Scripture tells us – in the only declarative statement of what God is in all the Bible – that "God is love." It goes on to tell us that "If you know love, you know God." Jesus told us "Love fulfills the Law." And, to love our neighbors as ourselves. He told us to be known as His by our love for one another.

When we remember that, when we know the God who is love, it becomes easier to discern what in scirpture is man's cultural or period attempts to interpret divine will from what is a revelation of the true nature of God.

The revelations of the true nature of God open our hearts to God, accepts God's salvation through grace. Grace is without stipulation. When love is your instinct, you know God and you know how to accept God's grace.

That was a hard fought lesson for me to learn. It took me a very long time to come to this understanding, to this discernment. It was an arduous path of missteps and doubt and of learning to overcome and put aside all the doctrine of that tiny, fearful, petty and vengeful god of fundamentalist evangelicals with their selective Biblical literalism poisoning love and faith.