I fear God more than I do love Him

I'm a Christian. I've been raised a Christian all my life so I of all people should know a ton about God.

Problem is, I've been a Christian for 8 years, and no matter what I did and how hard I tried, I've never truly been able to love God. If anything, he terrifies me. I know he loves me, but no matter how much I remind myself of that, I view him like a person holding a loaded gun to my face yet talking about how much they loved me and wanted the best for me. That he took a bullet for me, so I should be willing to take a bullet for him.

But God is worse than that person. He's God. He can do whatever he wants, when he wants. He can change the rules at any time and I would just have to deal with it. For me personally, being a Christian is not so much a matter of love but a matter of survival. If I don't want to burn for eternity, I'd better be on the winning side.

And yet the idea of Jesus's return terrifies me, because I'll be torn from everything familiar, good and bad, and I don't believe I could ever face him with confidence. I want to love him, but it's like no matter what I do and no matter where I turn, I just can't win.

first of all, God can't lie because the moment God speak anything into existence, it becomes true, so even if he try to lie, he speaks and it becomes true, so it's impossible for God to lie

secondly, God can't create love, choice has to exist for love to exist

in another words, love is the evidence of freedom

if God says that, accepting Jesus as savior is the only way to salvation, and God said it, it's true

so, God speaks, it's true, there's no way around it

As a Christian hell is no longer in your future, so you need a new lens................... right @theanointedwinner ?

How about agreeing with Him that you are loved and a new creation?

If only it were that easy.

It is

Well a clue may be within your nick. Of course God has a history.
Second of all you say you should know about God and that is also
true. But most of all it is necessary to know God intimately. To
know that you are a child of His and He does love you absolutely
unconditionally and forever. Christ has risen from the cross and
given us eternal life when we believe in Him. You have no reason
to fear God because that is why He sent His Son. God did not come
to kill you but to give you life. When you make mistakes you come
to Him in repentance and He will forgive you. So you start again
and try to be the best you can be. Know as a certainty, when you
get closer to Him, He will always hold you in His arms. Scripture
says that once God has you by the hand nothing can snatch you
away.

So that is a beginning. But the road to get there is by prayer, that
is meditative prayer. Read about ten verses of scripture, then put
the bible down and ask Him to come to you personally. Give all
of your presence to Him. This is a journey so don't be anxious when
you don't change in a day or two. The process leads us to become
totally in Him and strive for perfection. We will never be perfect in
this world but should never preclude us from striving for perfection.
In the beginning we are nothing but eventually God brings us to a
new creation. At that point, we will live in the spirit and no longer
be in the flesh. Then He will be in us and we will be in Him.

So yes God is historical but if we only read about Him and not strive
to be in His heart, we will never grow one with Him. And by the way,
you are not the only one that has that struggle. Just promise yourself
that today will be a new day. Tomorrow I will begin my journey in
earnest and never give up. When you stumble He will catch you and
if you fall He will pick you up. The entire bible brings us to that point.

The unknown is always scary, for everyone.

The lie though is that God is unknown. Think of him as close, very close. As close as a best friend, a sibling, a daughter or son, a father or mother. These are just symbolic for the way God feels for you.

So you have this tyrant type of God judging you for everything. What if he hates sin bc of what it does to you? It separates you from him and he wants to be close to you. He's actually not interested in you calling yourself a sinner constantly bc he already made you holy through Jesus. Instead he's looking for you to repent so you can be close to him.

He's also interested in you being thankful to him. So...while he could technically change whatever he wants. He actually only does things for your greater good. A child cries out when you try to give them medicine while sick. They don't know you're trying to fix something and in the moment it doesn't even really matter. In the moment it sucks. So is the world at times.

But the ultimate issue is trust. You can't love bc you can't trust. You can't have confidence in God, bc you don't love. So pray for God to give you trust in him.

I use to be similar to this, although I would say I love God but I'm not sure he loves me. FYI he loves us WAY more than we are even able to love humanly.

When in the spirit you'll feel a bit of "fear" but mostly love. Love doesn't seem strong enough of a word. Nonetheless I definitely would not fear being near God if I were you. You will quite enjoy it I would encourage you to work on your trust issue though.

As far as Jesus coming back soooo excited. You won't lose anything other than sickness, death, and fear in general. You also won't care about any sin that makes you "happy". To be near God is total bliss. The only thing that will be rough is trying to get use to the intense feeling of God's love going through you. That's going to take some time!

