5 Assumptions About God And Why They Are WrongSample

Hell

Assumption: I need to work harder to make God happy

I saw a group of folks recently standing on the sidewalk with large signs. The signs all had some variant of “You are a sinner and will burn in hell” emblazoned across them. One man held a Bible in his hands and was loudly shouting scripture verses into the air. A young girl was screaming about God hating someone. I didn't get to hear who she was yelling about, but she was very enthusiastic. I couldn’t help but wonder how many people had been won to Jesus by these shouters. I doubted any. In fact, I expect these shouters were pushing people away from Jesus instead of drawing them toward him.

The shouters on the street that day had fallen victim to a lie about Jesus. Specifically, their actions indicate they view Jesus as looking down his nose at us from Heaven, angry at us for sinning and eagerly waiting for the right moment to condemn us to hell. In their view, the only way to avoid that wrath of God is to work as hard as possible to obey as much of the law as possible and hope that Jesus will take pity on us and not condemn us. This image of God as a vengeful, wrathful God eager to condemn us is one of the saddest but most prevalent misunderstandings of God in the world today.

Contrast the message of the shouters with the words of Jesus in Matthew 11: 28-30. Rather than being angry and harsh, Jesus is gentle and humble in heart. Rather than demanding perfection from us, Jesus wants to give us rest from our burdens. Rather than a bunch of impossible rules to follow, Jesus says his yoke is easy and his burden is light. In other words, the image of Jesus is almost exactly the opposite of an angry, vengeful God demanding perfection.

Jesus never asked anyone “who doesn’t want to go to Hell?” instead, the call of Jesus is “who will follow?” It’s true that Hell is a real place and some people will end up there. But Jesus never once used the threat of Hell to try and scare people into obedience. We aren’t being called to follow the God of the shouters but rather the loving, patient Jesus who is gentle and humble of heart.