We live in a world that struggles to understand the nature of the God of the Bible. Even devout Christians, who truly follow God and want to know him better every day, can wrestle to have a grasp on the heart of almighty God. I think that it has been a problem from the beginning of time. The Israelites always tended to have a skewed view of who God was as we often see in the story of their relationship with God as it is recorded in the Old Testament. By the time that the Jewish Messiah came to bring the long prophesied about salvation that God had promised, the Jews, as a whole, had no idea what was happening as they crucified Jesus. Even after His resurrection, there was difficulty among the Hebrew people to come to grips with the impact of what had occurred.

One of the things that I come across the most in talking with Christians and non Christians alike is how they battle the issue of self esteem and ultimately the way that they see themselves in God’s eyes. I think that the Bible is clear in several areas as it pertains to the way that God views His people, but there is a clear non congruence with how many people actually perceive it to be. We live in a world that is fairly existential and I think that this viewpoint has great impact on the worldview of many despite what God states in the Bible as His truth. The one misconception that strikes me the most disturbing and most unlike God is that many people feel that God hates them. Not that God is ambivalent or that He likes some people more than others, and I do hear these also, but that God has a deep disdain for certain people.

I don’t know if I can state it more clearly than to state that God hates no one. The Bible does state that God hates sin in general and some sins more specifically, but nowhere does it state that God hates any human being. As a matter of fact it states that God loves all the same, that he can’t love us any more than He does and that He can’t love us any less than He does. I personally find these facts a great comfort. It truly is a cornerstone of the gospel message, but, in general, many people doubt God’s love and even hold to some form of a belief of His general displeasure with them as a human being. I struggle to come to grips with accepting this as a reality in our culture, but I probably shouldn’t be surprised that as a society we have become cynical about God’s love.

The Gospel message has socially been diminished as the Bible has predicted it would happen. It talks about the hearts of many growing weary and of a great dichotomy of spiritual belief as there will be two distinct groups, sheep and goats, I want this to make us more determined to be more clear than ever with the Gospel message and in sharing the true heart of God. God is love. It is His nature not just a part of who He is. It is His very essence and He does not hate anyone. God hates sin, not the sinner. So much so that He sent Jesus to die so that His love would not be kept away from any person. I think that we have to become just as diligent as the opposing view in stating how much God loves.