Quantum Christianity: Believe Again

by Aaron Davis

  GOD IS NOT MAD AT YOU

  I remember the first time I heard pastor David Crank say the words: “God is not mad at you.” It deeply resonated within me. You see, the love of God has been a significant ministry theme for me and for many years, nearly every message I have preached has had some aspect of this attached to it, either directly or indirectly. But when he said this, it leveled me with additional perspective that God loving you and God not being mad at you are not necessarily the same thing. At least not from my human and experiential perspective.

  There are many people in life whom I have resolved to love and forgive, but if I were honest with myself, I didn’t like them and in some capacity I may have still been angry with how they treated me. I also could not deny that this underlying ill feeling toward them influenced how I responded to them, or in other cases, how I distanced myself from them.

  So, even though there are people out there who may not necessarily doubt that God loves them, I wonder if many still have an underlying feeling that God is mad at them. And if so, how is that perception influencing their reception of His love?

  In a more relatable example, most of us can’t even look at the guy that we accidentally cut off in traffic because of a guilt consciousness and fear of confrontation. Looking straight ahead, we avoid eye contact and pretend as if nothing happened, knowing full well that we just messed up.

  Considering this very human characteristic of avoidance, I can only imagine the millions of scenarios from around the world that could play into how and why people may avoid proximity to God if they believed that He is mad at them. At least in my experiences, the people I have talked to who feel this way didn’t arrive at the conclusion on their own. Their “God is mad at me” perception is most often directly tied to what they have been told by people who should know, such as Christians and church leaders.

  RESIDUAL EFFECTS OF SIN CONSCIOUSNESS

  So, is God mad at you or not? And how can you know?

  From a Christian perspective, the only legitimate substantiation for how God feels about us should be derived from what the Bible says about the subject. So, let’s look at a few scriptures and see if there is a common ground of agreement to be found.

  One of the major reasons for people feeling as if God is mad at them is what I would term sin consciousness. We have heard that God hates sin, and from that, many have derived that when we sin, these negative feelings by God toward the sin are somehow projected upon us in the form of anger, disappointment, and to some, even abandonment.

  As a result, when it comes to communicating with God through prayer or worship, oftentimes we are so conscious of our own sin that we process our relationship with God by weighing the worthiness of our approach and comparing our sins with our good deeds over the course of the same time frame. If we can remember specific sins before approaching Him, we find ourselves feeling unclean and subsequently unworthy, and this unworthiness perception, in turn, solicits a negative response from us.

  Some avoid environments where other Christians are present. Some avoid approaching God in prayer. Others avoid church altogether. Still others feel a sense of hopelessness because they feel as though they have tried so hard and still fall short of God’s expectation of them, believing that He loves them for only so long, but then when they sin too many times, He gets really mad at them and writes them off in His anger.

  But that’s not how it works.

  John 3:16–17 (NIV)

  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

  The most well-known and recited scripture in all in the Bible is John 3:16. In this scripture it is made very apparent how God feels for us and is further reiterated in Romans 5:8, which very clearly states that Jesus died for us “while we were yet sinners.”

  Romans 5:8 (AMP)

  But God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) died for us.

  Jesus didn’t die for people who were only “good” and sinless. On the contrary, according to Romans 5:8, it was for those who were or are sinners that He came to set free—which means all of us. So many live feeling unworthy or unlovable by God because of “what they have done,” but as this scripture so clearly states, it was for His love of those who are in the midst of their sin that Christ paid so great a price in His death.

  YOU ARE RIGHT WITH GOD

  I’d like to define the word righteousness from a biblical standard. Loosely put, the word righteousness means, “right standing with God,” as seen below.

  Romans 3:22 (AMP)

  Namely, the righteousness of God which comes by believing with personal trust and confident reliance on Jesus Christ (the Messiah). [And it is meant] for all who believe. For there is no distinction . . .

  II Corinthians 5:21 (AMP)

  For our sake He made Christ [virtually] to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in and through Him we might become [endued with, viewed as being in, and examples of] the righteousness of God [what we ought to be, approved and acceptable and in right relationship with Him, by His goodness].

  Because of sin consciousness, many believe that their righteousness (or right standing with God) changes moment by moment based upon the sin or severity of the sin they commit. But this is not consistent with scriptures about the salvation that we have obtained through Christ.

