The Unknown God: Clearing Away Confusion about God

Warren

INTRODUCTION

GOD Has Come for You

This book is the result of a preacher standing in the pulpit and saying, If you don’t tithe, God will punish you. He will get his money from you one way or the other. He will get what he wants.

This approach may work in the short term by motivating people with fear and guilt to do what God says, but it leads to an epic fail in the long term because it creates a false impression of God. It teaches that God is out to get you, when, in truth, the Bible says God is for you. It also says he loves a cheerful giver, not someone who gives reluctantly or under compulsion (2 Cor. 9:7 NIV).

There’s a danger in following a God we don’t even know. It makes us vulnerable to the idea that we have to constantly try harder to please God. This book exposes the myths that God is always judging and condemning us.

If you’ve ever felt that it’s impossible to please God, this book is for you.

Too many of us are following a mythical god who we think is always looking to catch us doing something wrong—or, even worse, condemning us when we fail to do the right thing. We’re left in an impossible cycle of despair that demands I must, I ought, and I should.

The sad truth is that we teach this behavior-based religion again and again in our churches. Even with the best of intentions, it still diverts us from the relationship God seeks with us, and it locks us in a Christian walk that demands we keep trying harder to please God.

It downgrades the grace of God. In truth, it mocks the Incarnation, in which Jesus lived, died, and rose from the grave to free us from our sins and to bring us into a deep and lasting relationship with God. Jesus didn’t die to make us try harder, and Jesus didn’t die to create a behavior-based religion.

God never meant for us to become slaves to condemnation. Instead of trying harder, he wants us to trust more.

If you think God is out to get you, you’re right—but not in the way you think. Our heavenly Father sent Jesus to get you and bring you home to heaven. God has already come for you!

And he wants you to know him. To do that, we need to look to the Bible. It’s like the time I went to an ear, nose, and throat doctor for a problem in my ear that had been constant for several years. I said, I think it’s an infection. At least that’s what they keep telling me. He said, Who told you it was an infection? A doctor of general medicine, a nurse practitioner, or someone like me, who went to medical school to study the human ear and who has treated ears for the last twenty-five years?

He said it in a nice way and with a smile on his face, but his point was made. And he soon diagnosed that there was a fungus in my ear. All the antibiotics I’d been given over the years were not the correct treatment. The doctor took something like a mini-vacuum and sucked the fungus out of my ear.

The point is, we need to go to the right person if we want to learn the truth about God. We can’t rely on other people’s opinions, or the customs of the day, or the latest thoughts and trends. We can’t assume that what we see on television or in the movies reveals any real truth about God. Or, that the lyrics we hear on the radio and on our iPods represent a thoughtful and informed understanding of God’s character. We have to understand that just because someone is articulate doesn’t mean he knows what he’s talking about, and that just because someone has expertise in one area, such as a PhD in mathematics, doesn’t mean her expertise extends into matters of theology.

If we want to know what the Bible says, then we need to go to the Bible. If we want to hear what God has to say, we need to study his Word. And if we want to see God’s character, we need to look at Jesus.

That’s why the Bible says, Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elemental forces of the world, and not based on Christ (Col. 2:8 HCSB).

My prayer is that this book will help clear your ears of any law, rule, or behavior-based religion so that you can understand who God is and hear him calling you to an eternal relationship with him.

1

GOD Is for You

We’ve all been called together like Judgment Day. We’re speculating what will happen, wondering whether we’ll be found guilty, wondering if we’ll get off because we’re basically good, wondering whether we can tap dance our way past the law.

There’s a sixteen-year-old slouched next to me in suburban defiance, nonverbally raging against the machine and its injustice. His silent scream says, I may have to be here, but I don’t have to like it.

On my left is a soccer mom. Her heavy purse on the floor is clearly an I’ve-got-kids survival kit, complete with a keychain dangling from the handle that carries the colors of a local high school.

Ahead of me is an older man leaning forward, both hands on his cane even though he’s sitting down. He looks a little lost as he gazes across the crowd. Another man nearby is wearing a work uniform. I think he’s a heat and air repairman.

And across from him is a woman in a business suit, frantically typing on her smartphone, trying to cram in as much work as she can before we begin.

People begin softly singing the blues: This isn’t fair. The dude’s got it out for me. I’m not guilty. He wouldn’t listen to my explanation. Other people do it, and they don’t get hauled in here. My only crime is that I got caught. Everybody does it; this seems so arbitrary. Yeah, I crossed the line, but it was only by that much.

Every one of us knows judgment is coming—and I mean Judgment with a capital J and that rhymes with A and that stands for . . . afraid. A teenage boy, a soccer mom, an older man, a repairman, a businesswoman, and me—we all know we’re up against the wall, facing the law that shows no partiality.

I look around and realize that traffic court is the great equalizer.

A thirty-something soccer mom joins hands with a sixteen-year-old boy and a blue-collar man locks arms with a white-collar woman, all wanting to stand up against injustice from the man—in this case, the judge in traffic court.

