Back in June, the world was invited to see what the brains at Apple had been up to. During their annual World Wide Developer’s Conference, Apple announced several different upcoming projects that would once again set the standard for the personal computer and their mobile operating system. This week the first of the much anticipated upgrades hit the market – Lion, the brand new Operating System for the Mac. The anticipation for Lion was intense as the chatter on the web was through the roof. I was one of the super geeks who downloaded Lion the very moment it was available on the App Store. 
As I was reading reviews and getting ready for the download I saw an interesting post on one of the blogs. Apparently several new stores have recently opened up and started selling apple products. They had the logo, the design, the products and even some know-how. There was one problem though, the store was a fake. Even thought the store had all the needed elements, Apple had not authorized this store. It was a counterfeit store – an Apple knock-off. It looked Apple, and it dealt Apple products but it wasn’t Apple (insert you fruit related joke at this point, I’m going to defer). This was a big shock to the employees of the store, who all thought that they were working for Apple and would soon be receiving their benefits. They had been fooled and lied to.
I know this is a horrible segue, but it got me thinking about our faith. I wonder how many of us have ever given any thought to owning a counterfeit faith? A couple weeks ago, our Senior Pastor challenged us with some basic facts of our faith – namely that it’s not a list of theological assents, but rather is something much more. He shared with us that the Christian Faith can be thought of this way – Loving God and Loving the things that God Loves! He shared about Jesus and how this was His message to us – that our God loves us with a great and amazing intensity and our response isn’t about believing stuff but knowing Him. Belief is important but being right or having the right understanding of God was the end all be all.
One of the things I’ve noticed recently is that many folks think that the Christian Faith is more about not irritating God and “keeping him happy” than about Loving God and loving the things our God loves. I talked with someone recently who told me that they felt that they had upset God with a decision they had made and as a result were being punished. Another person told me that they honestly needed to get back into church so that they’d do their “god-thing”. Now I understand and have even been a part of a couple 4th quarter miracle prayers (Hey God, you help the Gators win this thing and I’ll make sure worship extra hard tomorrow at church) but I’ve noticed that my bargaining with God is such an waste of my time.
God has chosen to reveal God’s being and personality to us in a variety of ways, but the one that most stands out is the one of Father. Many of the ancient gods were considered to be a father, but never in a intimate way, more in a “you created us and we’d better not irritate you.” The God of the Old and New Testaments isn’t that God. The Father figure is one of GRACE and MERCY and of consistently letting his kids have more room to roam. God often gets a bad wrap in the OT – He was about justice back then and grace now – that’s just crazy talk. God’s ever outstretched arm is apparent in every book of our Bible and this Father is not waiting to pounce on a misstep. This Father isn’t into letting us bargain with him. He isn’t willing to let our relationship with him deteriorate to that point.
My boys told me yesterday that they love being with me. We were at Target on one of the hottest days of the year and we decided to cool off with a frozen Icee drink. Then we walked around; doing nothing special but enjoying each others company. There were several times when they asked for things and there were several times when I said that we weren’t buying anything today. After one of my many “no’s”, each one holding a hand, they said, “Dad, we love spending time with you.” That was a cool feeling and no I didn’t buy them anything.
I imagine that this is the relationship that the Best Father wants to have with us – no deals, no begging, no keeping score, just holding hands and spending time together. I think, for most of us, that’s a really difficult thing to buy into. We’re so stuck on the counterfeit god that thinking our Father doesn’t want anything from us other than to be with him, just seems odd. My prayer, for you and for me, is that sometime this week, we’ll take time to let the Authentic God and Father of our lives, hold our hands and let us know how much he loves us. Then I pray that we’ll tell him “I love you too dad!”