A Distorted Concept of God

Matthew 7:11
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!

Most people in spiritual conflict have a distorted concept of God. Mentally they know the correct theology or concept of God, but emotionally they feel something different. True concepts of God are filtered through a series of negative experiences to produce false concepts of God. These false concepts must be replaced by truth in order for freedom to be realized.

There was this story of a pastor's wife who came to a counselor for counseling and she told the counselor about her rigidly moral home which was dominated by her demanding mother. The father was a wimp who knew better than to interrupt the mother's outburst against their daughter.

"You really love Jesus, don't you?" the pastor asked the pastor's wife.

"Oh, yes," she responded.

"And you really love the Holy Spirit?"

"Yes, I do."

"But you don't even like God the Father, do you?"

The pastor's wife could only respond with tears. Her concept of the heavenly Father was distorted by the image of her earthly father. She perceived Jesus and the Holy Spirit as actively involved with her, but in her mind God the Father, like her earthly father, just sat around passive and uncaring while she went through torture in her life.

I often ask, "If you performed better, would God love you more?" Most people know the right answer: no. But when I ask if they feel loved by God, most express that they show more love and concern for their own children than they expect God to show for them (see Luke 11:9-13). This is all part of Satan's strategy to raise up thoughts against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:5). If the enemy can keep people from a true concept of God, he can destroy their hope in God.

In application lets try to evaluate ourselves and reflect on our own concept of God. Is our concept of God distorted? Lets pray and ask God to reveal His true self. Lets try to open our minds and release all the distorted concept of the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit. Allow God to fill us with the real thing. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me." Let us seek Jesus and walk in His counsel.