him. Back

The Power of Self Esteem: Bible Proof     For all their lives, the Israelites had been slaves. Their parents had been slaves. Their grandparents had been slaves. Their great-grandparents had been slaves . . . (Genesis 15:13). Yet, even beyond being the lowest of the low, they had been so despised and oppressed that they had been forced to keep killing every baby boy they gave birth to (Exodus 1:15-16,22). Finally, they fled – with an enraged Egyptian army hot on their tail.   Now they were runaway slaves; a rabble of homeless refugees with a price on their heads; forced to wander in the wilderness with not even the basic food and water they had had as slaves (Exodus 15:22-23; Numbers 11:5-6).   They could have chosen to see themselves as God’s special people; amazingly delivered from a powerful, now-defeated army; miraculously led and fed by Almighty God and divinely prepared and trained to be victors. Instead, they languished in their former self-image; choosing to believe their past rather than what the God of truth declared them to be now:   Exodus 19:5-6  Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. . . . you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.   Deuteronomy 7:6  For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.   Deuteronomy 26:19  He has declared that he will set you in praise, fame and honor high above all the nations he has made and that you will be a people holy to the LORD your God, as he promised.   Deuteronomy 28:7  The LORD will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.   Leviticus 26:7-8  You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.   Rather than believe what God said they were, they projected their feelings of inferiority onto what they imagined was going on inside the minds of those God’s enemies; mistakenly imagining everyone saw the Israelites the way the Israelites saw themselves. “They are giants and we are like grasshoppers to them,” they claimed (Numbers 13:32-33).   Preferring to believe God’s enemies rather than God himself would be atrocious enough but, appallingly, even the ungodly had a more godly view of God’s chosen people than God’s chosen had of themselves. Even after God’s disobedient people had suffered a humiliating military defeat (Numbers 14:44-45), these pagans not only did not see the Israelites as “grasshoppers,” one of them (Rahab) confessed, “I know that the LORD has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below” (Joshua 2:9-11).   A self-image that does not line up with spiritual truth is such a dangerous delusion that it distorts our perception of everything.   Their atrocious self-esteem was not humility but a gross insult to the Holy Lord who had redeemed them and believed in them and dwelt with them. Their self-image incited not sympathy but God’s dismay as they refused to believe that with God they could achieve what he said they could achieve. As a direct result, they ended up wandering homeless for forty long years until that entire generation died in the dusty desert (Numbers 14:29-35), except for two men (Numbers 14:24,38; Numbers 32:11-12). “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it,” said Caleb, but the others replied, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are” (Numbers 13:30-31). Joshua and Caleb, the two who were spared, had the same past and current circumstances as the others but they refused to be dominated by their past, nor by put-downs, nor by what everyone else said, and by so doing they glorified God and won for themselves eternal glory.   It is exceedingly difficult to believe God when it is totally contrary to everything our past experience and mindsets keep screaming at us, but it still remains our choice. Not believing God has disastrous consequences, and the bigger the difference between what we believe about ourselves and what God believes about ourselves, the more critical it is that we force ourselves to believe God who is always right.   Back to How to Change Your Self-Image & Boost Self-Esteem

Examples of Jesus’ Self-Image   Luke 11:31  The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here.   John 13:13  You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am.   John 15:20  Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’   Mark 14:61-62   . . . Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”   John 6:35   . . . I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.   John 10:14  I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me.   Examples of Paul’s Self-Image   Galatians 2:11  When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong.   Philippians 4:13  I can do everything through him who gives me strength.   1 Corinthians 9:15  But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me. I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of this boast.   2 Corinthians 1:12  Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom but according to God’s grace.   2 Corinthians 10:8  For even if I boast somewhat freely about the authority the Lord gave us for building you up rather than pulling you down, I will not be ashamed of it.   2 Corinthians 11:9-12,22-23  And when I was with you and needed something, I was not a burden to anyone . . . As surely as the truth of Christ is in me, nobody in the regions of Achaia will stop this boasting of mine. Why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do! . . . And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s descendants? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. . . .   2 Corinthians 13:2-3  I already gave you a warning when I was with you the second time. I now repeat it while absent: On my return I will not spare those who sinned earlier or any of the others, since you are demanding proof that Christ is speaking through me. . . .   Back

