How you see God sets the course of your spiritual life. It also determines the nature of your spiritual life as well. Does your perception of God ultimately cause guilt? Or fear? Or the feeling that you’re walking on ice? Or does it cause confidence? Or graciousness? Or fearlessness? It’s ok. This is just a blog; you can be honest with yourself for just a second.
Unfortunately, a majority of our culture—and even Christian subculture—sees God mostly in two extremes. They perceive God as either a Zeus-like deity waiting to throw a lightening bolt whenever you even get near sin, or a God who is sappy-sweet, loving pushover who tolerantly sweeps sin under the cosmic rug. These two perceptions either paint God with a gray beard, deep voice, and large scepter—whom you deeply fear—or paint him with flowing hair, soft hands, and a beauty sash—whom you couldn’t actually take seriously. Either extreme doesn’t induce any true sense of love or devotion to God.
But the truth is, in the Scriptures, we see God illustrated as a tension of these two extremes: full of grace and truth (Jn. 1). The problem is, grace with no truth is simply liberal sentimentalism. And truth with no grace is simply cold-hearted fundamentalism. But only the gospel—the biblically right expression of God—paints God both as a just Judge who is perfectly holy and a loving Father who is perfectly gracious. At the cross, we see the perfect intersection of justice and grace. The justice of God unwaveringly requires the penalty of sin to be paid, but the grace of God willingly paid it himself—and at the highest cost to himself.
Therefore, God is not a pompous, cold-hearted king who demands that we kiss his ring and bow at his feet. He is a king who has washed our feet, and who has sweated drops of blood in love for us. He is a king who did not justly condemn us, but who graciously took our penalty of condemnation and lovingly gave us his royal position.
Therefore, in light of all that, God’s command for us to love him is not a selfish or megalomanias request—it is essentially a call for us to come home.
Your perception of who God is directly affects how you relate to him. He is indeed King, but he is not an impersonal, judgmental, or hardened Ruler—he is a personal, gracious, and unselfishly strong King who deeply loves his people. He rightly demands all, and it is only right for us to give him all because he is King. But he is also immeasurably good to us, which inherently compels us to want to give our devotion to him after all. His strong, personal love for us is what ultimately produces strong, personal love in us for Him.
