What is the most important thing about you?  Your profession? Your personality? Your finances? Your kindness? Your compassion? Your family? Your looks? Your stuff?

How would you answer? In his book The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W Tozier states: ”What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

The basic premise of Tozier’s statement is this: what we think people “think of us” determines how we respond to them.  If we believe someone likes us then we like them and we want to spend time with them. If we believe someone doesn’t like us then we don’t want to spend time with them – we avoid them.  It’s the same with God – how we view Him determines how we respond to Him. So the key question then is how do we view God?

We have 4 major views of God in the United States according to a recent survey by the Gallup organization:

• The Authoritarian God (31 percent of Americans overall) is angry at humanity’s sins and engaged in everyone’s life and worldly affairs.
• The Distant God (24 percent) is a cosmic force that launched the universe, and then left it on its own.
• The Benevolent God (23 percent overall) sets absolute standards for mankind but is seen as primarily a loving, forgiving Creator.
• The Critical God (16 percent) keeps a judgmental eye on humanity, but does not intervene in events.

So what is the correct answer? How should we view God?

1. Acts 15:8 “God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us.”
2. Ephesians 3:2 “Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you.”
3. 1 John 4:16 -17 “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 

Do you realize that no matter what you do or what you have done God loves you? He loves you more than you can imagine.  You are accepted and He gives you His grace in abundance. Because of this you can approach Him freely; spend time with Him – He longs for you to spend time with Him.  All He wants from you is you. He is a loving, accepting, gracious God who created you.

Ephesians 2:10 “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

In His Service,

 Ed