Many people have a concept of Jesus as a crowned king sitting far away on a throne waiting to return and vanquish the evil one and bring the saved into his kingdom. They also imagine a God who is waiting to pounce on them and send them to hell as soon as they make a mistake. What they don’t see is the Jesus of the New Testament. While yes Revelation does have a picture of end times, it does not show the Jesus who came and lived as a human or the God who died on the cross because He wants a relationship with everyone.
The only people Jesus was hard on were the religious leaders. The people who thought they knew everything about how God wanted them to live. He wasn’t hard on them to prove he was right. He was hard on them because he loved them and wanted them to know who God really was, and that he was God in person. Jesus prays in John 17 that the love the father has for Him will show through us to the world because others need to see God’s love. If you are running scared every time you mess up, now is the time to stop. His burden is easy and his yoke is light. (Matthew 11:25-30 ) He is not looking for you to mess up, he is looking for you to come and rest in him. There is nothing else you need to do or can do, but accept Jesus at his word.
I know many of us have had people in our lives who we have tried to trust and they have let us down. God will not let you down. The Father waits on you just like the father waited on the prodigal son. Not to punish and chastise you, but to love and care for you.
About Steve Crenshaw
[...] known as the Prodigal or Lost Son. It is found in Luke 15, which is a good chapter to read to see God’s love for us. In this story the son takes the money from his inheritance, which is like cashing out his 401k [...]