What is God Like?
“Do short people go to heaven?”
About two weeks ago, I saw a picture on Instagram of someone’s Google search, “Can we go to heaven with tattoos?” and the answer that Google provided said the following: “People with tattoos will not go to heaven. People who drink alcohol will not go to heaven. People who eat too much pork will also not go to heaven. Short people will not go to heaven.”
The first thing I did was laugh at how comically incorrect that response was, but I felt the Holy Spirit stirring me to open a dialogue in the comments of the picture. I knew that people may actually be led astray by a funny picture, and so I invited questions of any kind to reply to me. And boy, did I get questions. Everything from “what is the difference between Islam and Christianity?” to “why does God make gay people and then keep them out of heaven?”
Over the next couple of weeks, I spent hours responding to these questions and many more in between. And what stuck out the most to me was that so many people have no idea what God is really like. All people are made to reflect God’s image, but how can anyone do that if they don’t know what image they’re supposed to be reflecting?
What is God’s image?
Hebrews 4:16 tells us to approach God’s throne of grace with confidence. Many of us spend more time hiding from God instead of approaching Him. I believe that this is because we don’t truly know what God is like, and our assumptions cause us to hide rather than approach.
As we explore the topic of spiritual identity, one of the first truths that we discover is that we are made in God’s image. But what is that image?
Sometimes, we base our idea of what God is like off of our interactions with other people. It’s natural that we want to project what we can physically perceive onto God, who no one can perceive in His fullness. We take the fear of judgement, condemnation, shame, and cruelty that we expect to receive from other people, and we apply that filter to the way we see God. We fearfully believe that God will respond to our mistakes, brokenness, and past like the world would.
God is not like the world.
This is a simple truth, but one that is difficult to measure. We see so much hurt and imperfection around us that it makes it difficult for us to believe that perfection is real, and that perfection is God.
In order to help us understand that He is not like the world, God the Father sent Jesus to the earth. Jesus faced all the difficulties that we face; He endured temptation, hunger, thirst, suffering, betrayal, and eventually He died on a cross. In the middle of all that, Jesus never sinned. He made no mistakes, committed no wrongdoings, and was perfect in every way.
All of this, Jesus did so that we could see God’s goodness and experience the mercy and grace that is readily available for everyone who believes.
Christ restores your true identity.
When we place our faith in Jesus by professing with our words and believing in our hearts that He is the Son of God, died, and was resurrected for the forgiveness of sins, our identity is completely changed. Before Jesus, we are marked and stained by sin and shame, but in Christ, we are no longer our former selves.
Our identity is restored in Christ. We are forgiven, image-bearers for God, ambassadors for Christ, fishers of men, and children of the King. God sees us as these things, not as our mistakes. And He is always ready to shower us with His grace and mercy when we approach Him.
God is the one true Judge, and God sits on the throne of grace. We can approach with confidence not because of our own merit, but because we are found in Christ as beloved children of the King.