God Is Easy To Live With

"Satan's first attack upon the human race was his sly effort to destroy Eve's confidence in the kindness of God. Unfortunately for her and for us he succeeded too well. From that day, men have had a false conception of God," . . . ." A.W. Tozer thus begins his relieving message to all of us who are in Christ.



Jesus said in John 17:3, "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." He tells us in Matthew 11:29, "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS."



Jesus told us if we've seen Him, we've seen the Father. John 14:8-11 -- 8) Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”
9) Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? 10) Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me. 11) Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe because of the work you have seen me do."

And Ephesians 1:17 says, "asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God.



All He wants is for us to KNOW Him. To become acquainted and know and believe in WHO HE IS. And then rest in that. Take His easy yoke and rest. The Pharisees, and legalists everywhere, want to paint a different picture. They want you to see God in their "light of leaven." They preach forgiveness, yes, but they also preach another gospel . . . the one with a heavy yoke and a heavy burden of "assembling" yourselves for God. (As if this has anything at all to do with us.)



"Nothing twists and deforms the soul more than a low or unworthy conception of God," A. W. Tozer says. The legalists hold that "God is stern and austere, yet they manage to maintain a fairly high level (standard) of external morality; but their righteousness is only outward. Inwardly, Jesus said, they are "whited sepulchres" (tombs). Their wrong conception of God even results in a wrong idea of worship and devotion."



A. W. Tozer states, "To a Pharisee, the service of God was a bondage which he did not love but from which he could not escape without a loss too great to bear." The God of the legalist is not a God easy to live with, so his religion is grim and hard and loveless. "It has to be so, for our notion of God must always determine the quality of our religion." Grim and severe "Christianity" is the effect of an inadequate view of God. Instinctively, we try to be like our God, and if He is conceived to be stern and exacting, so will we ourselves be! From this failure to properly understand God comes a world of unhappiness among good Christians. The Christian life is thought to be glum, UNRELIEVED cross-carrying under the eye of a stern Father who expects much and excuses nothing. He is austere, highly tempermental and extremely hard to please. THE KIND OF LIFE THAT SPRINGS OUT OF SUCH LIBELOUS NOTIONS IS BUT A MOCKERY OF THE TRUE LIFE IN CHRIST."

I agree with Tozer that to paint such a picture of God is libelous, slanderous, even blasphemous. It is exactly what satan did in the garden.

Tozer goes on to say, "It is most important to our spiritual welfare that we hold in our minds always a right conception of God. If we think of Him as COLD and EXACTING, we shall find it impossible to love Him, and our lives will be ridden with SERVILE FEAR. If, again, we hold Him to be KIND and UNDERSTANDING (He knows our frame is but dust.) our whole inner life will mirror that idea."

"The TRUTH is that God is the MOST WINSOME OF ALL BEINGS AND HIS SERVICE ONE OF UNSPEAKABLE PLEASURE. HE IS ALL LOVE, AND THOSE WHO TRUST HIM NEED NEVER KNOW ANYTHING BUT THAT LOVE. HE IS JUST, INDEED, AND HE WILL NOT CONDONE SIN; BUT THROUGH THE BLOOD OF THE EVERLASTING COVENANT HE IS ABLE TO ACT TOWARD US EXACTLY AS IF WE HAD NEVER SINNED. TOWARD THE TRUSTING SONS OF MEN HIS MERCY WILL ALWAYS TRIUMPH OVER JUSTICE."

"The fellowship of God is DELIGHTFUL BEYOND ALL TELLING. He communes with His redeemed ones in an easy, uninhibited fellowship that is RESTFUL and healing to the soul. HE IS NOT HARD TO PLEASE . . .HE EXPECTS OF US ONLY WHAT HE HAS HIMSELF FIRST SUPPLIED!!!! HE IS QUICK TO MARK TO OVERLOOK IMPERFECTIONS WHEN HE KNOWS WE MEANT TO DO HIS WILL. HE LOVES US FOR OURSELVES AND VALUES OUR LOVE MORE THAN GALAXIES OF NEW CREATED WORLDS."

"Unfortunately, many Christians cannot get free from their PERVERTED notions of God, and these notions poison their hearts and DESTROY THEIR INWARD FREEDOM. These people serve God grimly, as the elder brother did, doing what is right and without enthusiasm (PERFUNCTORY = this is a key word) and without joy, and seem altogether unable to understand the buoyant, spirited celebration when the prodigal comes home. Their idea of God rules out the possibility of His being happy in His people, and they attribute displays of unbridled love and worship as sheer fanatacism. Unhappy souls, these, doomed to go heavily on their melancholy way, grimly determined to do right if the heavens fall and to be on the winning side in the day of judgment."


Many who do not rest in Christ alone have forgotten Isaiah 53:11! "As a result of the anguish of His (Jesus) soul, He (God the Father) will see it AND BE SATISFIED." (my emphasis) It is finished. Completed. Accomplished. Jesus (God's second Adam and beloved Son) lived the perfect life for us, fulfilled the law, and has thus SATISFIED GOD. Now, those who are in Christ alone, can abide and believe . . .NOT strive and try to satisfy God on their own. If God is satisfied with Jesus, why can't we be satisfied with Jesus alone? Why do we feel the driving force to add to what Jesus did. I believe it appeals to our pride. We want to get our hands in this equation somehow. But, this work of God is just that . . .a work of God, not man.

Tozer says, "How good it would be if we could learn that GOD IS EASY TO LIVE WITH. He remembers our frame and knows that we are dust. He may sometimes chasten us, it is true, but even this he does with a smile, the proud, tender smile of a Father, who is bursting with pleasure over an imperfect but promising son who is coming every day to look more and more like the One whose child he is. Some of us are religiously jumpy and self-conscious because we know that God sees our every thought and is acquainted with all our ways. We need not be!! GOD IS THE SUM OF ALL PATIENCE AND THE ESSENCE OF KINDLY GOOD WILL. WE PLEASE HIM MOST, NOT BY FRANTICALLY TRYING TO MAKE OURSELVES GOOD, BUT BY THROWING OURSELVES INTO HIS ARMS WITH ALL OUR IMPERFECTIONS, AND BELIEVEING THAT HE UNDERSTANDS EVERYTHING AND LOVES US STILL."

Thank you, Jesus, for drinking to the dregs our cup of wrath and exchanging with us your cup of blessing. May we, by faith, drink this cup to it's dregs, glorifying You. May we KNOW YOU, our King eternal and God our Father, more and more with the help of the Helper. Holy precious Spirit, HELP US TO KNOW HIM and BELIEVE. AMEN

Herein is the Good News . . . God is mad about you, not mad at you! :) What a relief.