How Does God See Me?
So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus - Romans 8:1 (NLT)
If you struggle with condemnation, this one is for you. Something that I am in the process of learning in my own life is the subject of God's nature and how He sees me. This is no doubt an area in which the devil likes to attack, because he probably knows what's written in Romans 2:4 which says:
Don't you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can't you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?
The devil hates repentance, so logically it would make sense he tries to rob us from knowing God's love. Because, like that verse implies, once we experience the love of God, it softens our hearts to Him and changes the direction of our lives.
So, back to my original question — how does God see me? Is He constantly disappointed in me? Is He always angry at me? These are questions I've asked myself in the past because I’ve struggled with sin and condemnation in my own life. And the emotion that often follows is guilt. I feel guilty that I keep disappointing God. I feel guilty that I keep disappointing leaders and peers in my life. But what does the Bible say about all that, and how does He view us now as believers?
One story that illustrates this well is that of Aaron's grandson Phinehas in Numbers 25. As the Israelites traveled towards the Promised Land, some of the men defiled themselves by sleeping with Moabite women nearby, angering the Lord and bringing about a plague against Israel. Just then, as Moses and the leaders scrambled to figure things out, they saw one of the Israelite men bring a Midianite woman into his tent. Enter Phinehas into the story. When Phinehas saw that, he took a spear and rushed after the man into the tent and thrust the spear through the man's body into the woman's stomach, then the plague stopped.
It's a shocking story; certainly not boring. So far you might gather from this story that sin is very serious, it angers the Lord, and bad things happen to those who sin. And maybe you take it even further. Maybe you imagine God's nature towards you based on this story as wrathful, ready to pounce, waiting for you to trip up so He can punish you. But that's not the complete story of Scripture.
The story goes on. After all this took place, God commended Phinehas for his zeal in dealing with the sin in the camp. But then He said something very interesting in verses 11-13:
Phinehas son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron the priest has turned my anger away from the Israelites by being as zealous among them as I was. So I stopped destroying all Israel as I had intended to do in my zealous anger. Now tell him that I am making my special covenant of peace with him. In this covenant, I give him and his descendants a permanent right to the priesthood for in his zeal for me, his God he purified the people of Israel, making them right with me.
What does this remind you of? New, special covenant... priesthood... makes us right with God. Does Phinehas remind you of someone? Phinehas is a type of Christ here. Meaning, he isn't Jesus himself but represents Him; foreshadows Him in some way. What this story foreshadowed is: Jesus zealously came, and by His sacrifice on the cross He thrust a figurative spear into Satan, causing the end of sin and death's power over us. And as a result, God's anger was curtailed, a new and special covenant was made where we are made right with God through faith in Christ (Romans 3:22), become His "priesthood," and the defining characteristic of this new covenant is peace. What’s really cool about this story is that you can summarize the basic story of the Bible in this one story: the human condition of sin, God’s anger and judgement over sin, God’s love for us, the atonement, eternal life and peace with God in Jesus Christ. It’s all packaged concisely right there.
God loves all and sent His Son to die for all (John 3:16). However, the harsh reality about sin, as this story shows, is that His righteous anger is upon every person until that person repents and turns to Jesus. If someone dies in their sin, unwilling to believe and turn, they will spend eternity in complete darkness, torment, and separation from God. That is the just penalty for sin. But the good news is God is not willing that any should perish but that all repent (2 Peter 3:9). And He has chosen us, His Church, to bring the Good News to the world and show others the goodness of God so they can make the same choice we did and believe in Him.
But back to the first question about how God sees us as believers — what encourages me (as one who struggles with condemnation) is that God says we have been “justified” by faith in Jesus (Romans 5:1). This is amazing, because the word “justified” also means to declare someone “not guilty.” In other words, as believers God sees us as faultless (see Ephesians 1:4), no longer bound to our sin but set free and made new; adopted into His own holy family. Not that we are perfect and don’t need to grow, but this is how God sees us now! He declared us righteous, sees us as holy, set apart, and is so thrilled about us. This is our new identity.
Another thing that encourages me from the Scriptures about how God sees us, is that as believers we have peace with God (see Romans 5:1 again). The word for peace in the story of Phinehas is the well known Hebrew word "Shalom." And one of the words that define Shalom in the Strong's dictionary is the word "favor." Meaning, once we believe and surrender to Jesus, we enter into His family where we have His favor.
I used to view God’s nature towards me as a "get off my lawn" type of personality. Where I'm rarely in His good graces, or He's always hovering over me wagging His finger in disappointment. But in reality, He's my Heavenly Father. He adopted me into His family when I believed. I have peace with Him now. And just like with any loving father, their children don't have to earn their father's favor, they already have it. That means my default mentality shouldn't be: "I can never please God,” or start in a negative place like that. But in Christ my default should be: "I start in a place of God's favor…. He is pleased with who I am." And that doesn't mean He isn't still grieved over sin, or doesn't convict us to repent, or disciplines us. It means that we are acceptable to God the way we are. Again, not that nothing should change, but that He genuinely has affection for His kids right now, and we haven’t lost our place in His family if we make a mistake. And somehow that mindset gives me the courage to deal with things He points out in my life that need to change.
The negative view of God’s nature is not only bleak and inconsistent with Scripture, it’s the absolute wrong way to get free from sin and pursue a holy life. It makes us introspective, self-critical, condemning, and you never have the encouragement to move forward. Perhaps some of you reading this need to get set free from this wrong view of God's nature. I pray that you do, as well as I. I pray that we will start every day with the mindset that we have peace with God in Christ Jesus, walking in His favor (Shalom), walking in the Father's love, but still living as an open-book before Him so that He can reveal anything to us that displeases Him.
Photo credit: Johannes Plenio (https://unsplash.com/@jplenio)