Softly and tenderly, you're going to hell

   I've mentioned it before, but I have had a life-long battle to believe God loves me. I believe there were a few things that factored in, but one big factor was my getting picked on a lot as a kid and teenager. By the time I graduated from high school, I was firmly convinced that no one liked me, that there was something wrong with me. It was so bad, that when I went anywhere, even to a store, I felt like everyone was looking at me and disliking me on sight. I look back now and realize most people in public probably had no opinion of me at all.

  There are some other things that may factor in, but that was a biggie. Maybe it was a natural progression to believe that God felt the same way about me that I perceived everyone else did.

  It is hard to serve a God who you don't really believe loves you and cares about you and your problems. It makes it hard when things go wrong to trust Him and to keep serving Him.

  I was a very vulnerable and impressionable kid, and maybe it didn't affect others like it affected me, but growing up, I don't remember hearing a lot of messages on God's love. I don't remember preachers having an altar call and urging people to go to the altar by talking about God's love. I remember a lot of messages, particularly at camp meetings and revival services, about God's judgment.

  I remember many long, drawn out altar calls with preachers telling scary stories to get people to the altar. There were many stories about people who were in such a service as we were in who didn't go to the altar as they knew they should have, and walked out of the church only top drop dead of a heart attack or be mowed down by a bus. OK, that was an exaggeration, but you get the point. The stories had them either dying a week or so later without God, or living a full life with God never speaking to them again, never giving them another chance to serve Him.

   And then there were the ominous statements/predictions: "God has revealed it to me that there is someone sitting in this service who is having their last chance to make things right with God."

  My church, nor I, believe in once-saved, always saved. I know people who do, and their lives show they believe it, and I know people who believe it and live exemplary lives, so I am not knocking that belief. I've studied, read, and thought about it, and I still believe you can walk away from God and live a sinful life and miss Heaven after being a Christian, but I'm not here to argue theology, just stating where I am coming from.

  That said, I sat in many services, believing God was in my heart, only to have a preacher preach such a harsh message that he preached my confidence away, and I'd go to the altar to get saved again.

  I've heard preachers preach such a high standard that I grew up feeling God was just waiting for me to do something wrong so He could get His white out and remove my name from the book of life. They preached such a high standard and made it sound so hard to please God, that I felt no matter how hard I tried, I would miss Heaven in the end. Until all too recently, this is the stuff I have been dealing with.

  I developed a belief and thinking that God would only love me if..... If I did better in this area, if I went to every service the church had, if, if, if. And it was ifs that I felt I could never accomplish.

  This may not affect everyone like it has affected me, but when a person has such low self esteem as I have had, when they feel everyone dislikes them and wants nothing to do with them, including God, and then that person is subjected to sermons that are all about God's judgment, it doesn't help them believe in God's love any more.

  Now I am sure a lot of those preachers have good intentions. They wanted to see souls saved, though the cynic, jaded part of me, wonders if some of them just wanted numbers to mark on their belt. "Wow, I got 20 people to the altar tonight!" So what if they only went because the preacher scared them into going. Yeah, that sounds cynical, and I am not saying they all had that attitude. That would be judging, and we can't have that......

   From my personal experience, when a person is scared into going to the altar, it doesn't "take" anyway. I would go and pray til I felt better, not really accomplishing much. I'm sure some who are scared into going to the altar really pray through and get victory, or those who are talked into it.

  I have been in altar calls so long that we sang all the verses of "Just As I Am" through, then again, trying to talk people into doing something they should only do if they really want to, something they shouldn't need talked or scared into doing - giving their heart and life to God.

    Its kind of ironic to be singing "Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling" while the minister tells a scary story to scare people into going to the altar, but it happened.

   I am not exaggerating the effect these "hell and brimstone" messages have had on me, they really have had me messed up. If no one else has dealt with that, then good for them.

  I've been working on changing my views of God. I know they are wrong, but that doesn't mean I can flip a switch and make the thinking go away. I've been praying, reading over and over verses about God's love, listening to songs about God's love, reading books about it.

  The best book I have read on the subject is He Loves Me by Wayne Jacobson. Interestingly, the author addresses the very issue I was talking about: preachers trying to scare people into serving God.

  Now, I know Jesus did tell a few parables about hell/missing Heaven, and I am not saying preachers shouldn't do it either, but there is a way to do it, and they should do it as a warning, not as a means of scaring people into going to the altar.

