The most important thing about us
During my first theology course in college, the professor opened with a quote from A.W. Tozer, who famously said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” After reciting this quote, my professor said, “So what comes into your mind when you think about God? The rest of this semester will be devoted to answering that question.”
Perhaps nothing shapes us more profoundly than our understanding of who God is. Our understanding of God fundamentally determines how we relate to God, to others, and to ourselves. What’s more, nobody is exempt from this. Even an atheist has some picture of God in their mind that they believe does not exist. In other words, everyone — and I mean everyone — is doing theology.
The challenge is that most of us are carrying around some bad theology, some distorted images of God that we've absorbed from various sources: our upbringing, painful experiences, cultural messages, or incomplete theological frameworks. These distortions function like prescription lenses – often invisible to us, yet consistently shaping how we interpret and respond to every circumstance in our lives. Even more troubling, many of these misconceptions operate at a subconscious level, meaning we might intellectually affirm one view of God while functionally living according to another.
Five misconceptions
As a pastor, I regularly encounter people who are carrying some really bad news about what they believe God is like. While more could be identified, below are five prevalent misconceptions about God that I encounter frequently. Each of these misconceptions is not only bad news, but does bad work.
Here are five common ‘bad news’ images of God that mess us up:
The Distant Deity
The first is The Distant Deity – viewing God as an impersonal force, emotionally detached and uninvolved in human affairs. God set the world in motion, but is not personally involved in our lives. This view often emerges during desperate times when prayers seem unanswered, leading us to question, "Where are you, God?”
The Sovereign Puppet Master
The second distortion is The Sovereign Puppet Master – the belief that God is in total control— micromanaging everything, ensuring that everything happens according to a predetermined divine blueprint. This fatalistic "everything happens for a reason" mentality ultimately makes God responsible for horrific suffering.
The Cosmic Cop
The third is The Cosmic Cop – seeing God primarily as a rule-enforcer whose love is conditioned upon our moral performance and day-to-day behavior. This turns God into a moral behavioralist and leaves many feeling perpetually inadequate and afraid to approach God, particularly after failure.
The Vending Machine
The fourth misconception is The Vending Machine – the prosperity-gospel notion that God exists primarily to improve our lives—ensuring health, wealth, and comfort. A true American favorite. All we have to do is insert the right coins (think right beliefs and behaviors) and God will make our lives great.
The Passive Enabler
And finally, The Passive Enabler – portraying God as merely nice and tolerant, always approving and never correcting us. Such a God never confronts destructive patterns in our lives or, quite frankly, calls us into deeper transformation.
All five of these distortions have profound consequences, creating barriers to our intimacy with God. They also jack up how we understand ourselves and relate to others. But I’ll confess that even though I know each of these are problematic, I still struggle not to believe them when circumstances seem to reinforce them. When life is hard and God feels absent, for example, it’s so tempting to believe that God is just a distant deity. Or when I mess up and make a mistake, it’s so easy to believe that God is a cosmic cop waiting to write me a ticket.
So how do we repent of the bad news we believe about God that isn’t actually true? The antidote to these false images is remarkably simple yet profoundly transformative: God is like Jesus.
God's true character? Look at Jesus
Throughout Scripture, we discover that Jesus is the perfect revelation of God's character. In John 14:9, Jesus tells Philip, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." Hebrews 1 describes Jesus as "the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being." When we look at Jesus, we are looking at God in the flesh. As Dallas Willard once said, “If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus.” Jesus is the human face of God. As my friends Matt Tebbe & Ben Sternke put it, “Jesus is what God is like. Full stop."
This revelation — that God is like Jesus — challenges all our misconceptions. Think about it.
- Jesus wasn't distant. Jesus drew near to those who were suffering and to the brokenhearted.
- Jesus wasn’t controlling. Jesus honored people’s agency and free will, even when they made bad choices.
- Jesus wasn’t a moral policeman. Jesus moved toward people, especially in their brokenness.
- Jesus wasn't a vending machine. Jesus called people to pick up their crosses and follow him.
- Jesus wasn’t a passive enabler. Jesus spoke the truth in love, even when it cost him.
The God Jesus reveals is characterized by cruciform love – self-giving, other-centered love that culminates in the cross. As Brad Jersak says, “Jesus doesn’t just reveal the character of God, he redefined it as cruciform love.” Note the word “cruciform” means “cross-shaped.’ God’s character is supremely revealed as cross-shaped love.
This is why a growing number of theologians note that Paul’s famous passage in Philippians 2 isn't saying Jesus was humble despite being God, but rather, precisely because he was God. True divinity expresses itself through self-sacrificial love and humility. Why? Because this is what God is like. And we see this in Jesus.
Repenting of the Bad News We Believe About God
The word repent simply means “to change one’s mind.” And this is what is required if we are going to shed the bad news we believe about God that isn’t actually true. Repentance means letting Jesus rewrite the false stories we carry about God. The journey toward healthier theology begins with awareness and honesty. We must examine the bad news we carry around about God that isn’t true so that we can allow Jesus to correct it.
This is not a one-time thing. This is a lifelong project, a project of continually returning to the gospels to study the life and teachings of Jesus, of holding up our circumstances in light of Jesus—noting how Jesus responded to people in similar situations. It takes courage. It takes honesty. And it will take a safe and challenging community around us. But it’s worth it.
The lifelong process of shedding the bad news we believe about God and embracing the God revealed in Jesus transforms not just our theology, but our entire lives.
Reflection Questions
Consider creating some space for reflection and prayer to work through the following:
- What bad news am I carrying around about God?
- What kinds of life circumstances trigger this bad news?
- How does the truth that God is like Jesus correct the bad news I’m believing?
- Who are the people around me who could help me do Jesus-centered theology?
As one practical next step, check out our episode of Praxis "God Is Like Jesus", where we discuss this topic in much greater depth and provide some concrete action steps to help you grow!
