How do you perceive God? How do you view Him? The answer to that question has no impact or bearing on who God is - He tells us “I AM who I AM”; rather, the answer you give reveals a truth about you.

The first thing we need to establish is that God is infinite in every sense of the word and in every sense of His character, and to fully know/understand Him is an exercise that requires an eternity. This does not mean that knowing God is an exercise in futility; in fact, it is the opposite; our purpose on earth is to wholeheartedly seek Him, serve Him, and be more like Him as revealed in Jesus – and all of those things require us to know Him. But getting back to the point – today we are not discussing what we know, or strive to know about God; today we are focusing on how we perceive Him.

Regardless of what you know, our perception defines how we act and interact with our world and with God. I may know, rationally, that broccoli is healthy, but if I perceive it to be disgusting, I will not eat it. So how do you perceive God? How do you view Him?

APATHETIC CREATOR

One way certain people (primarily deists, or other people with a weak faith, or a different faith entirely) tend to view God, is as a far off and distant entity that exercised ‘its’ power through creation, and then stood back and watched. This view also tends to be accompanied with the belief that we can never fully know this ‘being’, because the ‘being’ has no interest in making ‘itself’ known to us. God doesn’t care about you and you exist as a potential cosmic experiment, they might tell you.

The outcome of such a belief is a near nihilism and a generalised melancholy towards the Spiritual. People who perceive God in this way tend to have no desire to know Him more, and they may even resent Him. There is no sense of obligation (out of love or otherwise) to humanity when this perceived view of God is held, and there is no urgency to uphold moral law. This is despite God’s word outlining that all creation was made through Him and for Him, for His delight. The Bible declares that God delighted in humanity the moment we were created, calling us ‘very good’, and that He anticipates the moment we are reunited with Him. God states that He cares for us so much that He offered up His own life to win us back. But despite all this, those who perceive God as an Apathetic Creator are themselves apathetic towards Him.

THE JUDGE

The view of God as Judge is perhaps the favourite view of ‘religious’ people – to their shame. Let me be clear: God is righteous and holy and God is explicit in outlining that He will one day judge humanity to see if we are worthy to enter His presence (spoiler alert: we’re not…more on that later) and will hold all of us to account of how we spent our precious gift of life. These are all things we (should) know, but what certain people tend to perceive out of this knowledge is that God is first and foremost our judge. This may be a conscious or unconscious perception, but a perception nonetheless.

This perception of God as Judge leads to a generalized anxiety and a sense of fear – a fear of failing/disappointing Him, a fear of judgment, a fear of punishment. Out of this fear, any sense of relationship is stifled. God states in His word that love and fear are polar opposites, they repel each other. Further to this, because people who perceive God as Judge tend to have no real experience of His love, they tend to be less loving of others, and it is this that leads them to being judgmental of others. They perceive their judgment of others as righteous because they feel it is the exact same response that God would have, and they feel the need to demonstrate that. With a misplaced sense of a right to judge others comes a spiritual pride and a pharisaical fervor which God blatantly abhors. And so those who perceive God as Judge, come before Him timidly, trying to avoid disapproval, and in turn disapprove of others because that is what they feel God would want them to do.

PERFECT FATHER

A good father loves his children and would sacrifice to provide for them and to bring them joy. A good father teaches and disciplines his children and instills in them a sense of right and wrong and expects the children to obey out of the basis of his relationship with them. When his children make a mistake or disobey, the good father corrects out of consistency and for the benefit of his child – not in an aim to destroy or alienate.

Our God is the Perfect Father, and he declares this in His Word. He created us and delights in us. He gave us moral law to guide us towards the truth of Him, and to allow us to continue to walk in step with Him – but He knew we would all fall short. That’s where His love comes in. His love for us is incomprehensible, it borders on the scandalous. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus took the penalty and shame of our sins and nailed them to the cross, to be forever forgiven and forgotten. To bring us back in union and relationship with our Perfect Father. The purpose of the law is to convict not condemn – and that statement defines the stark contrast between those who perceive God as Father compared to those who view Him as Judge. Christ died on the cross and rose again so that God the Judge would not be the predominant figure humanity has to face. Jesus died so that Almighty, Holy, Righteous God would be satisfied, so that He could be our Father.

But you see, the cost was great, and so the responsibility is great. Once you are redeemed and marked by The Father, you have a responsibility to bear His Name well, to live a life worthy of His love, to bring glory and delight to The One who rescued you. An integral part of this is to extend that love to all those we can, because God wants to be everyone’s Father and no-one’s Judge.

So how do you perceive God? How do you view Him? And how do your actions declare Him?