For so many of us, we often have the idea that we have to make ourselves great in order to keep up our reputation and to keep our egos intact. Even worse, we sometimes think that our good deeds are what matters most in life. Neither of them is the right way to think about life or the right way to go about life.

Our main goal in life should be to be the children of God and to be His witnesses. We should feel proud and honored and privileged to witness to others for Him and to work for the goodness of His kingdom. We should work towards one common goal- to love one another as God has loved us. None of these things are that easy though. It takes time, discipline and patience to devote oneself not to oneself, but to the mission of being a Christian and to be Christ’s follower or disciple. It also takes guts to follow someone that we can’t even see with our own eyes.

Satan often gives us the wrong idea in life, that everything and everyone should revolve around us. That isn’t the case either. When he gets under our skin and makes everything hard to get through, often the last thing we probably want to do is turn to God for His help. Instead, we complain about how bad everything is and how bad we have it in our lives. When the reality of it is, we are blessed to even be alive. We are blessed beyond measure with every single blessing that God has given us. Look around and see what blessings He has given you, without you even asking for them. Has He given you a car to drive, a way to get to work, a job to go to in order to provide for your family, food on your table three times a day and a drink anytime you are thirsty? So many of these things we take for granted until they get taken away from us.

God didn’t have to give us anything, yet He loved us so much that He gave us His son and sent Him to die on the cross. He didn’t even have to. He could have damned us all into the fiery pits of Hell for not following His commands, but instead, He showed compassion on each and every single one of us. He loved us enough that He gave up His own son’s life to die for us. Jesus took our place in the fiery pits of Hell so we didn’t have to suffer through eternal torture and we were given the ultimate gift of eternal life.

Another wrong idea is that some people think that Some people think only of themselves and not about how they got to where they are with God’s help. They don’t or may not even acknowledge Him for the blessings in their lives because they may not know about Him. Or, they might be ashamed of what they’ve done in their past so they choose to ignore God completely. When we ignore Him and turn from Him, that’s when our lives normally start to go downhill and take a turn for the worst. It seems only when things go wrong do we turn to God crying out for His help. We should talk to God and realize that we have that power within us, not to mention the privilege to make a one on one appointment with Him at any time, whether its day or night, whenever we might feel like it or realize we need Him.

We can always come to God in prayer and to give Him the praise and thanks that He deserves. Even though we are not worthy to be called His children, He gives us salvation freely when all we do is ask Him for it.

Another wrong idea about God is that he is a vengeful God. Sure, God got angry in the Bible. For instance, when Jesus saw that the tax collectors were in His father’s house and using it as a collection pit, He let His anger rise to the surface. We can imagine that the people in those days weren’t used to seeing Jesus that angry. But everyone reaches their limits too. But Jesus wasn’t vengeful. He cared so much for the people and His disciples that He allowed them to witness the miracles of turning water into wine, healing of the sick and the blind and raising Lazarus from the dead. If Jesus was vengeful and angry all the time, He wouldn’t have allowed people back then to witness His miraculous works. Even now, He wouldn’t have saved all of us from ourselves and our sin.

Don’t let the wrong idea about God, Jesus, and His miraculous ways cloud your view of who He really is.