Well Hprincess, I have bad news for you. You are not walking right with our Lord if all you can relate to is not to burn. I personally don't believe anyone will burn for eternity but that is for another time. I will tell you Christ is not happy with your fear and it will stunt your spiritual growth. Here is why:

1 John 4:17-21 "Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also."

Here is my advice: quit worrying about what will be taken from you and the hereafter in general. Work on today. Show God your love by loving those around you, all made in His image. Even the ones that are hard to love.

Luke 6:32 "For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? For sinners also love those that love them."

I thought we were supposed to rely on faith, not on feelings.

It's great that you're excited, but I can't say I am unfortunately. For me personally, trying to imagine a world without sickness, death, or fear is like trying to imagine color if you've been blind all your life, or music if you've been deaf all your life. Life in a utopia is a completely foreign experience to me, and one I don't find particularly trustworthy.

I remember years ago in school when we read a story about a group of explorers traveling through these mountains in South America. They stumble upon a village inhabited entirely by blind people. They've been that way all their lives and have been that way for generations. It's so much a part of them that they don't even know what the word "see" means. At one point, a blind girl asks one of the explorer guys what color is.

John 12:32 - God draws everyone

History princess, do you believe that God can use anything to draw people to Jesus

What if God is drawing you closer to Jesus, what if?

In response to your first question, yes. But God also gives us free will.

Is love a choice?

Do you believe that it's possible to love by choice or free will?

Aren't free will and choice the same?

In short, is love a choice?

I would say so, but not even Christians can agree whether or not free will is actually a thing.

Actually faith is trust.

It may be similar to being blind but certainly not the same. You know deep in your heart what the world is suppose to be like and so it hurts deeply when it's not that way. There may be something bad, but there's also something good. Someone may die but someone is born. Someone may die but they are heaven, etc. You have the knowledge of good and evil, not just evil. You have the experience of both as well. As humans we tend to focus on the bad though.

Yes, there is a feeling when near God as well. You will not find it in the world, though many search. If you could it would be in a pill no person would be without.

My point is, I've never experienced a perfect world. When I'm so used to living in a broken world where things and people often come to an end, how can I really imagine a perfect world?

Ironically, it's those things that make us treasure the good, and our loved ones, and other things we find value in. Would we really cherish those close to us if life weren't so fragile and we didn't have a limited amount of time with them, however long or short? Why would anyone want to achieve anything when they literally have all the time in the world?

Not to mention, good things like love, faith, forgiveness, grace, and so on would just lose their value in a perfect world.

Well no person lives in a perfect world yet, but people still look forward to it.

In the world today, yes we need to be reminded life is fragile and don't take people for granted. In the new world no, bc there is no sin. No one is ever taken for granted.

Why would someone not want love for eternity? Some things always hold value.

Why place achievements in the finished product? Why can't being in the moment be the reward?

Then problem with Christianity today is it focuses so much on the future with God, but not the present with God. Maybe you're having trouble seeing the future bc you don't understand how to be present with God.

I can't give you the answer to it. It's a puzzle you piece together over time while searching.

I'm not asking you to piece it together for me.

And that's another thing. Do I really want to live forever? Not that I want to cease to exist either, but I'm a finite being and can't comprehend something like eternity.

The journey is often the reward, but sooner or later you have to get to the end result.

For the record everyone, I didn't become a Christian to be happy. In fact, it's the last religion I'd recommend if you want to be happy. I don't think I can truly be happy as a Christian, but I became a Christian cause it's the right thing to do, and that should be good enough.

I often feel weird when I'm around Christians at a fun event the church is putting on, or even when they're laughing at something legitimately funny. Maybe it's my personality, but I don't know. I see all this food and I think, "Shouldn't we fast and give all of this to the poor and hungry?" And don't even get me started on the money being spent. "Wouldn't it be better to just stay at home and pray for our missionaries and send that money to them?"

Thing is, a lot of people, even Christians say, "Well you gotta have some fun in your life." I'm sorry, life is not about having fun. Life is work, and fun is a distraction. And being a Christian means even more work in life than usual. Your happiness is no longer a priority. It's either yours or God's, and God must always come first. Besides, why waste time on something that doesn't last?

If you were to ask me what my vision of an ideal Christian is, I'd say someone who lives like a monk or a nun. Someone who knows the bible backwards, who gets up at the crack of dawn to spend an hour or two reading it and praying, and then goes about doing good deeds during the day before retreating to solitude at night.

Either that or a dedicated missionary, who wanders from village to village and otherwise spends all their time on their knees praying.

Notice what's missing? Pleasure, happiness, relationships, music and movies that will eventually be forgotten and gone because this world is passing away. Anything that may make me feel good in the moment, but will ultimately distract me from my mission as a Christian.

And of course, I just can't imagine God's so-called "plan" for my life involving anything I would find remotely appealing. If it did, I'd be very suspicious.