And me? I’m just as ready for a fight. But then the distinguished, Southern judge says, "Let me tell you plain: If you plead not guilty, I’m going to believe the police officer’s testimony over yours. And then I’m going to fine you for your ticket and also charge you for all the court costs, so you’re looking at a minimum of $289.

"Now, if you plead guilty, I’ll just fine you and then send you to traffic school, and if you haven’t seen me in the past twelve months, you won’t get any new points assessed against your license. And that’ll cost you exactly $50.

Okay, for all y’all pleading guilty, line up over here in front of the court secretary, and we’ll get you processed real quick. For those of you who are feeling lucky, just stay where you’re sitting, and we’ll get to you when we finish with this first group.

I could say that the line forming in front of the court secretary starts as a trickle. But it isn’t a trickle. It isn’t anywhere near a trickle. It’s more like that moment when retail doors are opened for a Black Friday sale. Judgment is served.

There is a snapshot of God that many of us carry around. We pull it out and show it to people to prove that, much like the no-nonsense traffic court judge, God is stern, judgmental, unfair, and bent on taking away our freedom and keeping us from doing what we want to do. Jesus saves? No, Jesus slaves, we think.

Sometimes we don’t even pull out the picture; our attitude and our actions show everyone what we really think of God: He’s not the boss of me! He doesn’t understand. He always lets me down. He never gives me a chance.

But snapshots never tell the whole story. They capture a single moment, and they show only a small slice of what’s going on, limiting our perspective.

It’s like that picture you took of a gorgeous sunset—its beauty just doesn’t show up when you look at the snapshot. The lens doesn’t capture the width and depth and breadth of what you see with your naked eye.

It’s like Neil Armstrong cracking a joke about the moon, and when it falls flat, saying with a wry grin, Well, I guess you had to be there.

It’s like when a friend shows you her portrait, and you say, It just doesn’t capture who you really are. Most of us have snapshots in our head of God, but they don’t really capture the essence of who he is.

And if we don’t know who God really is, then we’re likely to follow the wrong gods home—perhaps a little god who gets mad, no matter what you do. Or a little god who makes you feel bad every time you mess up. Or a little god who is detached and unresponsive, who makes you wonder if he even knows you exist. Or a god so little that you say he doesn’t really exist.

Or maybe it’s a little god who seems to take pleasure in jerking you around, like some mythological Greek god manipulating your life for petty purposes—a god whose motives aren’t pure and driven by love, so when you yell, Why are you doing this to me? he yells back, Because some people just tick me off!

And when we believe in these little gods, we behave like little people.

What’s worse, we start accepting those pictures and postcards from people we don’t know from places we’ve never been that distort the true image of God:

Hi! Just dropping you a note while God is lecturing me (again!).

"What’s up? Not much fun here ’cause God’s got his eye on me all the time."

Weather is beautiful, but God keeps pointing out what’s wrong with me.

How are you? Me? I’m so frustrated. I just want to be me! I feel like God doesn’t know me at all.

So we skip the book to see the movie—and that’s how we determine who God is. We don’t get the full story. We accept as true what somebody else says without finding out the full truth for ourselves.

Do you ever feel that God sneaks through your life, and any time you do—or even appear to do—something wrong, he pops up and yells, Gotcha!?

It reminds me of the time I worked three sixteen-hour days to finish a project on time, and I finally sat down at my desk, exhausted.

I was so beat. I kicked off my shoes, leaned back in my chair, put my feet on the desk, and closed my eyes. All of a sudden, the door flew open, and in walked the chairman of the board! I tried to sit up so fast that I flipped backwards over the chair onto the floor.

If there ever was a Gotcha! moment, there it was. I thought, Oh man, I’m in trouble. Why didn’t this guy walk in about an hour ago and see how hard I’ve been working?

Do you ever think that way about God—that he’s always catching you doing something wrong and never noticing when you get it right? Do you feel like you can never match his expectations?

Have you ever considered that those feelings are self-imposed, caused by your faulty perception of God?

One time, I was carrying a heavy burden, feeling guilty about a terrible sin I’d committed; I was thinking I had to do all sorts of things to make up for what I’d done and that I had to earn my way back into God’s grace.

Finally, one day in frustration, I yelled out to God, What do you expect from me? My own earthly father wouldn’t require this much from me!

And very casually, God replied, What makes you think I’m making you do all this stuff?

So much for my image of a God who keeps demanding that I get it right, yelling, Try harder! Try harder!

Is it possible for my earthly father to show more grace than God? God says absolutely not:

If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. You’re at least decent to your own children. So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better? (Matt. 7:9–11 The Message)

Remember when the chairman of the board walked in on me? I popped up from the floor, red-faced and feeling stupid, expecting to get the lecture, the look, the Gotcha! speech. I was thinking, Oh man, I’m in trouble now. Here it comes.

But the chairman’s response wasn’t what I expected at all, and maybe it gives some insight into what we should expect from our heavenly Father. The chairman chuckled and asked, Are you okay? Then he held his hand up, palm open, like he was giving a stop sign, and he said, "It’s okay. I know you’ve been working extra hours this week, and you