Message Minute (The Picture in Your Head)

God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love – not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. – 1 John 4:9-10

"What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us." — A.W. Tozer. Here's a question worth sitting with: When life gets hard and nobody's watching, what do you actually believe God is like? Not the Sunday school answer. The gut answer.

For a lot of people, God feels like a disappointed boss — someone keeping score, tolerating you but never really enjoying you. Or maybe He feels distant, like a cosmic force who created everything and then checked out. Or maybe, without ever meaning to, God has started to look a lot like the person who hurt you most.

None of those pictures are accurate. But they're doing real damage, exhausting you, keeping you in hiding, making you perform for a God who never asked for a performance.

Here's the good news: Jesus came specifically to correct the picture.

Reflection Question: If someone asked you right now, "Does God actually like you?" — what would your honest answer be? Where did that answer come from?

Prayer: God, help me to honestly see the picture I’ve been carrying of who I believe you to be. Show me where it came from and whether it's true. I don't want a relationship with a version of You that doesn't exist. Give me the courage to let the wrong picture go and help me to receive and believe the true picture of who you really are. Amen.