Liberating you from bad ideas about God
I love this quote from Gandalf:
Never feel like you have to do great and mighty things for God. You don’t.
The Kingdom of God is found in hugging your children, picking up your socks from the floor, smiling at the gas attendant, and basically just doing whatever Jesus asks you to do each and every day.
I want you to invent God.
Seriously.
This blog post is an invitation to you to invent God, and then tell me about this God in the comments below. If you are uncomfortable sharing what you write, feel free to leave an anonymous comment.
This is a practice I have occasionally done in small groups of people, but I am interested in seeing what sorts of response I get from you, my blog readers.
Here are the guidelines I want you to think about and follow as you invent God.
In order to invent God, you need to forget everything you have ever learned about God. Forget what the Bible says (or doesn’t say) about God. Forget what you have read in theology books. Forget what you have learned from Bible studies and sermons. If possible, just forget everything you know (or think you know) about God.
If you could invent God to be and do anything you wanted, how would God behave? How would God act? What would be the character and qualities of this God you invent? What would you want this God to do?
Describe this God in the comment section below.
There is the one caveat to this exercise I want you to keep in mind….
Remember that the God you invent will be the God of the entire world. So however this God behaves toward you is also the way this God will behave toward others.
This means that if you have this God give you $1 million, God will also give every other person $1 million, which doesn’t put you ahead of anyone else, and essentially makes that money meaningless.
Similarly, if you have this God kill all your enemies, just know that this God will also kill all the enemies of your enemies, which most likely means you yourself will get killed.
So in this exercise, whatever God does for one, God does for all.
Got it? Good.
Sound fun? Of course!
Is this dangerous? You bet!
But has that ever stopped us before? Nope.
So … On your marks … Get set … GO!
What would God be like if you could invent God? Leave your description in the comment section below. I am excited to read what you write.
After you leave your comment, share this post using the social buttons below to invite others to participate.
I am writing a book on the gospel, and want your input.
In the comment section for this post, answer the following question:
What is the gospel?
Ready? Go! (And along with the comment section check out the course below to see how others have defined the gospel.)
Want to learn more about the gospel? Take my new course, "The Gospel According to Scripture."
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Thank you for joining with me in this past year on RedeemingGod.com. It has been quite a year, and you helped make it happen.
I am sharing the following post, not to boast about what I have accomplished this past year, but to boast about you and how thankful I am for how you read my blog, buy my books, and listen to my podcasts.
You have been a huge blessing and encouragement to me this past year. Thank you!
The year began with the publication of two books, Dying to Religion and Empire (how we can break free from the shackles of religion and politics), and The Re-Justification of God (a study on Romans 9). That second book was one of my best-selling books in 2015.
This past year also saw the conclusion of my previous blog and the launching of this one. My previous website was at TillHeComes.org, and had been my website for about 15 years. But I wanted to rebrand and relaunch my blog with a title that better explained what my writing was about. So in mid-March, I launched RedeemingGod.com. Since that time, my new blog has received over 1.6 million page views and has been read by people in almost every country of the world.
In 2015, I also wrote my 2000th post, and received my 25,000th comment. So thank you for reading and commenting! Though I can no longer respond to every comment the way I used to, I do read them all.
As part of the relaunch of my blog, I started some email courses which people can take for free. I intended to get nine up and running this past year, but as of now, only four have been completed. These are emails that get sent once or twice a week for a couple months on a particular topic. Right now, the available email courses are: The Death and Resurrection of Jesus, Getting to Know Your Neighbors, How to help homeless people, and a study on the Unpardonable Sin.
Then in the fall of 2015 I decided to launch two podcasts. The first is the One Verse podcast. This is a weekly 30-minute study of Scripture from a non-religious perspective. Yesterday’s episode, for example, looked at Genesis 1:28-31 in which we saw that the very first instruction God gave to us is that we have sex. You have probably never heard that taught from a pulpit before! Over 300 people listen to this podcast every week.
The Theology.fm podcast is a bi-weekly podcast in which I share with you some of the Bible teachers, pastors, and podcasters that have influenced me and my thinking about Scripture and theology. Eventually I want to include some interviews in this podcast as well.
Near the end of the year, I sent out a private email to people who subscribe to my newsletter and asked them to participate in a short 7-question survey about the future of my blog. If you missed out on taking that survey, it was sent out to all newsletter subscribers, so if you are a subscriber, go check your email from December 14. If you are not an email subscriber … WHAT? You’re not an email subscriber? Well, you missed out on the survey, but you can make sure you don’t miss out on such things in the future. Go take care of that now.
The results of that survey will be shared in the early part of 2016. So far, the responses have been encouraging, and will help guide what I do in 2016.
People want me to continue writing the blog, and a large number of people have asked for me to teach some online courses. So this is one of my major goals in 2016. I plan on beginning with a course on the gospel, with a special emphasis on the relationship between faith and works. So look for this course to begin sometime (hopefully) in January.
I will also be continuing my Podcasts. With the One Verse podcast, I plan to teach through Genesis 5 and then move up to John 1 and John 20, before looking at Revelation 5 and Revelation 20–22. The reason for this strange series of chapters is because these 10 chapters provide the big picture overview of the entire Bible. And don’t worry. Though it took me 21 episodes to teach through Genesis 1, I believe that I will be going quicker through these other 9 chapters. But … we’ll see.
I also plan to publish several books in 2016. First, I want to republish my book on the Unpardonable Sin. This was one of the first books I ever wrote, and my thinking on sin and forgiveness have changed quite a bit since that book was published. So I want to incorporate my new ideas into that book so that people can gain a greater understanding of sin, forgiveness, and the infinite love of God.
Then I plan on publishing 4 more books in 2016 as well. If that sounds like a lot, don’t worry… all four are already written. They just need to compiled, edited, typeset, and published. As a preview, these books will be on (1) Church and pastoral Leadership, (2) How your church can incorporate Kingdom principles in the new millennium, (3) A study on Genesis 1 (based on my podcasts), and (4) A new look at the atonement.
One other thing I will continue to do in 2016 is asking people to partner with me in ministry. There are various ways you can do this, and you can read more about them here.
One key way that you can partner with me is with helping cover the costs of running my website and podcast and publishing my books. I first asked for this in November, and enough people participated that all my November costs were covered. If you donated, thank you very much! Be looking for a personal thank you email from me in the near future. As of today, 52% of my December costs have been covered. If you want to help out, you can do so below.
Your support helps over 250,000 people each month discover the love of God
and find freedom from the shackles of religion.
So that is 2015 in review and a short preview of what I hope to accomplish in 2016. Thanks for joining with me on this ride, and I hope you stick around for 2016, as (by all appearances) it will be the most exciting year yet!
![[#16] Genesis 1:24-25 – The Theology of Evolution](https://redeeminggod.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/One-Verse-Podcast-Jeremy-Myers-150x150.jpg)
While I do not believe that Genesis 1 speaks directly against the theory of evolution, I do believe that the theology behind the theory of evolution has been around a lot longer than the theory itself.
In fact, the theology behind the theory of evolution has been around since the very beginning.
The verses we will look at today, Genesis 1:24-25, speak directly against these theological ideas. Listen to this episode to learn how.
Genesis 1:24-25. Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Those who are part of my online discipleship group may download the MP3 audio file for this podcast and view the podcast transcript below.
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Do you like learning about Scripture and theology through my podcast? If so, then you will also love my online courses. They all have MP3 audio downloads, PDF transcripts, quizzes, and a comment section for questions and interaction with other students.
If you want to deepen your relationship with God and better understand Scripture, take one (or all) of these courses. They are great for personal study or for a small group Bible study.
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