A recent publication reported the results of a poll which asked people about their view of God. The answers were grouped into four categories.

The first category includes people who believe that God is active, controlling every facet of life, watchful of our response to every circumstance and meeting out judgment or blessing depending on how we do.

The second category includes people who believe that God is creator, that he put everything in place, is keeping track of us, but keeps his distance and allows life to happen. This group of people believes God will reward or punish people based on how they do overall.

In the third category are people who believe God is critical. They accept the fact that God is God and we are not, but they also believe that, even on our best day, we could not satisfy or please God. They live in a reckless abandon, believing they cannot please God anyway, so they live however they want to.

In the fourth group are those who declare themselves atheist. They do their best to deny the existence of God, and they go to great lengths and much energy to evaluate life and come up with an alternative explanation that would exclude any power higher than themselves.

The fact is, all of them are thinking about God. Their conclusions about God rule their lives.

It is unfortunate that the publication either did not find any person with a more wholesome view of God, or if they did, they did not publish it.

What about this? God is love. Everything he does is based on his love for us and bringing glory to himself.

God is love, but he, in his being, is also holy; that is, he cannot coexist with sin. Sin is anything outside the will of God. God is not being arbitrary; he is just being God.

God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). Into this creation God placed a man and a woman: Adam and Eve. He gave them a pristine garden in which to live and work. He was present with them and enjoyed their company.

God must receive glory from everything that happens. That is why He gives people the freedom to choose. All of us have the power to know God and choose against him.

Adam and Eve were given one rule by God. They were not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They chose to eat from it. Their wrong choice was sin and put them at odds with God. They could do nothing to correct their situation. They hid from God (Genesis 3:8).

God, being the great lover he is, sought them out. He brought them to account and then killed an animal and made the necessary blood sacrifice for them so he could continue with them. God even made them their first clothes (Genesis 3:21).

God’s love continues. Nobody ever lives such an exemplary life that God does not have to make allowance for their shortcomings.

The greatest love act of God was sending His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to be the supreme blood sacrifice for the sin of every human being (Hebrews 9:22).

The Apostle John summed up this great loving God in John 3:16: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Jesus came, he died, and God raised him from the dead so that all of us who will put their trust in that great loving act of God can spend eternity in heaven with God.

That is what God wants us to know about him.

The Rev. Dan Puckett is a minister with Life Action Ministries.