by Graham King

Created on: May 30, 2008   Last Updated: June 02, 2008

"Relax - God loves you!"

- this was perhaps one of the more striking things that Jesus said.

A bit unexpected? Not what people were used to hearing as 'religion'? Maybe so...
I can't avoid concluding that Jesus had a radically different view of God from the view of God held by many people - both then and now!

Jesus told people,
"You don't need to waste life worrying about food to eat or clothes to wear! Look, doesn't God

provide food, free, to the wild birds? And doesn't God 'clothe' even a field of grass with wild flowers?
Mere perishable grass, that will soon be mowed down, or trampled on, or eaten by animals - decorated with flowers whose intricate beauty even the clothes of royalty can't match!
You matter much more to God than birds or grass... trust him! He won't forget to take care of you, too."

People sometimes say, "There's no such thing as a free lunch!" But that's not true. Only last week, I ate blackberries from a roadside verge.
People often think electricity is something that comes out of a socket, like milk comes out of a bottle, and that you have to pay for both. But you don't! Electricity is available for free, in the air and streams and sea all around us (I've a keen interest in researching renewable energy)... and milk... well, we've all had our share of that without paying! (Though maybe we were too young to remember).

Hey, when you learned to walk and talk... did you have to pay for lessons, to be able to do those things? Or, did anyone have to pay you, for you to do it? No... it's just one of those things... we see it, want to do it, go for it (somehow)... and find we can!

A lot of people seem to have a strange idea in their head about God as if he were a really forbidding character - always demanding things, giving out lists of prohibitions (such as 'don't do that, you might enjoy it'), busy disapproving of people, and threatening harm.

Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, to me, that picture sounds more suited to the devil: a mean, malicious spoilsport, without joy, and without a sense of fun (which, surely, is a wish to share joy with others); in fact, a downright unpleasant and nasty troublemaker, not wanting anyone to enjoy any pleasure without strings attached but, instead, out to spoil things...

Why blame God?
It's as if, in a police identity parade, a mugging victim picked out completely the wrong face, never having seen their actual attacker.
Or as if police arrested a random person in the street, based on a
description that's actually

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