  Romans 6:23 (NIV)

  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

  Ephesians 2:8–9 (AMP)

  For it is by free grace (God’s unmerited favor) that you are saved (delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ’s salvation) through [your] faith. And this [salvation] is not of yourselves [of your own doing, it came not through your own striving], but it is the gift of God; Not because of works [not the fulfillment of the Law’s demands], lest any man should boast. [It is not the result of what anyone can possibly do, so no one can pride himself in it or take glory to himself.]

  God loves you in spite of you (or your sin). Yes, it’s true that all of us have sinned, but God does not condemn those who have received salvation through His son Jesus. When we believe God is mad at us, oftentimes this sin consciousness causes us to do the very opposite thing that God would have us to do in the midst of our trial . . . and we run from Him.

  We feel like we are unworthy to approach Him, that we are condemned by our sin, and subsequently not acceptable in His sight because we are dirty.

  But I would argue that, for those who have a heart after God, this is not even a remote possibility.

  Romans 3:23 (NKJV)

  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God . . .

  Romans 8:1–2 (NIV)

  Life Through the Spirit

  Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

  God is not holding your sin against you. He’s not angry with you. You are not a failure or an exception to His love! He loves you, and nothing is going to change that!

  Romans 8:38–39 (NIV)

  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

  I John 1:7 (NASB)

  but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

  Romans 6:14 (NASB)

  For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

  I love the scripture Romans 6:14 because so many assume that sin is what defines them, when, in fact, it isn’t
. My dear friend Tony Sutherland wrote about this in his book Grace Works:

  The Greek word for master is kyrieuo, which means to exercise influence upon. When we quit trying to live holy in order to be acceptable to God, sin loses its power over us, our desire for sin weakens and our desire for God increase, in other words, to get over sin we must get under grace . . . 90

  It’s amazing to me how much our perceptions about ourselves and how we assume God feels about us dictates how we respond to Him. And this is why it is so important that we realize the depth of love and acceptance He has for us!

  We are acceptable to God because of Christ Jesus—not because we try harder to be acceptable by doing better or praying harder or attempting to look holier. When we really embrace this truth, we can live in the peace of God (that is part of His kingdom) where we quit trying to be good enough, and simply begin to walk in the freedom from sin that is a part of our authority within the kingdom of God.

  Many who have studied the teachings of Jesus (including some of my atheist friends) would acknowledge that He presented a respectable way of living with and loving people and presenting God in a way that few (even today) understand Him to be. He touched the untouchable. He loved the unlovable. He didn’t turn people away because of their sin. As a matter of fact, it seems the only people He truly took issue with were those religious leaders who misrepresented God and His love for people. This same Jesus said, “If you’ve seen me, then you have seen the Father.” Jesus modeled who His Father actually was in spite of what many believed about God.

  Before Jesus, the Bible shows what life looks like when sin and the wages of it are in full effect. Jesus modeled what it looks like when the fullness of the kingdom of God is in our lives apart from man’s unredeemed separation from Him because of sin.

  Everything changed for mankind after Jesus when our originally intended positioning on the earth and relationship with God was restored. Now you have every right to question anything you have been taught or think you know about God that you cannot find in the person of Jesus, because Jesus reveals the Father.

  Matthew 11:27 (NASB)

  All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

  John 17:25–26 (AMP)

  O just and righteous Father, although the world has not known You and has failed to recognize You and has never acknowledged You, I have known You [continually]; and these men understand and know that You have sent Me.

  I have made Your Name known to them and revealed Your character and Your very Self, and I will continue to make [You] known, that the love which You have bestowed upon Me may be in them [felt in their hearts] and that I [Myself] may be in them.

  IF HE’S NOT ANGRY, THEN WHAT’S GOING ON?

  If God is not mad at you, then there is a very obvious question that needs to be asked: “Why do the things we assumed happened as a result of His wrath toward us happen, then?”

  In processing life-altering events, many in the church make allowances for what happens to them by assuming that either God put what they are experiencing on them, or He is at least allowing what is taking place with them. In hindsight, many will rationalize that it was to teach them a lesson, get their attention, or turn their lives around because, in their experience, that was the end result of what they endured. I’ve even heard people say things like:

  “God gave me cancer.”

  “God gave me a heart attack.”

  “God put a stroke in my brain.”

  What if He didn’t?

