I just finished a book by W. Paul Young called, Lies We Believe About God. This is not a book review. However, I enjoyed it a great deal. It is a book you should read for yourself. Don’t be afraid to do so. The scripture teaches us that, “.. the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.(1John 2:27)”
Young ends the book with a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, that sort of sums up why God came and the impact that it has had on humanity.
“In the body of Jesus Christ, God is united with humankind, all humanity is accepted by God, and the world is reconciled to God. In the body of Jesus Christ, God took on the sin of all the world and bore it. There is no part of the world, no matter how lost, no matter how godless, that has not been accepted by God in Jesus Christ and reconciled to God.”
“God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but human beings AS THEY ARE; not an ideal world, but the REAL WORLD. What we find repulsive in their opposition to God, what we shrink back from with pain and hostility, namely, real human beings, the real world, this is for God the ground of unfathomable love. God establishes a most intimate unity with this. God becomes human, a real human being. While we exert ourselves to grow beyond our humanity, to leave the human behind us, GOD BECOMES HUMAN; and we must recognize that God wills that we be human, real human beings. While we distinguish between pious and godless, good and evil, noble and base, God loves REAL PEOPLE without distinction. God has no patience with our dividing the world and humanity according to our standards and imposing ourselves as judges over them. God leads us into absurdity by becoming a real human being and a companion of sinners, thereby forcing us to become the judges of God. God stands beside the real human being and the real world against ALL THEIR ACCUSERS. So God becomes accused along with human beings and the world, and thus the judges become the accused.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (New York: Touchstone, 1995), 66– 68, 84– 85
Young, Wm. Paul (2017-03-07). Lies We Believe About God (pp. 249-250). Atria Books. Kindle Edition.
I personally found myself agreeing with every “lie” in this book. But like I said you should read it for yourself. It’s not a hard or long read. You will get through it pretty quickly. At the least, it will get you thinking and be evaluating what you believe about God.
Faith, Love, & Grace 