A Gotcha God
Are you living with a “Gotcha God”?
Do you feel like you have to constantly look over your shoulder in fear that God is going to “smite” you because you messed up?
Does it seem like Jesus is living in regular disappointment with you over your choices?
Misperceptions about God abound today. It is a reality built out of the presence of sin in the world God originally created. Sin’s presence in the world creates distortion because we begin defining the world around us through an inherent self-centredness lens. Think of it as self-colored glasses. It seems we end up with the thought that we can somehow reverse the impact of sin on our lives by behaving better, keeping God happy, or just doing more good things. This carousel of misunderstanding ultimately creates false understandings of God and how He relates to us. We end up with a sort of “Gotcha God.” We start thinking that God is just looking for ways to catch us and make us miserable. It is really a horrible way to live. Here are a few of the false perceptions about God.
The Smiter
Can’t say I am even sure if that is spelled correctly. But we often think of God as a sort of cosmic smiter with a giant lightning bolt in His hand ready to zap us for any sort of miniscule infraction against His will. Sometimes we think this is the god in the Old Testament of the Bible. It isn’t that He is just going to strike you down at any moment but He will also wipe out your family and even the family dog, too. Life is constant fear of one wrong step.
Bill Collector
Debt is a pretty voraciously difficult thing. You can never really get ahead. Sometimes we see God as a cosmic bill collector. You and I have a debt to Him and we have to perform regular acts of goodness to try and repay Him for what He did. We just keep making payment after payment but the debt seems to keep growing. God runs a sketchy paycheck advance shop and we are way behind. It is never-ending. It doesn’t get any better. We just stay behind.
Angry Judge
Maybe you see God as Judge Judy with a gavel casting disparagements at you for all the failures in your life.We end up feeling helpless against the angry glances of God from His seat of judgment. All we hear is a gavel slamming down with the declaration of GUILTY! Don’t be silly! God sits with a black robe and piercing scowl on His face staring at our lives. We can’t possible do enough to make the judge happy. We just end up feeling hopeless to live up to the standards.
Karma Police
Perhaps you go to bed each night worried about whether your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds for the day? String together enough good days overall and somehow God will reward us with good things like success, money, possessions, or an easy life. Life becomes a never ending cycle of despair because, ultimately, our good stuff will always fail to measure up against the bad. It becomes an exhausting practice of karma. If we do good we will get good. If we do bad we will get bad. Life is an endless cycle of falling hoping in our own ability to do enough good to feel confident about life.
Each of these represents a common but misperception of how God views and interacts with us. Too many people live with the idea of a “Gotcha God” who is just waiting to pounce with some sort of judgment or consequence. Instead, God is waiting to offer His great grace and love in spite of our failures and mistakes. He loves us too much to let us not know the real Him. He is a God who created us even though it would cost Him the life of His only begotten Son. He is a God that offered grace and forgiveness time and again to His people as they corrupted His story and drifted from His will. He is a God who sent His Son at the proper time to pay the debt of sin on our behalf. A debt that none of us could possibly afford on our own. God is not our misperception, but He is exactly who He tells us He is through Scripture. He is unconditional love. God has declared His “Yes” to us in Jesus and His determination for us to know Him fully as He fully knows us.