Do You Believe in a Lopsided God?

My last blog stirred up some debate about whether or not prideful people experience God's discipline. I'd like to tell you why I think God is not just a warm and fuzzy, everybody's-going-to-heaven kind of god. I'd also like to explain why I think he's not just a horrible, punishing, angry god who zaps everyone with lightning bolts over every tiny infraction.

I believe that God is more like a well-balanced tire than a lopsided feather comforter with all of the stuffing shoved to one end. The Bible clearly tells us about God's character.

According to Wayne Grudem, who wrote Systematic Theology, God is an invisible, spiritual being who knows all things, has the wisdom to choose what is best for his children, and speaks only the truth in all matters. (Read John 4:24, John 1:18, I John 3:20 Job 12:13, and John 17:3 if you don't believe Grudem or me about God's character.)

Wayne Grudem explains that God's ten moral attributes include:

l) goodness (Luke 18:19),
2) love (I John 4:8),
3) mercy (Psalm 103:8),
4) grace (I Peter 5:10),
5) patience (Romans 2:4),
6) holiness (Isaiah 6:3),
7) peace (I Corinthians 14:33),
8) righteousness (Deuteronomy 32:4),
9) justice (Isaiah 45:19), and
10) jealousy (Exodus 20:5).

We all like it when God pours out his goodness, love, grace, mercy, and patience on us. I am very thankful that out of his great love and mercy, God sent his Son to die for my sins so that I don't have to spend eternity in hell, experiencing painful punishments for all of the wrong things I have done. But to believe that these warm and fuzzy traits make up the full extent of God's character is wrong. Giving him only these five attributes makes him very lopsided.

We must look closely at the last five moral attributes of God, too. If we believe that he knows all things and brings about what is best for us, we must accept the fact that our jealous God, who is holy, peace-loving, and righteous, cannot allow his children to behave outside of his boundaries of justice. He disciplines his children, just as we here on earth discipline our own children.

Because God loves us, he holds us to a very high standard: we are to take on those same ten attributes listed above. This is an incredibly high bar that has been set for us. Jesus was perfection in flesh. Of course, it will take lots of discipline to form us into beings who resemble Christ!

God's jealousy does not allow him to watch us chasing after something temporal here on earth, all the while ignoring him. He will discipline us to bring us back into a love relationship with him. His jealousy is not the negative sort that we think of between humans. It stems from his desire to watch over us and protect us from sinning.

Sometimes, we see people sinning over and over and over. There are times when they get caught. When we see sinners receiving punishment through the legal system or other means that God allows, we feel vindicated. We rejoice when God's righteousness results in justice. This is natural, because we are made in the image of God, who cannot tolerate sin.

There are also instances when it looks as if evil people are getting away with murder. They twist our legal system and slip out through looopholes in the law. We wonder where God is and why he doesn't do something.

God's character demands justice in our world, and because we are made in his likeness, we expect justice, too. Just because it looks as if someone is getting away with sin doesn't mean that God isn't seeing everything and working out a plan to restore that person to him. It might take plenty of love, goodness, grace, patience, and mercy on God's part, but you can be sure that he'll bring about holiness, justice, peace, and righteousness in the end through his jealous love.

There are other times when we watch people living faithfully according to God's Word, and terrible things happen to them. We wonder why God didn't stop the tragedies. We must remember, that just because we believe in Jesus and get baptized does not mean that God will take away all of our troubles. On the contrary, becoming a Christian frequently means that God turns up the heat of his refining fire.

It is not 'unChristian' for us to rejoice when sinners find themselves on the receving end of God's justice, provided that we are happy that they now have an opportunity to turn their lives over to Christ. If, on the other hand, we cheer because someone who has hurt us got punished, and we continue to watch for opportunities to gloat about their suffering, then we are merely expressing our vindictive side.

We are commanded, above all else, to love one another. If I truly love others, I will do my best to jealously guard their souls from sin, just as God does. I often pray that God will teach me how to use gentle words, love, mercy, goodness, grace, and patience when restoring a fellow believer to a right relationship with God.

I apologize if I gave any reader the impression in my last blog that I thought my surgeon deserved to lose her daughter over a waterfall in Hawaii after the doctor mistreated me. The child's drowning was a horrible tragedy that I wouldn't wish on anyone. However, I was trying to point out that the loss of that child may have been God's only course of action to bring that surgeon back into a right relationship with him. I thought that perhaps in losing her own child, God was trying to teach that surgeon how to have empathy for other women, like me, whose babies died.

I don't know if this is why God allowed this loss or not. I was only surmising in order to make a point. But I do understand God's character, and it would not be consistent with his character to simply allow that surgeon to continue to mistreat her patients with such a calloused heart. God will do whatever it takes to bring us into a love relationship with him and with one another...even if it sometimes entails breaking our hearts.

Sometimes, God must break our hearts to get our attention. He does not do this out of meanness or from willy-nilly actions of anger. He knows what is best for us, and if it means disciplining us, that's what he will do.

I pray that God will shower me with his warm and fuzzy feelings of goodness, love, mercy, grace, and patience. But I also pray that he will discipline me, as needed, to bring about holiness, peace, righteousness, justice, and love-inspired jealousy for others in me.

Speaking up when someone like my surgeon hurts me, and praying for her hardened heart to be broken, is one way that I can express God's love-inspired jealousy for her. Confronting her may be difficult, but the interaction may create an opportunity for her to turn her heart over to the Lord.

God is not a lopsided, warm and fuzzy guy who is issuing certificates of eternal life to all people upon their deaths. He is a strong, well-rounded, and balanced being who uses all of his attributes to make us balanced, well-rounded people, thoroughly prepared for eternity with him.

I am not a lopsided Christian who believes in a lopsided god. I do not believe in picking and choosing the parts of God's character that are appealing to me. I take into consideration the entire counsel of God's Word. And his Word tells me that he is the One and Only God of goodness, love, mercy, grace, and patience; as well as The One True God of holiness, righteousness, peace, justice, and jealousy. I embrace all facets of God's character, because in doing so, I have far greater opportunities to become more like him.

I do not believe in a lopsided God. Do you?