“We shall never want to serve God in our real and secret hearts if He looms in our subconscious mind as an arbitrary Dictator.” J.B. Phillips
How we think about God will shape how we relate with God. That makes sense, right? That’s true of us as well. If you don’t think I care about you, why would you want to spend time with me? If you believed that I ultimately just wanted something from you rather than wanted something for you, well, our friendship (if you could call it that) would be marked by distance and a serious lack of trust.
Again, how we think about God shapes SO MUCH of how we relate with God on a day-to-day basis. If this is true (and I think it is), then the obvious question becomes:
WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT GOD, WHAT THOUGHTS COME TO MIND?
For me, the answer to that question was often driven by the season of life I was in. Meaning, if I was being faithful to God… reading my Bible, praying, going to church, tithing, serving, sharing my faith, and not sinning, well, I thought God was pretty pleased with me. And conversely, when I was not doing any of those things, I was pretty confident that God wanted nothing to do with me. I believed that regardless of what I was doing (good or bad) God loved me because after all, He is God, but for much of my life I was pretty confident that God did not like me.
Maybe you can relate? If yes, then you know first-hand that thinking of God like that will lead to a crazy rollercoaster of a relationship with God.
Clearly, much could be said of what God is like - His Nature, His Character, His Personhood, but for the sake of brevity, let me just leave you with a very simple but yet profound truth:
GOD LIKES YOU.
And to be clear, God likes you NOT for what you have done or will do one day. God simply likes you because that’s who He is and nothing we do or don’t do will change His posture towards you or me.
Is God HOLY?
Is God SOVEREIGN?
Is God ALL-POWERFUL?
Is God ALL-KNOWING?
Is God ETERNAL?
Yes… 1000% yes to all of those questions. But please do not miss this - our God who is Holy, Sovereign, All-Powerful, All-Knowing and Eternal LIKES YOU. Yes, God loves you unconditionally, but God also LIKES YOU unconditionally.
When that truth started to sink in my heart and head, well, things finally began to change in my walk with God. Or to say that another way, walking with God was no longer about what I did or didn’t do, walking with God was actually ALL about God… who He is and what He is like.
And just in case you're wondering how I know God likes you and me, well, in short, JESUS. As you spend time with Jesus in the Gospels you will see with clarity and conviction, JESUS LIKED PEOPLE.
