February 16
YOUR CONCEPT OF GOD
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 may have embraced correct theology, but emotionally they feel something different. True concepts of God are filtered through a grid of negative experiences to produce false concepts of God. These false concepts must be replaced by truth in order for freedom to be realized.
A pastor's wife who came to me for counseling told me 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 tirades against their daughter.
"You really love Jesus, don't you?" I 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?"
She 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.
Prayer: Dear Father, I don't want any distorted concepts of You to come between us. Correct me where my concepts are wrong so I can know You in complete truth.
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