God Has a Name: What You Believe About God Will Shape Who You Become

by John Mark Comer

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

Here’s a truth that cuts across the whole of the universe: we become like what we worship.

what you think about God will shape your destiny in life.

Here’s the problem: we usually end up with a God who looks an awful lot like us.

There is a human bent in all of us to make God in our own image.

Often what we believe about God says more about us than it does about God. Our theology is like a mirror to the soul. It shows us what’s deep inside.

we start with the assumption that we know what God is like, and then we judge every religion or church or sermon or book based on our view of God.

As if what we think and feel about God is an accurate barometer for what he is actually like.

For Jesus and all the writers of Scripture, the starting point for all theology is the realization that: we don’t know what God is like, but we can learn. But to learn, we have to go to the source.

In ancient Hebrew literature like Exodus, to speak of God’s glory was to speak of his presence and beauty.10

when God describes himself, he doesn’t start with how powerful he is or how he knows everything there is to know or how he’s been around since before time and space and there’s no one else like him in the universe.

When God describes himself, he starts with his name. Then he talks about what we call character. He’s compassionate and gracious; he’s slow to anger; he’s abounding in love and faithfulness, and on down the list.

it means to pray in line with his character, to pray for the kind of stuff he wants to see happen in the world.

the temptation was never to worship Yahweh or _____. It was always, Yahweh and _____.

In the Old Testament, we don’t read one story about an exorcism.

There are upward of twenty-eight million slaves in the world today. More than ever before.

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist.”58

“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”59

Usually we read the story as if it’s about the two sons. But what if it’s actually about the father?

Mercy is one of those things you just can’t ever have enough of.

Contrary to popular opinion, there is no such thing as a literal, word-for-word translation of the Bible.

We say we want justice, but usually we want revenge.

Elie Wiesel said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.”

In the ancient Near East, this was called “cutting the covenant.”

the writer John’s famous line about how Jesus was “full of grace and truth” is actually a quote from Exodus 34.

God never said we would live trouble-free.

“In all things God works for the good of those who love him.”15

Our hope is that no matter what happens to us, Jesus is back from the dead, and anything is possible.

The average stay in a marriage is about eight years;

We tend to focus on the aspects of God we like and push to the side the parts we don’t.

Worship is an entire life oriented around wonder and awe at the nature of God.

The writer Hwe Hwe Tan once said, “You are what your mind looks at. You are what you contemplate.”1

How God Changes Your Brain, the neuroscientist Andrew Newberg