Oh My God...

When I was growing up, I attended a church whose number one message I interpreted was: You must act and do things that would earn God’s love. I had a belief that God would love and bless me only if I kept his commandments.

Somehow, I came to believe that God holds grudges and keeps score of what he will do for me against what I’ve done for him. I believed I didn’t deserve to ask him for anything because I wasn’t keeping up with my end of all the chores listed in the bible. I did not see him as the loving and forgiving being like his Son, Jesus Christ.

However, I've come to believe that my perceptions of God were wrong. I was unable to understand or believe Christ when he tried to explain that He, himself, was like God: “…Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing in himself, but what he seething the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.” (John 5: 19 KJV) This concept is restated to the apostle Thomas, also known as doubting Thomas, in John 14: 8-10.

I also felt this way about my earthy (biological) father. I love him and I know he loves me. But somewhere deep in my heart, I feel he would love me more or be proud of me more if I would only be an active member and raise my children in the religion in which I was raised. How sad and guilty I feel knowing I will never live up to his expectation.

How often is it said that children copy the behavior of their parents? When children become adults, they often pass patterns of discipline, love, and acceptance from how they were treated as children onto their kids. 

Do I want to be the kind of parent who makes my children feel like I don’t love them because they are not doing what I expect? If I behave in such a way, am I not taking away their freewill? I’m I limiting the kind of person that they were destined to be in order to fit my mold? 

If Jesus copies the behaviors of the Father, would not GOD be as loving and forgiving as his Son?

And what about my relationship with other people? And their flaws or beliefs? Jesus hung out with, loved, and accepted sinners. Therefore, God does also.

Who then am I to emulate?