A W Tozer once said that, “What comes into our minds when we think of God is the most important thing about us.” The reason I’ve decided to write this article was because up until recently my walk with God had been a constant struggle. I was living in a lot of guilt and shame, I often felt that I wasn’t good enough and that I’d let God down and this caused me to spend a great deal of my time hiding or even running away from God. Sometimes I felt that the Christian life was too hard even to the point that I’d almost give up completely.

Over the last year however this has started to change and I’ve found myself walking into a new freedom that I’ve never had before. I believe that the sole reason for this is because my view of God has changed. The reason I started off with the quote at the beginning is because I know from experience how true this is. What we think about God affects our ability to love, our ability to share Jesus, our relationships with other people and how we view ourselves- it affects everything about us! Having a distorted image of God will ruin our fulfilment and enjoyment in being a Christian. That’s why it’s a major target for the devil in our lives – if our image of God is distorted we never reach our potential in God.

The reason I feel so passionately about this is not only because of the journey I’ve been on but because I see so many Christians today live a life of struggle and defeat - not knowing what God’s truly like or what their identity is in Christ. This doesn’t have to be the way.

The reason my view of God has started to change is primarily because of His word. Jesus said that knowing the truth will set us free. I believe that the bible is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword and just by knowing and believing the truths it contains, we can be set free. The reason why so many Christians are living under condemnation and defeat today is because of lies they’ve chosen to believe. However for every lie that the devil throws at us, God has a truth to throw back at him. So for every lie that I believed about God I started to memorize truths from scripture to replace them.

Where before I thought that God was disappointed and not satisfied with me I started to see Him as a God who approves of me – who likes me as well as loves me and wants nothing more than to spend time with me. Where before, I saw Him as being impatient and angry with me, I started to see Him as patient and slow to anger. Where before I thought that God was a perfectionist and disapproving, I realized He was proud of me as His growing child. I am His workmanship and He has no illusions about me. As a Christian I am a new creation, clothed with the gift of righteousness. I am a child of God, chosen by Him and completely free from the power of sin in my life.

Over time these truths about have started to sink in as I’ve begun to memorise them and remind myself of them on a regular basis. I know I’ve still got a long way to go but I know as I continue to replace lies by Gods truth I will grow more and more in my walk with God. I have since begun to walk into a new freedom and peace that I’ve never had before. Now, when I sin, instead of hiding from God and drifting further and further away from Him I’ll turn back to Him straightaway, knowing that He’s a God who’s standing there with His eyes wide open, waiting for me to return to Him. Since doing this God has set me free from so many areas in my life. As Christians, it’s important for us to repent and live in obedience to God. However from my experience I believe that living in fear of God won’t help us to do this. Doing it out of a love for God and for what He’s done for us is the key to living in that victory. It’s God’s kindness that leads us to repentance.

As a community we need to be people of the word. The more we learn and know the truths of the bible the more we’ll learn about the God we serve - exactly who He is, how He sees us and the power He has, not just to change us but to change the world around us.

(Some references: John 8:32, Hebrew 4:12, 2 Corinthians 5:17, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Romans 8:1,14-17, 1 Peter 2:9, Romans 6:1-2, 8:2 Exodus 34:6, 2 Peter 3:9, Ephesians 2:10, 2 Corinthians 7:4, Hebrews 12:5-11, Luke 15:11-31, Matthew 3:2, Romans 2:4)