Don't Check Your Brains at the Door - The Luke Skywalker God

Chapter Two: Exposing the Impersonal Force Myth

My Interpretation of Chapter 2:

God in Spirit is omnipresent. He surrounds the world and all of us in it. God is also a person. He is God the Father, and God the Son. He has a name. He has seeks relationships and love. These qualities give God a personality.

Workout:

In Jeremiah, God is continually referred to as me and I.

Jeremiah 29:12-13 (New International Version)

¹² Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 1:5 (New International Version)

⁵ "Before I formed you in the womb I knew ^[a]you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."

In verse 6 of Exodus 3 God refers to himself as "the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." In verse 14 he names himself "I am who I am."

Exodus 3:1-15 (New International Version) Moses and the Burning Bush

¹ Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.² There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. ³So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up."

⁴ When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!"
And Moses said, "Here I am."

⁵ "Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." ⁶ Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

⁷ The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. ⁸ So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. ⁹And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. ¹⁰ So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."

¹¹ But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"

¹² And God said, "I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you ^[a] will worship God on this mountain."

¹³ Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"

¹⁴ God said to Moses, "I am who I am . ^[b] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.' "

¹⁵ God also said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, 'The LORD, ^[c] the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.

Summary:

This is pretty simple. God is a person. He has wants and needs and these are very similar to ours. He created us in his image. To make him seem impersonal or a being - a force - is to lessen his greatness. Perhaps the reason is because we only see his works rather than his being. We must continually remind ourselves God is a being.