Faith is Our Responsibility   God holds us accountable for how much we believe   Matthew 6:30   . . . will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Matthew 8:5-10  When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. . . . When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. Matthew 8:26  He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. Matthew 14:31  Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” Matthew 15:28  Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour. Matthew 16:8-9  Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? Mark 6:6  And he was amazed at their lack of faith. . . . Mark 16:14  Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen. Luke 24:25  He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Luke 24:38  He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? John 20:27  Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Hebrews 3:12  See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart . . . Back

Condemned by the Bible?     Afraid of God’s Word   In the previous webpage,  Supernaturally Confirmed Unforgivable or Damned by dreams, Visions & Miracles: When Supernatural Signs Contradict Biblical Truth , we investigated some of the implications of Almighty God having supernatural enemies who will do their utmost to cheat us out of enjoying the salvation that is freely available to us through Jesus. We noted that one of their tactics is to try to dupe us into believing oppressively strong and convincing feelings of anxiety and condemnation; tempting us to believe our feelings rather than keep clinging to faith in God’s promise to freely forgive all who seek it through Jesus.   These spiritual enemies have other insidious tricks to undermine our faith in God’s promise to cleanse us from  all  sin. The one we examined in depth in the previous webpage was their use of lying dreams, visions and miraculous signs suggesting that we are damned, unforgivable, apostate or whatever.   Now it is time to explore yet another common tactic they use with evil cunning: seeking to distort our interpretation of God’s Word; maliciously twisting into a source of torment what our loving Lord intended to be for our comfort and encouragement. In the previous webpage we noted in passing how when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, the Evil One actually quoted the Bible in an attempt to confuse and deceive the Son of God, and Jesus’ response was simply to quote another Scripture.   Let’s commence our counterattack by exploring the primary factor that makes us vulnerable to misinterpreting various parts of Scripture.   Bible scholars make much of the fact that for correct understanding of the Bible one must understand the culture of the hearers, the historical context, the nuances of the original language, and so on. This is undeniably true for any document but what is even more critical in discovering the real meaning of any communication is to thoroughly know the heart of the writer/speaker.   For example, some people continually insult their friends and yet mean none of it. It is simply their sense of humor and they actually have a heart of gold and are filled with love and respect for those they seem to keep slandering. Some people might find this unbelievable, but it is true and you have probably met people who jest like this. Some have a twinkle in their eye when they dish out slanderous insults – thus making their real feelings more obvious – and some don’t.   For another example: some people needlessly panic and are hypochondriacs or alarmists, whereas if certain other people reveal the slightest hint of concern, it needs to be taken very seriously.   A mind-boggling array of other characteristics must be correctly discerned in a person before we can have any certainty of understanding his words. How intelligent is he? How patient? How selfish? Is he usually focused on long term goals or just the short term? Is he given to plain speaking or does he sometimes speak in riddles? Is he prone to saying no when he actually expects his hearers to realize he is simply being coy or testing them and secretly hopes they will realize he actually means yes? Does he usually seek to undermine people or to build them up? How much does he change his way of speaking according to the audience he is addressing? What if we are far more sensitive than the people he is addressing? On and on we could go, listing the vast number of character traits we must understand about a person before we can be sure we have correctly understood his words. Unless we thoroughly know a person, it is disturbingly easy to grossly misunderstand his words and actions. In short, to understand the Word of God, we must understand the heart of God.   For this reason, we must give top priority to understanding God’s heart. We need to take very seriously the Bible’s affirmation that God is good, patient, kind, loving wise, and so forgiving that Jesus was tortured to death to secure the forgiveness of those whose hateful sins crucified him. Everything in Scripture must be read from this perspective or we are likely to grossly misinterpret various scriptures and end up needlessly upset.   