Is God both good and bad natured?

 

Some people who claim to be Christians believe that God makes people sick for their sinning and even kills people for their sinning.

Yet they will go against that belief by praying for the sick, if that is unsuccessful, they will bring them to the doctor to get medicine to make them well again. Some claim to have enough influence over God to bring back the dead through their prayers.

What gives such people the audacity to pray against something they believe God has set in motion? Do mere men believe they have such control and manipulation over God?

Isn't that ironically ironic to the point of being religiously, ridiculously ridiculous?

People’s understanding of the dualistic, opposite characteristics of God leads to the confusing image of God that many people in the secular and religious realm have swallowed hook, line and sinker. In the pre-cross era we are told that God is a killing and a evil creating God that commanded that small children be destroyed. In the post-cross era we see Jesus expressing a message of life, love, grace and forgiveness. Jesus healed, set the captives free and always overcame evil with good. Jesus never hurt anyone and He never condoned violence of any kind.

According to scripture Jesus is the express image and the perfect reflection of the Father. What He said and did was what He saw the father say and do. The scriptures also declare that if we have seen Jesus we have seen the Father. Jesus perfectly and profoundly revealed the Fathers complete nature to humanity. Jesus is the Word of God, Jesus IS God. Believers themselves hang on the fact that Jesus is God...not a part of God but God himself come in the in the flesh. This absolute truth leaves us with a gigantic problem. If God is the same yesterday, today and forever, how do we answer all the violence attributed to Him in the Old Testament? Is our best answer to this dual personality as fickle as, God is good BUT, God is loving BUT, God is understanding BUT! Is this butting of God followed by “He hates people” or He is a killer” as I have been told by people who claim to follow Him.

If as revealed in the Old Testament God tells us to hate our enemies, why did Jesus say we should love them? If God tells us an eye for an eye, why did Jesus tell us to turn the other cheek? If God tells us to stone an adulteress, why did Jesus ignore His Fathers’ law and extend grace and mercy to a women caught in the very act? If God tells us to stone disobedient children, why did Jesus say, compared to God the best father on earth is evil? If God truly wanted Elijah to call fire down and kill one hundred and fifty people, Why did Jesus tell James and John they didn’t even know what spirit they were of when they wanted to do the same thing? If God hurt and killed people, why is it we never see Jesus following His Fathers example in this? If God put sickness and disease on people to punish them for their sin as a corrective measure, why did Jesus go about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the (DEVIL)

Jesus Christ/God is the same YESTERDAY, today and forever? People let’s be honest, there does seem to be a disparity between the God revealed in the pre-cross era and the Jesus of the post-cross era. Do we ignore this and put our Christian heads in the sand and pretend that the problem does not exist? Is our best answer God isn’t mad anymore? Is it possible there is a valid Biblical alternative to what we’ve been told? Is it possible that the truth about this has been right in front of us for two thousand years? Yet, we are unable to see it through fogged up religious doctrinal spectacles? Is the problem that there is no valid Biblical alternative, or is the problem is man-made traditions. Jesus himself said that it is our traditions that make His Word of no effect (Mark 7:13). Has our traditions veiled the truth in this matter?

Are the explanations we have been given about the Old Testament violence good enough to satisfy (1 John 4:8, 16)? I think not.

Before His appearance in the world, according to Jesus Himself, “No one has seen the Father except the One who is from God; only He (Jesus) has seen the Father” (John 6:46).  John the Beloved said in John 1:18 that, “No one has ever seen God, but the only begotten Son (Jesus), who is at the Father’s side, has made Him known, therefore, no one prior to Jesus knew what God is like.”  Paul said of Jesus that “He is the image of the invisible God” (Col.1:15).  And Jesus again says of Himself in John 14:9 that, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”

Wow…“No one has seen the Father.” “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” These are the words of Jesus Christ Himself!

Is Jesus not declaring that before Him no one knew what God was like, because no man had seen Him as He truly is!  No one before Jesus fully knew what God’s character was like.  “No one”,  that includes: Moses, Elijah, David, Solomon, Samuel, Adam, Ezekiel, Isaiah, etc.  They did not know what God was like.  They only knew in part; they only saw glimpses of Him.

But Jesus stepped on the scene, the very expresser of God, He gave people an understanding of God! During His time on earth Jesus revealed to people exactly what God is like and any view we have of God that is not in line with how Jesus reveals Him, we need to discard that view as the wrong view.

No one knew what God looked like before Jesus showed up, but He came to show us. He showed us that God wasn’t a messed up schizophrenic, revengeful or angry as we had been led to believe. He came to show us that God was far greater, and far more extravagantly compassionate and loving than we had ever dreamed!

Why not start loving your loving Father God...and...STOP discrediting His Holy Name! If God was as religious people believe He is...they would probably been dead a long ago!