S01E09: What If God Isn’t Who You Think He Is?

Ben Bennett discusses the lies we commonly believe about who God is. Sometimes we view God as angry, distant, or uptight. Believing these lies takes us away from the thriving life we were created to experience. Ben explores what the Bible actually says about who God is as a loving father. Learn practical ways to restore your view of God, and thrive in your relationship with Him. Visit the Resolution Movement website: https://resolutionmovement.org Follow us on Instagram @resolutionmovement =================================== 👉 Learn more about the Resolution Movement on our website: https://resolutionmovement.org/ Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3eVeEDL Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2XwFzzJ All other podcast platforms: https://bit.ly/2XzDoLX Instagram: https://bit.ly/2BscfSh Facebook: https://bit.ly/36T4WyR =================================== =================================== =================================== =================================== =================================== =================================== =================================== =================================== Transcript Excerpts: Today we will put laser focus on exploring who God actually is, not who you heard God is, not who the person holding up the sign about God’s wrath on the side of the street says God is, not even who you perceive God to be, but who God says he is in his Word. And it is key for us to address this because the way to experience the deepest fulfillment of our longings, overcoming unwanted behaviors and thriving in life is to understand an experience God for who he truly is, as an engaged loving father who wants to satisfy our deepest longings in healthy ways. While we need other people to meet our longings, God is the primary source. Yes, he meets our longings through other people, but he also does so through our personal relationship with him. When others fail; he doesn’t. He is always there. He wants to engage us, to accept us to talk to us, to engage our heart longings an he’s always there for us. He is always with us. As Josh McDowell have been traveling the world, meeting people and ministering to them, we found that many have found the wrong God. They don’t see him for who he truly is. They harbor wrong assumptions and core beliefs about his character. Deep down they believe that he is angry, obsessed with rules and distant. And so often, these views about God come from assumptions we make of him based on our hurt, the suffering we see in the world, or our experiences with those in authority. Maybe you have had experiences of growing up in a church that community or family that emphasized rules over relationships. Maybe when you didn’t perform as expected or meet other’s standards, you were judged, shamed or punished. Maybe you had negative experiences with your earthly father. Maybe he was distant, disengaged or quick to angry or just didn’t speak many words of love or approval of you. See, when a parent and particularly a father has been absent, hurtful or disengaged, our seven longings significantly go unmet. We can’t help but feel those unmet longings and develop something called a father wound. God is referred to as our father all throughout scripture. So often our view of God is filtered by the lens of our earthly father. I once heard William Paul Young say, “It took me more that 50 years to wipe the face of my father completely off the face of God. Some of us like him may see an angry, disapproving face every time we think about God. How we learn to navigate our of our relationships in life is drawn from our primary and foundational relationships with key figures like our fathers. For better or for worse, our foundational relationships chart for other relationships including our relationship with God. These incorrect views about God are toxic to our wellbeing. They prevent us from thriving and experiencing a life of wholeness. But here’s the reality, we all have daddy issues. We all struggle to see and experience God for who he actually is. So what is God actually like? So, people have all kinds of different opinions about who God is. For example, pantheists say that god is everything, polytheists believe in multiple gods and goddesses, deists believe in a supreme being who created everything but isn’t involved with creation. Even some Christians will teach things about God that don’t line up with what is revealed about God in the Bible. Which why I want to reexamine today what God has revealed about who he is in his Word. There are many aspects of God that we can’t explore today, so I want to center on a couple that many of us struggle to believe as a result of our hurt, our unmet longing and our past experiences with authority. And I believe that if we start to believe these things deep down about who God is, we will make great strides in experiencing a thriving life.