Suppose you had to spend every moment of the day and night alone with a stranger for a week and you were told confidentially that the person is a violent beast of a man – sadistic, deceitful, irrational and unpredictable. Your fear and suspicion would affect your interpretation of everything he says and does, and of every creak and sound you hear in the dead of night. You probably would never get close enough to him to discover that all you were told about him was a pack of lies.   If, on the other hand, you had been told this man thinks highly of you and is warm, kind-hearted, trustworthy and the best friend you could ever find, you would see everything he says and does in a totally different light and would get much closer to him and discover far more about who he really is.   This reflects the dilemma plaguing those who come to the Bible terrorized by the fear that God is angry with them and that he is harsh, cruel, demanding and longs to throw people into hell. Their fear and suspicion will distort their interpretation of every Bible passage they read; preventing them from seeing the Lord as the warm, loving, forgiving, kind-hearted person he really is. The only way of breaking this impasse is to keep doggedly reminding oneself of all the Scriptures affirming God’s love, goodness, eagerness to forgive, and so on, and keep working on reading God’s Word from this perspective.   I will help you with that in a moment but first I should point out that evil loves exploiting every natural weakness it finds. The two most common natural reasons for people being needlessly afraid of God are:   1.     Having been starved of unconditional love as a child   In order to grow up psychologically healthy, every child has a desperate need to be continually nurtured by unconditional love. Being brought up by cold, demanding parents who unwittingly cause their child to feel insecure and unloved unless they perform, can leave emotional wounds that can last a lifetime unless deep healing is found. Being brought up in this way distorts one’s expectations of other key people in one’s life, including one’s image of God. For help with this, here are two links (that lead to still more links), but please first record the web address of this webpage so you can later return and complete this important series.   Changing Your Self-Imagine   How Much does God Love Me? Receiving a Personal Revelation of God’s Love for You   2.     Suffering from an anxiety disorder   Being afflicted by an often-undiagnosed medical condition that produces excess anxiety is the second most common natural reason for people being needlessly afraid of God. To understand how this causes people to keep doubting God’s love and acceptance and wrongly feel that God must be angry with them, first record the web address of this webpage so you can later return and complete this important series, then see  Scrupulosity: Continually Feeling Guilty & Unforgivable .     Dark forces are continually trying to mess with our minds and blacken God’s name. God’s solution is not to silence the lies but to let us choose whether we will believe them or believe in the love and integrity of God. The Lord longs for us to stubbornly cling to the truth about him, even if everything within and without seems to scream that it cannot be true. That is what faith is all about, and faith has always been God’s way and always will be. Faith is not absence of doubt but doggedly holding on despite overwhelming torrents of doubt.   Even when every force opposed to God keeps screaming that it cannot be true, the following is the truth about God that we must keep clinging to like a barnacle’s grip on a rock in a terrifyingly stormy sea.   As the world’s oceans exceed a raindrop, the Lord of lords exceeds your wildest dreams. He is everything good you have ever dared hope for, and infinitely more.   The most stunningly beautiful, exciting, fascinating and adorable person in the entire universe is so head-over-heels in love with you that he willingly endured a torturous death just so he could be your best friend, enjoy your companionship and pour all his inexhaustible riches on you for all eternity.   Much that passes for romantic love is selfish and fickle but true love is utterly selfless and endlessly faithful. Love is blind. It overlooks a person’s faults because it keeps seeing the best in a person. It keeps believing in the person and keeps on giving and giving and giving and forgiving and forgiving and forgiving. And since God’s love is infinite, everything he does is driven by incomprehensibly stupendous love.   It might be beyond your ability to sense it but the Lord loves you so totally that no one could be more devoted to anyone than he is to you. He loves with  all  his heart. This makes it impossible for him to love anyone more than he loves you. There could not possibly be any greater love than how he already feels for you. He could not love you more if you were his only friend in a bleak and lonely universe; if you were perfect in every possible way; if you were the most exquisitely beautiful person ever to exist.   We have examined in general why people can end up mistakenly thinking that parts of the Bible are saying they have no hope spiritually. In the next webpage we will probe Scriptures in which people seemed to have been given no hope of salvation. We will make the surprising discovery that even in these extreme cases God was actually still reaching out in love and offering them hope.   Next Webpage:  Rejected by God? Could You be Damned and Without Hope?

