You don't love God

It is almost cliche' to hear, but Christians seem to always say that they love God. But, it is hard for me to believe this when so many of these same Christians verbalize what is going on in their lives as though they are living in fear. To illustrate this I ran across a struggling Christian who was afraid that they had lost their salvation. They write:

"I love God and believe in Jesus Christ as my savior, however, I am very far away in my relationship at the moment. I have hidden sin in my life and it haunts me everyday and I don't know how to get out of this sin without hurting allot of people by revealing it. So I feel that I am so far that I can't get back. Even if I ask forgiveness I can't change the circumstances and so sin still exists. Can God forgive me and help me to get through the errors of my ways?"

How can you say you love God and then go on to admit that you are "very far away" in your relationship with Him, have sin that "haunts" you every day, that you "can't get back" and then ask if God can forgive you? You cannot love a God that makes you feel like this because of some "hidden sin" in your life. We all have "hidden sin" in our lives if we are honest. The problem is that this person is believing something about God that isn't true.

"In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins... And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:10, 16-19

This person doesn't love God. They are afraid of Him. As scripture says, "fear has to do with punishment." I would say that losing your salvation would qualify as punishment. Whether one admits it or not you can't love a God you fear will take your salvation away because of sin in your life. Believing this represents a fundamental misunderstanding of salvation and God's love. It is not that we loved God, but that He loved us first. Whether their behavior reflects it or not, every Christian will say that salvation is a gift from God. A gift is something that cannot be earned. It can only be received or rejected. God in His love did for us what we could not do for ourselves. There was nothing we could do to take our sins away from His eyes because there has never been any man, apart from Christ, born into this world who had a life to give that would satisfy God as payment for our sins. Remember that God benefits from Christ's work on the cross as do we. He wanted a relationship with us that we once enjoyed, in Adam, prior to the Fall. Now that the sin barrier has been taken away by Christ for eternity we are free to approach God in order to receive His love and grow in our relationship with Him. That is the agape love we all talk about, but so few get to enjoy because of the fear coming from their misunderstanding of the finished work of Christ. Knowing that your behavior didn't get you saved and doesn't cost you your salvation will subject you to the inevitable accusation that you are encouraging people to sin. Case in point is the following comment:

"I certainly hope you don't mean that once we are saved we may behave any way we like without regards to our salvation. That would be a very dangerous attitude to live by!"

This is one more example of a misunderstanding of the freedom we have in Christ because our sins are no longer an issue between us and God. Before you can understand grace you have to come to terms with the fact that you are free to sin. But what does the Bible say about our freedom?

"You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love... So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law." Galatians 5:13, 16-18

It is funny when you think about it. Those that will question the finished work as a license to sin don't seem to have stopped the sin in their lives by what they believe. These people may use the finished work of Christ as a license to sin, but that doesn't mean I, or others familiar with this truth, view it this way. The issue is not about what we do with the truth, the issue is what is your motivation as a Christian? Is your motivation responding to the indwelling Holy Spirit and all you have been given as an inheritance? Or are you going to be motivated by futile attempts to obtain what you already have been given through faith by trying to be obedient to laws and doctrines designed to modify your behavior? Again, it all comes back to fear. You feel you have to act a certain way or else God will punish you in some way. There is no doubt that our sins have their own form of punishment. Our sins have varying degrees of consequences here on earth. The strain on our relationships with each other and on our own mental, physical, emotional and financial well being is well documented. But, if you don't know that your sins no longer separate you from God you will not respond to His loving guidance because you will be preoccupied with trying to deal with your sins. You cannot love a God when you don't know how much He loves you.