Puzzling Questions What Is God Like?

Someone so filled with love, you could never end up in Hell?  Someone with so much hatred for sinners?

These are two views from mega-pastors that have appeared on the blogosphere etc. The latter one within the last 24 hours!

I am now sure that God is filled with love for us, I feel His love for me. Someone asked last night "could God really forgive every sin he's ever done?"  The answer was a resounding "YES!" God loves and will forgive each one of us, if we only ask Him. 

What if we don't ask Him for forgiveness?  What if we simply don't believe He can do anything for us? What if we decide to take our chances and live our lives for ourselves?  Well, I don't think we will be spared an eternity in Hell, no matter how loving He is. There will be a price to pay and the Bible says the wages of sin is death. 

But does God really hate us because we have all let Him down and fallen short of His glory? I don't think so.  When you hate someone, you lose interest in them, you give up on them, you don't want to spend time with them.  God will never give up on us.  We can anger Him and do things that dis-please Him, but cause Him to hate us? I don't buy that.

So, what is God like?

Puzzling Questions Who Am I?

Last night a new course started called Puzzling Questions, so as I did with the marriage course, I will air my opinions of it on here!

I think this is a fairly new course and is designed to run before Alpha (I haven't done an Alpha course, but I may if I get the opportunity)

Anyway last nights question was 'who am I?' I don't know if this is a typical question people are asking themselves, and I'm not really sure if I came away with the answer!

Does physical beauty make a difference to who we are?  Are we defined by our job, or our position in our community?

These things shouldn't define us, but inevitably we will be judged by others on them.  That is where the security of knowing you are a child of God comes in, for those of us that have that relationship we can know that we are beatiful no matter what, we are made in His image, and are loved unconditionally - simples.

Yeah right, we are also still human and get hung up on all the things we lack or differ from our peers.  Last night when the talk on the table came round to describing yourself or how your friends might describe you, I couldn't move away from the subject fast enough!I also think our identity is constantly changing, I know mine is.  Even in the last year my identity has been evolving into someone more confidant, someone who isn't always wondering what people might think about me, someone who is willing to step out and do things I wouldn't have dared to do before.

I do put this 'new me' down to starting a real relationship with God, with taking Him seriously and believing it when I am told He loves me.

God loves me and thinks I'm alright, and for now I'm happy with that!

Who are you?