I honestly don't know. I hear contradictory characteristics of God based on how I've heard Christians describe Him and many things in my own experience and things I've observed in the world make me wish that there isn't a Creator but then I hear Christians describe supernatural encounters that make Him seem real and then I'm left confused.
There is only one truth, but it has been all twisted out of shape.....but did you know that Jesus and his apostles foretold that this would happen?
It was already happening in the first century after Jesus had laid down his life. The apostles were acting as a restraint, but once they were out of the way, the church plunged into full on apostasy. This is where the confusion comes from.
When Jesus came, the Jewish religion had been broken up into sects too (just not so many) but he basically said that none of those sects was teaching the truth from God's word. They proved it when Jesus was preaching by turning people away from him, discounting his miracles as works of the devil and accusing him of calling himself God. (Blasphemy was punishable by death) They lied and convinced others to lie just so they could get rid of him.
Jesus' miracles must have been incredible to witness.....healing the sick, the disabled, the deaf and blind...even raising the dead. But that too was to cease once the apostles died. Why? Because they had accomplished their goal of turning people to Christ. Each one a demonstration of things to come when Jesus brings his rulership to the earth. (Revelation 21:2-4)
This is not a training ground for heaven....earth was meant to be our permanent home.....not like it is now, but as God created it for Adam and his wife.
The only thing that robbed them of that paradise was disobedience. There was no natural cause of death, because we were designed to live forever...right here. The tree of life would have guaranteed it, but after they sinned, God evicted them from the garden and the tree of life was off limits. So began our object lesson. God handed the world over to the god they had chosen. (1 John 5:19; Luke 4:5-7)
I don't understand why God would ever want anything or why He demands certain things when self sufficient. I don't get why He wants anything from fallible human mortals and then gets upset when He doesn't get it... as far as I see there's nothing anyone can offer God that He doesn't already have.
You know, there is something that we can give God that he can't give himself? The devil accused him of lying to us...of keeping back something to which we were entitled.....that he was a lousy father. Was the devil right?
The Bible is a book of examples......some good....some awful. But its a book that tells us what we can give God that he can't give himself.....our trust...our love and loyalty and our worship. Jesus showed us how by his own example. When he was tempted by satan, he stood his ground, and used God's word to answer his accusations and he would not be swayed off his course.