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I have created a God of wrath who only seeks to damn, what do?

scaredtodeath

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Some context, before I truly came to the faith I had a tendency to listen to songs that cast God in a... ruthless light to say the least. (HANL - Deatconsciousness for example) Therefore I already have a pretty sorry view of God in the first place. However, as I have read the Bible in earnest, I have continued to fuel the wrath of God and downplayed His love. Whenever I read Isaiah 65, all I focus on is "He tramples the winepress alone" and ignore the "He made a people for Him to save". Whenever I hear Christ's parable of the wheat and the tare, and everything similar, I imagine Him happily allowing me to planted a tare and ignore His call of "Father forgive them", and everything in between. TL;DR: I can't view God in a good light and everything that speaks praises to Him I brush off as being meant for someone else, and now I feel nothing but fear for to me He is nothing but wrath. How do I cure this viewpoint?
 
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Citizen of the Kingdom

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Ruthless means to me not to have a kinsman redeemer. Ruth was the great grandmother of David, a Moabite, coming from an incestuos relationship stemming from Lot. Christ is our kinsman redeemer so that we can think of Christ as God in human form. That is the nature of God that He chooses to come to us as. He made a people to save means our generation, that of grace. That wasn't available to His people before propitiation. Wheats and tares to me means the good news and the texts of terror that you are focusing on. You may be turned away from Him now but it takes but a moment to turn back to Him and focus to stay there.
 
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FutureAndAHope

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What I would suggest is that you focus on the good things that God says, make them your meditation. We are encouraged to seek out knowledge of the great height and width of God's love for us:

Eph 3:18-19 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
 
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Presbyterian Continuist

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When you put your trust in Christ and sincerely repented of all known sin, the wrath of God was turned away from you. That wrath was placed on Jesus when He suffered and died on the Cross for you. He suffered the wrath of God so that you might be set free from it. Put your trust in the Scripture: "By grace you are saved through faith and not of yourself, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any should boast."
 
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scaredtodeath

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Problem is that I haven't put my trust in Christ--because in my mind He's also that cruel judge, and I don't know if I've sincerely repented of my sins, not only because idk what repentance truly means yet but also because I don't know to what extent my repentance is coming from. Is it fear or guilt or something else? Idk, and searching my heart leans more towards the former. Thankfully after starting over from Genesis I'm starting to see more of God's love, but just thinking of hell sends me into a panic.
 
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ICONO'CLAST

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32 Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:

3 Because I will publish the name of the Lord: ascribe ye greatness unto our God.

4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

5 They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation.
 
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It is better to start with the book of John. Also, Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh. What this means is that God came to earth as a human being, and we see in the book of John how He conducted Himself among people. We see through His life and ministry on earth that He is not a cruel judge at all. He said, "I have not come to judge the world, but that through Me the world will be saved". Paul said, "Even while we were yet sinners, Christ loved us and gave Himself for us." Jesus also said, "I have not come to save the righteous, but to bring sinners to repentance.

Concerning repentance: Take a look at the Ten Commandments:
Have no other Gods before Yahweh
Don't take the Lord's name in vain
Don't make images and statues for worship
Don't murder
Don't steal
Don't commit adultery
Don't lie
Don't covet other people's property.

Repentance involves what you stop doing, rather than doing religious activities to make yourself acceptable to God. The test of true repentance is if you had the choice would you freely go back to your former life before you received Christ? This is not the odd time you fail to resist temptation and fall off the holiness wagon. It is a definite choice to go back to a sinful lifestyle.

If in your heart, if there wasn't a devil around to tempt you to sin, you would want to live a perfectly holy life and are doing your best to improve your sanctification, then that shows that you are genuinely repentant, even though it is not always perfect.
 
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