5 Assumptions About God And Why They Are WrongSample

Accepting God’s Forgiveness

Assumption: God will never be happy with me

After class one day, I stopped a student when I noticed her somber demeanor. Hoping to help, I engaged her in conversation. I was a little taken aback and more than a bit confused at her abrupt honesty when she confessed that she felt as if she had done too many bad things and that God simply could never forgive her.

We had just been talking about the Gospel in class—about how God loves us so much that he sent Jesus to die for us and pay the price for all our sins. As a class, we had discussed that God knows we are sinful people and he loves us and forgives us no matter what we’ve done.

As our conversation continued, my heart broke when I realized there wasn’t anything more that I could say to make her feel better. It wasn’t that she didn’t know the truth that God loved her and forgave her. Rather, the issue was that she hadn’t yet accepted the truth.

Our relational disconnect with God is not caused by a sudden burst of selfishness, bitterness, or lack of forgiveness toward us on God’s part. God loves us no matter what it is that we have done. The error is within us. It isn’t that God hasn’t forgiven us, it is that we haven’t accepted God’s forgiveness towards us.

What is the key to making God happy? It is not trying to get our lives into perfect shape. The key to making God happy is to freely receive his salvation and then to willingly live in his love. God loves us, not because we are so well-behaved, but because he chooses to love us! Accepting God’s forgiveness towards us allows us to live freely in that love.