so the other nite we were hanging with some mates from church at our place and the giant of the group (aptly named klein (small) frans) came up with this saying “the God i believe in is not the God you don’t believe in” which i think is brilliant and which i blog posted and made my status line on facebook and twitter (some might say ‘overkill’ – i might say ‘collective ramifications’ but just because it’s a nice sounding phrase – go on, say it out loud… not SO loud, you don’t want to freak out the people in the office, sheesh!)

and i was thinking about it this morning briefly (but very quickly – so a lot of thort in a short space of time – i think my mind just works that way when i set it free as i do from time to time) the idea is we’re comparing Christ followers to unbelievers – so the idea or understanding or concept of God that unbelievers have is not a true representation of who God really is and i would go so far as to say that i also don’t believe in the God you don’t believe in (as a quandary, or a corollary, or whatever it’s called, to the original theoretical!)

but then (at an rpm of millions per second per second) [squared] i realised that actually that statement sadly covers a lot of christians as well – or people calling themselves christians at any rate (the ones who may never be accused of excessive Christ following) – i think churches (as in the buildings and the meetings) are filled with people who have a completely skewed picture of who God is and how He sees them and what His intentions are of relationship with them.

and so it’s sad, but i think it’s true, that i can say to a lot of the christians out there, ‘the God i believe in is not the same God you believe in’

for example, my God would not choose religion over relationships ever (as was hugely demonstrated to me on sunday when an old guy in my church went all psycho on me because some kids had got overly excited when communion was happening, and he chose religion over relationship with me, with them, and definitely did not act or speak in love)

the God i love and serve would never insist on you jumping through hoops of any kind to be ‘good enough’ to be worthy of His love and attention and acceptance – He has already done all the hoop-jumping necessary in sending Jesus – the price has been paid, you just need to accept it and live in that freedom

and so on.