Our View of God Has to be Lived

Yesterday I wrote about our, "view of God". I said, "Your view of God will be passed on to those in your ministry . . . to your volunteers and to the children and families in your church and community. It really does matter how You see God because the way You see Him will greatly impact how effective you are in ministry."

This is true. The way we see God will impact those around us and will impact how effective we are in our ministries because what we believe effects our actions and our actions do speak louder than our words.  Consider the following . . . 

• If we say knowing and loving God gives us great joy, yet we are cranky and joyless, the children and adults around us will not really believe us.
• If we say God gives grace and yet we are people who do not forgive and who do not show grace in the way we interact with others, the children and adults around us will not really believe us.
• If we say God is the most important One in our lives and we can trust Him, yet we are focused on getting more things and trying to solve our problems ourselves, the children and adults around us will not really believe us.

My pastor recently said something I had not thought about before - and yet is absolutely true . . . "No one who was in sin during Jesus' time thought He was mean-spirited, judgmental and hypocritical." He is right.

If others think Christians are these things, then clearly we have a wrong view of God and have failed to represent Him to others accurately.

It matters how we see God and it matters how we represent Him to others. We have to be sure we live what we believe. How do you see God?