  Matthew 7:9–11 (NIV)

  “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

  For some, the end justified the means. But to others, it doesn’t quite work out that way. When they read scriptures like Matthew 7:9–11, they question why they fell into the same category with God as the child whose classmates all got a visit from Santa and in spite of an entire year of doing the right thing, Santa still put them on the naughty list and Christmas morning was yet another gift-less letdown. Disappointments have driven a further abandonment wedge in their perception of God, His love for them, and the relevance of having a relationship with Him. But this is not the God whom Jesus modeled, and this is not the experience that God promises for His children in the Bible.

  Romans 8:28 (NKJV)

  And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

  I had a conversation with a friend last week when I described the most difficult time of my life as also being the single greatest catalyst for my changing for the better. My exact words to him were, “Those guys trying to kill me cost me a year in physical therapy, countless hours of pain and suffering, more tears than I could possibly describe, and to date nearly half a million dollars in lost wages. It cost me my health. For a season it cost me my confidence, depression, anxiety, challenges to my faith . . . but it was also the best thing that ever happened to me because it stripped me of my single greatest hurdle in life—me. My pride. And I can lead now from a position where previously my pride would have placed a ceiling on my potential.”

  Now I know traditionally the way we would process this in Christianity would be, God allowed those guys to try to kill me to teach me this lesson that I needed to learn. But I’m not sure that was the case. In hindsight, it would be the less-difficult-to-explain version if I could simply say, “God allowed it,” but I think there was and is more to it.

  I wonder if it is possible that what happened to me was not about God’s will or His allowance of tragedy in my life, as much as it was about Him taking an event where evil people (quite probably under the control of evil influences) devised a plan to take me out, diverting me from my God-intended destiny. And perhaps God, in His faithfulness, just worked all of these circumstances together for my good, as the scripture above states.

  My friend and business and ministry consultant, Pastor Randy Blue, said to me in that season, “Aaron, God never wastes pain.” Those words made a lot of sense to me in that period, as I could see that I was in a very painful season. But in spite of the pain (and even as a direct result of it), I was growing and learning some vital developmental lessons. I began to wonder if what I went through was not a God-ordained event as much as a combination of circumstances, choices, and warring kingdoms that all came to a head in a single moment. And if, in His faithfulness as I surrendered myself to God’s process in my recovery season, God took my pain (the very event that was intended to destroy me) and used it to bring about, or maybe even accelerate, some much-needed growth in my life that may have taken years to obtain or work out in any other way.

  If this is the case, it wouldn’t necessarily mean that God had anything to do with the tragic event that I experienced (after all, He did try to warn me three different times), but He was intricately involved with the recovery and advancement of a wounded vessel through the pain.

  Perhaps God is not content to allow tragedy to be the last word in my circumstances.

  Perhaps He’s not content to allow it for you, either.

  THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE

  I really enjoy movies. I find so many spiritual parallels as I observe men and women creatively expressing perspectives from the mountain of influence that they have been gifted to work within—the media.

  In the movie The Man Without a Face, Mel Gibson plays the role of a teacher (Justin McLeod) who has a car accident, killing a young student he was mentoring and severely burning himself in the crash, disfiguring half of his face. As a result of this accident, McLeod confronts accusations of inappropriate (possibly sexual) contact with the deceased student, loses his job, and moves to another town where he does everything
he can to live in seclusion. Because of his appearance and intentional reclusiveness, the members of the small Northeastern coastal town develop their own opinions and rumors surrounding who he is and what his background could be.

  Young Chuck Norstadt sees McLeod on a ferry and is intrigued by and slightly frightened of him. Chuck needs a tutor to help him pass a military academy’s entrance exam and is able to persuade McLeod to become his teacher. The two develop a friendship; McLeod is once again fulfilling his calling as a teacher and Norstadt is learning things that were previously beyond his ability to comprehend through a teacher who has a gift for reaching students.

  The plot takes a twist when Norstadt’s mother finds out that he is secretly visiting with McLeod, whom no one knows anything about. It is eventually revealed to Norstadt that his friend and mentor McLeod was accused but never convicted of sexually abusing the student who was killed in McLeod’s disfiguring car crash.

  In what for me was the most impacting point in the movie, Norstadt confronts McLeod with this accusation and says, “Just tell me you didn’t do it!”

  McLeod turns to Norstadt and says to him, “You don’t get off that easy, Norstadt!” He then proceeds to point out everything that he had done for Norstadt and asks him if he has ever crossed any line of impropriety with him. Then he asks Norstadt if he believes that he is even capable of doing what he was once again being accused of.

  It was apparent in that heartwrenching scene that McLeod was devastated that someone that he had loved and developed a relationship with even had to ask him if he was involved in abusing the other student.