  I'll never forget one preacher I heard in a few revival meetings when I was a teenager. To set the scene, I should explain my church teaches sanctification, a second "work of grace", which is when the Holy Spirit comes in to your heart. I have a lot of questions about it myself and am not sure I believe in it as those in my church do, but that is a brief explanation. Anyway, this preacher would preach his message, then ask everyone to bow their heads and close their eyes, then it would go like this:
"I want everyone who knows they are saved and sanctified, to raise their hand"
"I want everyone who knows they are saved,  to raise their hand"
"I want everyone who is unsaved, to raise their hand"

    And woe to anyone who didn't raise their hand at all. I'll never forget one time that happened. He had that person condemned to hell forever if they didn't go to the altar. Yeah, it was about that bad. And it wasn't me :-)

   There are many who would disagree with me, and even criticize me for this, but I have made the decision to be careful who I listen to preach. I will not sit under a preacher who may bully me or scare me into going to the altar. God can deal with me without that.

  I'm thankful for my pastor. I can't see him ever scaring people to the altar. And looking back, it has mostly been evangelists in camp meetings and revival services where preachers did that, though not always. And people wonder why I don't like camp meetings.

  Yes, there is a hell to avoid, and people need to be aware of that, but if you scare people into going to the altar, they may very likely end up serving God for the same reason: fear.

  When I look at my Christian experience, I hate what I see. It has basically been a form of bondage. I have served God out of fear of going to hell. I've done this, done that, to try to tip the scale of His favor toward me, only to never accomplish that.

  Being a Christian has to be more than that. Serving God has to be more than that. To serve Him and live as He wants me to live because He loves me and I love Him, not because its a duty and I'm afraid to do otherwise.

  Too many people go with the "we are not under the law, but under grace" idea and don't seem to think Christians should be any different than sinners. I don't want that, but I want my relationship with God to be that - a relationship, not rules that I keep to stop Him from tossing me out on my ear. Christians SHOULD be different. Different in what we do, what we watch, listen to, in how we look...... though that can be taken too far..... but if we are doing it because our church says, or because we are scared God is going to not love us, it is for nothing. Serving God should be more than a "get out of hell free card"

  I think I'm starting to get it, just a bit. I have a long way to go, but am realizing how wrong I have had it. Its not all my fault, but I should have worked on the issue long ago, instead of being in my 40's and feeling I have never had a relationship with God. Oh, I'm not saying I was never a Christian.... it has just not been a relationship, but rules, fear, legalism. A religion, not an experience.

  I'm realizing I have worked more at pleasing people, than God. That I need to do what God wants, and if people don't like it, so be it. That God isn't impressed if you keep all the rules of the church, but serve Him out of fear and never plunge into His love. That God's love is so outside of, and so much more, than the measly human emotion we call love. That is is crazy to think I am the exception to the rule when the Bible says God loves us all.

  The best well known verse in the Bible is John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. A verse that is just as important follows it, and maybe these "hell and brimstone" pastors should also learn it. Verse 17 says: For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."

   God didn't give us Jesus to condemn us. Yes, anyone who doesn't serve Him in this life will be condemned, but lets not lose that message, that God loves us, and that alone should be reason to serve Him. Why scare people into serving God? Would these preachers want to be married to a woman who was scared into marrying them? Why would God be any different?

   In closing, I don't want to give the impression that every preacher in my denomination, or similar denominations, is intent on scaring people into serving God, but I have heard all too many sermons and altar calls where that was done. And I want a relationship with God that is based on love, not fear.

   A song the Gaither Vocal Band recorded a few years back has been on my mind a lot. "Loving God, Loving Each Other." Here it is:

Loving God, loving each other,
Making music with my friends;
Loving God, loving each other,
And the music never ends.

They pushed back from the table
To listen to His words,
His secret plan before He had to go.
It's not complicated;
Don't need a lot of rules,
This is all you'll need to know.

Loving God, loving each other,
Making music with my friends;
Loving God, loving each other,
And the music never ends.

We tend to make it harder,
Build steeples out of stone,
Fill with explanations of The Way,
But if we'd stop and listen
And break a little bread,
We would hear the Master say

Loving God, loving each other,
Making music with my friends;
Loving God, loving each other,
And the music never ends.