Good but not safe

 This is how Aslam the lion is described by C S Lewis, and is the allegorical description of Jesus. 

Along with, hopefully, all other born-again believers, I want to experience a closer relationship with this God whom I worship, but do I know what that means? Really? 

In human terms, "a closer relationship" brings to mind a pleasant experience of love, affection, a sharing of hopes and desires, maybe a physical closeness depending on the type of relationship. But who is this God we seek to approach? In asking the question I don't claim to have all the answers, but having recently read through the first few books of the Old Testament I feel the need for caution. 

In the New Testament we find Jesus who is God and who is approachable. We read passages about love, affection, peace, joy, healing, provision, freedom from worry, salvation for all without cost - all very attractive reasons for choosing this god over others who demand more. To our western thinking where the individual is key, where prosperity and ease are the goals, we can distort the true nature of God by concentrating only on the "nice bits"

 If this is where we're at we face the danger of coming unstuck big-time when things get tough. People ask "where is god now?", "How could a good god let this happen?", "Where are my blessings?", "Where is the healing and prosperity?"

 Maybe our vision of God needs to expand to include what he shows of himself before he revealed the plan for salvation through Jesus. 

Adam and Eve met the God who banished them from paradise for eating the wrong fruit. Noah met the God who wiped out the worlds population to start again with a faithful family. Moses met the God who spoke out of burning bushes, delivered plagues to Egypt, shielded Moses in the cleft of a rock so that he wouldn't fry Moses as he passes by, the god who caused the earth to open and swallow thousands of Israelites, the God who commanded rituals, blood sacrifices, glorious tabernacles, who gave detailed laws on who could approach and how it was to be done ........ I could go on but this God doesn't seem very cuddly! 

We must learn about and try to understand this side of the nature of God before we can appreciate the enormity of what Jesus has done for us. Unless we grasp the eternal gulf that is between sinful man and the perfect, holy God we will never really appreciate that from which we are saved. Unless we take on board the fact that we are entering His eternal kingdom and not that He is simply bowing down to ours we will get stuck in some sort of distorted prosperity gospel.

 God is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control. He is good, perfect, holy. This is his nature, not a lifestyle choice. We can truly approach him only on his terms. Yes he longs for fellowship with us as his beloved creation, but we need to understand the cost. We need to understand why Jesus alone was the only one who could bridge the gap. 

Let us be careful to approach Him as He has revealed Himself, and not invent our own God from the best bits as we see them.

 Let us be careful to discover more about this God who loves us with passion we could hardly even imagine, this God who we will one day meet as either judge or saviour, this God who is good but not safe.