Father vs. Judge—The Truth About God

In the famous children’s novel Alice in Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts is an interesting character.

Overseeing the kingdom with the King of Hearts, she changes from pleasant to enraged every other minute. At the slightest offense, she shouts, “off with their heads!” It seems ordering executions is one of her hobbies. However, as the story goes, very few were actually beheaded. The kind King of Hearts quietly pardoned many of his subjects while his foul-tempered wife wasn’t looking.

King of Hearts

This story makes me wonder about how people see God. Do they view Him as a quick-to-judge King who enjoys shelling out punishment like the Queen of Hearts? or do they see Him as the kind King of Hearts, pardoning the offenses of His subjects?

The Apostle Paul asked, “Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that His kindness is intended to turn you from your sin” (Romans 2:4, NLT)? It’s hard to determine exactly how people form their opinions of God. Maybe they had a hard father or a moody mother. In those cases, I could almost understand a misguided view of God since our earthly parents are sometimes the only example we have—right or wrong.

When I was growing up, I had a friend who was raised in a very strict Christian home. She often wanted to spend the night at my house because our rules were quite different and she could do what she wanted without consequence. years later, when we were in college and I had become a Christian, we bumped into each other, and I was very excited to share my newfound faith with her. To my surprise, she had abandoned her beliefs. She explained that if God was as hard as her parents made Him out to be, she’d rather spend her life enjoying herself. I didn’t know the harsh God she spoke of, so I left our conversation very sad.

The God I met and fell in love with was a King of Hearts. Despite all my failures and extreme sins, He pardoned me. The more realization I’ve had of how much He actually pardoned, the more I love Him and want to serve Him. The Bible says, “We, too, were foolish and disobedient. We were misled and became slaves to many lusts and pleasures. our lives were full of evil and envy, and we hated each other. But when God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy” (Titus 3:3-5, NLT).

If I were to compare someone to the Queen of Hearts, it sure wouldn’t be God. Despite all my mistakes, I’ve yet to hear Him say, “off with her head!” Instead, His kindness has been generous and His love unfailing. This is why the Bible says, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). He is the King of Hearts and “with undeserved kindness, [He] declares that we [who put our trust in Him now] are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when He freed us from the penalty of our sins” (Romans 3:24, NLT, emphasis added).

We need to fully understand there was a penalty. But there was also a payment. When the order should have been, “off with their heads!”—a new and superior order was made: “Restore them to Me!” The King spoke it and His Word was fulfilled, not because of anything we have or haven’t done; His grace covers a multitude of sin. “[For if we are saved] through God’s kindness, then it is not by [our] good works. For in that case, God’s grace would not be what it really is—free and undeserved” (Romans 11:6, NLT). The truth is, He is the King of kindness and for that reason, He has become the King of my heart.

God is Love

First John 4:8 says, “God is love.” This God who is love not only demonstrated His love by sending His Son to rescue us, but the Bible says He did it “while we were of no use whatsoever to him” (Romans 5:8, MSG). In other words, when we were offensive, repulsive, and full of error, God still demonstrated His love. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16).

I want you to think about that. Really consider it. God demonstrated His love for us—truly showed us who He is—by sending Jesus to die while we were up to our necks in sin. So why do some people (maybe even you) believe He is out to get us now? If God wanted to reject us, He could’ve done it before sending Jesus to die for our sins. But He didn’t because He loves us.

So if God is love, what does He look like? one way to see God’s true character is to substitute the word “love” with the word “God” in scripture. For example, the passages in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, often known as the “love Chapter,” would read this way:

[God] is patient and kind. [God] is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. [God] does not demand [His] own way. [God] is not irritable, and keeps no record of being wronged. [God] does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. [God] never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance (NLT, substitutions mine).

These are the marks and attributes of our God. This is how He was toward us when we got saved, and it is how He still is toward us now!

He is patient and kind. He is not impatient or cruel when we mess up. He is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude, meaning He is not jealous of “other gods” in our life (such as television, sports, or even our family). But He does love us with a jealous love because He wants to be number one in our lives. We can count on Him to be trusting, modest, humble and polite.

God doesn’t demand His own way. He simply requests and then waits to see what we choose. He is not irritable, and He keeps no record of being wronged. Instead, He is tolerant, and He forgives and forgets.

The devil wants us to believe He is hard and demanding and apt to strike us with lightening if and when we make a mis- take. But that’s not the truth. Psalm 146:8 says, “The lord opens the eyes of the blind; The lord raises those who are bowed down; The lord loves the righteous.” To be bowed down is to be crouched in spirit—broken and hurting. “The righteous” is the term God uses for His children. What kind of Father would He be if He responded negatively to His children who were broken and hurting? yet people everywhere have believed God despises them because of their sin. It is true that God hates wickedness, but He doesn’t hate us. even when we were trespassers before salvation, full of wickedness because our lives had not yet been redeemed, He demonstrated His love for us.

This is why God never gives up, never loses faith, and is always hopeful. In other words, He sees our potential. He saw it before we were saved, and He still sees it now.