GOD IS NOT A HOSTAGE

Can believing that God is angry with you cause you to develop an inferiority complex?

How free must we be in order to achieve the potential within us?

Most of us would agree that there is immeasurable potential inside of each person. I suppose if you are named amongst today's Christians, you also might believe that there are certain things that will cause God to either turn toward you or away from you, in anger. If you attend a Catholic, or Protestant church in America (evangelical included), doubtless you have heard that you have the ability to disappoint or please God, based on your actions.

"Staying celibate so long as you are unmarried would please God."

"Gossiping about others disappoints (angers?) God".

"Drinking alcohol and going to bars does not honor God; thus, it can only disappoint Him."

"Giving ten percent or more of your earnings to the church will please your heavenly father".

It sounds to me as if God is a puppet, and we hold the strings that control His emotional well-being. With so many billions of us throughout the ages, each of us pulling a different emotional string simultaneously, and repeatedly, God must have the largest prescription for Paxil or Xanax in the Universe.

Or....

God is complete already without us (something you might be surprised to find is ALSO taught amongst Christian sects in America). In other words, we do not complete His emotional well-being. I believe it is the contradiction between the two teachings that leaves us and our children most confused about what or who God is.

If God cannot control His emotions; if He is bound by our actions to feel one way or another, then He is not complete. On the other hand, if He is complete, then all this teaching about "what pleases God" and "what doesn't please God" is just a bunch of garbage we would be better to burn.

Is God so minimal as to be held bound by our fickle attentions and actions? If He is, then He isn't all powerful.

But the message of the gospel tells us a far different story. It tells us of a God who, despite our worst actions and thoughts, has granted an olive branch to cover us; ALL OF US. It tells of a Father who is so secure in Himself that nothing we do could ever change His love for us; not even believing or disbelieving.

God has nothing to worry about; He is complete in Himself, and that is one teaching we might do better to understand more fully. But if we understand that teaching more fully, we had better watch out, because when we get it, we might also understand that the idea of a person needing to believe in order to be redeemed to the Father is ludicrous.

Remember, Father needs nothing from us. What measure of belief are you going to offer up to Him that will change the way He sees you? If He, as common Christian practice preaches, is angry with you, and views you as damned, what measure of belief, or what other action will ever change His mind about you?

Only a God who is emotionally controlled by people will ever be affected by the confession, "I believe in Jesus!" An all-powerfull God is already complete, He needs no such confession from you. In fact, He already knew that you could never believe enough to affect what He thought about you, so He sent His son, the physical image of Himself, to be the faith we could not muster on our own, and to bear the penalty the world believes is due us.

What manner of heights will you reach with the freedom that comes from knowing God is not angered with you? What mountain will you climb now because you understand that failure isn't the end; but merely another reason to begin again?

We often sabotage our own success, and I am coming to believe that we do so because for too long, we have been held bound by the idea that every time we do something "wrong", God is angry with us again. We became slaves to failure because we have been taught, and come to believe, that God sees only the failure within us as being worthy of any lasting emotion. Sure, maybe we please Him every so often, but for the most part, He stands with hands on hips, clucking his tongue at us, and shaking His almighty, Holy head in anger.

What a bunch of nonsense. If God is all-powerful, and all-knowing, then neither is He surprised when we succeed, nor is He displeased when we fail. To be anything else would make God our hostage; one whose emotional well-being hinged completely on our actions.

Does that sound like Good news to you?