Infinite God
I find it interesting and sad that many people only want to worship a God as small as they are. They are afraid to worship an infinite God. They want a God they can understand everything about, they want a God they can put in a box who responds in the way their minds want him to. They want to be able to color the world in black and white and they have their specific version of the bible (and every other one is wrong) and a verse to beat you over the head with for every situation. They are non interested in wisdom or deep hard won knowledge, they want a closed collection of text and information that is not dynamic like our living God. 1 Corinthians 13 is an anathema to them:
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,[a] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends.
But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly,[b] but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
They believe they are righteous messengers because they know the right version, the true text and can refute a bible passage you give by telling you that you didn't understand it right (probably because you used the wrong translation). Even though they themselves criticise those who seek a university education in the bible or languages to help them better understand the text.
An infinite God that can love deeply and desire holiness seems a contradiction to them. An infinite God cannot be contained in the pages of one book. The bible was given to us to help us understand God, but s/he is not contained to it's pages. I don't mean for you to think that I reject the bible, or don't believe in it, it's just that I know that the good news is not a collection of paper and ink, it is the fact that Jesus died on the cross to take upon himself the sins of the world. This gives us the chance to accept his sacrifice for our sins and live with his peace and grace in our hearts and at some point spend eternity with him. The bible can help us to understand God better but when one reads it without the Holy Spirit, one might as well be reading any piece of literature.
I won't lie, it can be scary to promise yourself to an infinite God, he doesn't act the way you want him to. It can be unpredictable, it isn't safe! He might tell you to love people who seem unlovable *hint: we all act unlovable at times*. He might tell you to share the gospel with strangers. He might tell you to open your home to recovering drug addicts, he might tell you to move across the country to pursue a new career, he might tell you to sell your possessions and give to the poor. He might tell you to leave your home and move to a new country, he might tell you to give the shoes off your feet to a shoeless person you cross in the street. He can't be tamed. He asks you to do things that are scary or out of your comfort zone.
God does want us to turn away from our sins, but that doesn't meant he won't accept us as we are. He absolutely will. If you come to God as a struggling addict he won't reject you. He wants you to turn from addiction, but he won't send you away if you fall into sin once again and use again. The reason he want us to turn from our sin is because he wants us to be healthy and happy. The fallenness of the world doesn't always allow this, even when we turn away from sins, but it is also true that sometimes we can't find peace because we want to cling onto our sins that make us feel safe. We want to trust only ourselves because it is hard to place your trust in someone else. Especially someone who truly knows everything about you but isn't physically visible.
I don't have all the answers (I'm not the infinite one) but I do know that too many people are not living out the full-freedom that Christ can give us in our lives because they want to follow a religion that they can memorise rather than a God who asks us to leave our comfort zones.