God isn’t as bothered about our beliefs as we are

Whatever I might be believing at any given moment about God is not what God cares most about in me

It was my friend Dean who wrote the sentence that is the sub-title to this piece. I am convinced it is true.

“Whatever I might be believing at any given moment about God is not what God cares most about in me.”

– Dean Sharp

Many churches seem consumed by a mission to convert people to ‘right believing’. In order to be ‘saved’ we have to believe the right doctrines about God and Jesus.

It may vary depending on doctrinal statement from one denomination to the next, but the goal is the same: get people to believe specific statements about God, life, and faith.

Somehow the good news of Jesus has been watered down to this: God’s acceptance of us is dependent on whether we have the correct beliefs about him.

Most churches wouldn’t state it this explicitly, but everything about their behaviour implicitly communicates this message.

And I honestly believe this is fundamental distortion of the truth.

As I said yesterday, if God is love, there are no boundaries to the reach of God’s love. I don’t believe that God is moved one way or another by whether or not my beliefs about him are absolutely correct.

Beliefs change, evolve, and grow. What we are convinced of one day can look childish when we look back our lives later on.

That is why the focus should always be on love and not beliefs.

Asking ourselves whether we are loving others well is a far more important question than whether we are believing all the right things.

After all, God is love. And love is a far greater indicator of union with God than what we do or don’t believe about him on any given day.

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Image: Karl Fredrickson