The Other Side of Hope: Breaking the Cycle of Cynicismಮಾದರಿ
God Is Not Angry at Us
A simplistic, reduced view of the epic story of divine love that focuses on sin makes it easier to pit God against humanity and humanity against God. But that is not the gospel. God has never been an enemy of humanity—despite our crazy ideas and religious inconsistencies and even our rebellion and pride. God has consistently been leading us to understand and experience that he is good and he is with us.
Jesus is the pinnacle of this revelation. and he goes all the way to the cross in the ultimate act of compassion to convince us once and for all that he is not angry—he is love.
This idea that God is angry at us is so deeply lodged within our understanding of the gospel that it’s no wonder fear, guilt, and shame are the primary ways we communicate about God. Romans 5:10 is often cited as evidence that we are in fact God’s enemies, because it asserts that our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies. But the whole chapter is trying to tell us that Jesus came to show us the real face of God. And it’s love. And that love is active and moving and working on our behalf even when we pit ourselves against God or believe we are separate from him.
Romans 5:8 sums this up pretty nicely. If God was angry or our enemy, he would have waited to demonstrate his extravagant love for us. But he didn’t. Because it’s not true.
This is so clear to me now and so exciting and revolutionary that I want to scream it from every mountaintop in the world: God has no human enemies! He is not against you; he is not mad at you. He is not even perpetually disappointed in you.
God is love. God is for you. God made you. God knows you. God loves you. Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity. It didn’t need changing. God has organically, inherently loved what he created from the moment he created it. Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God.
Respond
If you believe God is angry at you, what prompts you to believe this? Ask God to reveal the truth of his love to you.
About this Plan
When we feel cynicism, we make a way for despair to creep into our lives. Cynicism is the loss of hope in others. It’s an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self-interest. In these excerpts from her book The Other Side of Hope, justice advocate Danielle Strickland exposes a critical belief that leads to cynicism and inspires us to break the cycle.
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