God’s Astounding Power to Turn Evil into Good   Right now, your life may seem a hopeless mess of shattered pieces, but your divine Lover treasures every fragment, even those life experiences you have suffered that seem worse than useless. Discarding nothing, he will lovingly treat each incident in your life as a critical piece of a jigsaw that only a supernatural genius could solve. He will reassemble every meaningless disaster, shameful failure and hideous sin, until together they form priceless beauty that no one would ever guess could emerge from such evil and chaos.   Will God really turn our sin into something that glorifies him? Yes. Obviously, things would have been better still had we not sinned, but when we come to Christ for cleansing, he not only removes our shame and makes us sparkle with his purity, he works  all things  together for good (Romans 8:28).   Consider, for example, the apostle Paul’s atrocious sin. Christianity was in its vulnerable infancy. Like perhaps no one else in all of history, Paul had the opportunity to permanently wipe from the planet every memory of Christianity. And he was intent on doing so. God intervened, of course, but had Paul’s determined plans succeeded and Christianity were eradicated before any of the New Testament were written, all of us today would be without the Gospel, destined for hell. He tortured and tormented Christians, trying to make them blaspheme their Lord, hoping to force them to abandon Christ, thus destroying them eternally. Given the eternal implications, this makes serial murder seem like a parking offense. How could even the God of the impossible wring any good out of that evil? And yet he did.   The book of Acts recounts Paul’s conversion testimony not once or even twice but three times (Acts chapters 9, 22 & 26). That’s how significant to God is Paul’s sinful background. That the apostle Paul was once violently opposed to Christianity has been the critical fact that has convinced countless thousands throughout history of the power and authenticity of the Gospel.   What about sins after conversion? Though you would be excused for expecting the opposite result, throughout history literally millions of Christians have drawn comfort and inspiration from Peter denying his Lord three times. “If there’s hope for Peter, there’s hope for me,” they gladly conclude. The same is true of King David’s shocking adultery and murderous cover-up. Moreover, who alone out of David's many sons did God choose as heir to David's throne and ancestor of the Messiah? Bathsheba's son, Solomon. This man should never have even been born. His mother should still have been married to the man David murdered. And yet God so forgave that he chose the product of David's greatest moral fall to be a key figure in Jewish and redemptive history and the one he endowed with astounding wisdom.   Because God bringing good even out of sin is so mind-boggling, I’ll give just one more example. Suppose you had an abortion. No matter how appalling the sin, the Lord is keen to forgive and once he forgives you, amazing things can happen. The Lord could, for example, use the experience to deepen your awareness of the magnitude of God’s forgiveness, or to keep you from falling into pride, or to give you ministry and witnessing opportunities by increasing your empathy for others who have suffered that way. Should we sin that grace may abound? Of course not! But our sufferings move God far too deeply for him to let them be wasted.   Romans 8:28-29  And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  For  those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son . . .  (Emphasis mine.)   This seems to be saying that the good that God works towards by manipulating  all things  that beset us is not that we get our selfish pleasure but that we end up conformed to the image of Christ. If that disappoints you a little, you haven’t thought it through. To be like Christ is something far more wondrous that any cheap thrills you might have had in mind.   To be like Christ is to be filled with the fruit of the Spirit – love, peace, goodness, self-control, and so on. That’s thrilling, but there’s more. To be like Christ is to be not just dignified but regal, not just powerful but ruling from heaven’s throne, not just smart but having access to divine wisdom, not just attractive but radiant with unsurpassable inner beauty, not just morally upright but perfect in the piercing eyes of humanity’s holy Judge, not just happy but overflowing with inexpressible joy, not just youthful but eternal, not just sympathetic but empowered to transform lives.   There’s More: Innocent! You are no longer the person who sinned! Warning:   These Pages Won’t Help Everyone Some people terrified about being unforgivable just need Bible-based reassurance or an explanation of a disturbing Scripture. If vast amounts of rational support and biblical exposition are the answer, keep following the links. Many Christians, however, presume this is what they need but it turns out that no amount of biblical proof or sound, theological argument or even spectacular spiritual experience can put their minds to rest. If you have already sought much help but worries keep resurfacing, you most likely need a totally different approach. You should skip these pages (you can return later if you wish) and go straight to  Scrupulosity .