So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
1 John 4:16-18, ESV
My formative church experience distorted my view of God. Faith was about following rules. Getting it right. And if you didn’t, God stood with a rod ready to strike. God wasn’t a loving father; he was an angry judge. It’s not that I had a problem viewing myself as a sinner in need of a Savior (1 Jn. 2:2). No argument there. And, in spite of feeling like a walking disaster at times, I loved God and wanted to to please him. It’s just my obedience was sketchy. If God was a judge on his bench, I was ashamed to look at him. My performance in meeting his holy, perfect standards was consistently poor and I often felt like a screw-up. I had no confidence, only fear.
Of course, movies like The Burning Hell didn’t help. And, although I like many things that Jonathan Edward’s wrote, these words from his most famous sermon aren’t among them:
“The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood.”
from “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
Although “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,” it’s not God’s end game. He never intended fear to be used as a primary pastoral tool. In fact, fear in the sense of apprehension, terror, or dread stands in the way of getting to know the heart of God. The apostle John says that clearly above and Chap Clark illustrates John’s point well with the following story of a young father and his three-year-old son.
Every day the father would come home after work and go through the same routine: walk into the kitchen, pour a glass of milk, grab a couple of cookies, and walk back into the living room to unwind while watching the evening news.
One night the father came home a little late, and as he walked in the door he noticed his three-year-old hurrying toward the kitchen. The father, sensing something was up, hesitated.
Dragging a chair, the little boy rushed over to the kitchen counter, climbed up, reached into the cupboard, and grabbed a glass—knocking over two in the process. Then he grabbed two cookies from the cookie jar (one fell on the floor), climbed down off the counter, and ran to the refrigerator. As he pulled out the jug of milk, it slipped out of his hands, landing on the floor and spilling some. Undaunted, the boy poured some of the remaining milk into the glass and set the carton back down on the floor. By now, the kitchen looked like a tornado had struck! The cupboard was open, the refrigerator door was open, and cookie crumbs and milk were all over the floor.
Any other night, the boy might have been disciplined for all the rules he had broken. But, as the father watched his son run down the hall with the glass of milk and cookie, he realized what love was in the boy’s heart—and threw his arms around his son and said, “Thank you, son, for that wonderful gift!”
Too many of us view God as a stern father standing at the end of the hallway yelling, “You left the cabinet door open! You got cookie crumbs all over the floor! You spilled the milk! Get that refrigerator door closed!” But God isn’t like that. Instead He throws His arms around us and says, “Thank you for that wonderful gift!”[1]
Friends, if you’ve received the mercy of God in Christ (John 1:12), this story illustrates the Father’s heart toward you as well. May you come, more and more, “to know and rely on” the love God has for you (1 John 4:16, NIV).
[1] Story adapted from Mike Yaconelli & Jim Burns, High School Ministry (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986), 34.