Who is God? God is Independent

Acts 17:24-25 (ESV)
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

(This is part 5 of our study on ‘Who is God‘)

In this part of a sermon given by the Apostle Paul, he makes it clear that God does not require us. In fact, it is the other way around – we need God. Without Him we would not exist, without his continual sustaining intervention in our very lives we could not even continue to breathe.

God is independent.

This means that God does not require anything to be who He is. He is self-sufficient. There is no prerequisite for God to continue existing; there is nothing that He requires to maintain Himself.

One thing that we need to keep in mind here (and which we will spend further time on at a later date), is that God is a Trinity – that is, we are not just speaking of ‘God the Father’, but also the Son and the Holy Spirit. Within that trinity, there is no requirement for anything else. God did not need to create us to love Him; God did not need to create us so He had something to do. God is utterly independent.

Personal Application

So what does this mean in our lives? I think first that it is a good reminder that it is God who sustains us, not us who sustains God. In fact, there is essentially nothing we can do for Him that He needs. There may be things He wants us to do, for our own good or others, but there is nothing we must do so that God remains God – He will be God with or without us, and our actions or deeds, for or against.

For me, that is a mighty humbling thought. First, God does not need me for Him to remain God, but I certainly need God to remain in existence. In that context, I am nothing. And yet – God does call me. He calls me not only into a relationship with Him, but to live for Him, and sets aside things in His kingdom that I need to do. He doesn’t need me to do them – but he has chosen me anyway. I couldn’t do them without His sustaining power, and yet He chooses me to do it none the less.

Secondly, it again calls us back to worship. God doesn’t need me, doesn’t need you – and yet He has chosen us. That should leave us firstly in awe of His grace, and then lead us to thankfulness and worship!

Exodus 3:14 (ESV)
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

Lastly, that leads us back to one of our first points, God is consistent. Because God in His nature is both independent and unchanging, nothing we can do will change His nature. Sounds obvious, but apply it a little deeper. If you sin more, God does not love you less. But if you sin less God is no less upset with the sins you still do. This is just one example, but it reminds us that our God is unchangeable, and therefore, our God is reliable. If you study and read His Word, you can come to know what is right and wrong, what God wants and likes (also what he does not like), and those things will not change. God is unchanging, consistent and reliable, even when we are not!

Who is God? God is Omnipotent (All powerful)

Jeremiah 32:17 (ESV)
Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.

(This is part 4 of our study on ‘Who is God‘)

Following on from God the Creator, the first thing I think of after that is how powerful this God must be. I mentioned it in the last post, but for the universe to be so incomprehensibly massive and yet be so amazingly detailed, is just mind boggling. This is a pretty powerful God.

How do we define God then? God is omnipotent, or all powerful. There is nothing that God cannot do, should He chose to do it.

Jeremiah 32:27 (ESV)
“Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?

Note how I defined all powerful – God can do anything should He chose to do it. I have heard many people spending a lot of time arguing semantic points here. For example, since God cannot lie, that makes God not all powerful! NO! God simply doesn’t choose to lie, or to cheat, or to steal, or to commit injustice. I think the error here is with us – not God. God is sinless, perfect – we are not. In fact we are not just ‘imperfect’, but we are born into sin, with a sinful nature we cannot get away from. We can see this with our children that they have to be taught to tell the truth than to gloss over something with a lie or half-truth. We naturally choose to lie because of our sinful natures (See Romans 7 for more on this topic), but God never chooses to lie, because it is simply not in His nature.

Revelation 1:8 (ESV)
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

God is all powerful, there is nothing He could not do should He choose to do it.

Personal application

So what does this mean for our lives? There is no situation on this earth that God cannot help you into, out of or through. Nothing. If God can create and sustain such an amazing universe, providing for your daily needs is simple. The requirement falls back to us to ask God, and then see what He will do with the situation, because we know anything we ask is within his power.

Secondly, do not confuse a lack of power with a choice of will. Just because God didn’t give you a winning lottery ticket, doesn’t mean God wasn’t powerful enough – but that it wasn’t His will for you to win the lottery. And this doesn’t just apply to things such as gambling, but to anything in our lives. Because God doesn’t give you the promotion, or new car, or partner, or boat, or whatever you have asked for doesn’t mean God cannot do it. It simply means that wasn’t His will at that time – nothing more. In those situations we need to call out to God all the more, not for our needs or wants, but to spend more time with Him and find His true will for our lives!

Ephesians 3:20-21 (ESV)
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Who is God? God is Consistent

Exodus 34:6-7 (ESV)
The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

(This is part 3 of our study on ‘Who is God‘)

Before we start focusing on individual aspects of God, we first need to keep this in mind – God is consistent. Another way to put it is God is unified. God does not change.

When we look at an individual attribute, we can’t take that ‘out of’ God. When we say ‘God is Love’, we cannot remove that from ‘God is Just’ – all of His attributes are always present and active.

Take a look at the verse above in Exodus. God is merciful and gracious, God forgives iniquity and sin, and yet he also punishes it. You can see Gods love, mercy, grace, but you can also see Gods holiness, justice and wrath. All are active at any one time.

So before we jump in and over emphasise any one thing (for example, ‘God is Love’, the favourite of all who would deny God’s holiness and justice), remember – God is also consistent and unchanging. He never forgoes one thing for another, but all of Gods attributes remain at work always.

Hebrews 13:8 (ESV)
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Personal application

How can we apply this to our lives? I think it keeps us in balance. If we focus too much on God’s love, we can start to think that we can get away with anything, because God loves us. And yet if we focus too much on Gods holiness, justice and wrath we may become overburdened and depressed at our own sinful state. Remember – God is love, but he is also just and holy. It is in the balance of these things that we find the true God, and can come before him aware of our sin, but knowing that through Jesus we can be forgiven.

Thank you Lord that you are a God of consistency. Thank you Lord that you don’t change with the wind, but are the same always. Help us to keep all of your attributes in focus, and not create a false God or idol with just the parts of you we want or find desirable. Give us a desire to know you more completely, and draw every closer to you. In Jesus Name. Amen.

Who is God – The Creator

Genesis 1:1 (ESV)
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

(This is part 2 of our study on ‘Who is God‘)

The first attribute of God that we should look at is He is the creator! Why first? Because this is often the first evidence of God that anyone experiences.

Romans 1:20 (ESV)
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

God is THE creator. He created the world and all that is in it, not to mention the rest of the universe that is too great for us to comprehend! Straight away that tells us some things about God.

God is powerful. I’ve been half way around this planet and back a few times. It’s BIG. Rather big. And yet, despite its massive size, it is immensely detailed. It’s not just like a giant bowling ball – all smooth and round. It is larger than we can even comprehend, and yet, at any point we can do down to the microscopic level and see detail. Every animal, plant and tree says something about God.

God defines the term ‘Creative’. Have you seen the diversity in our planet? Think about it – the nation of Israel wandered the desert for 40 years and ate nothing but manna and quail. God could have easily provided a single type of food that we could all subsist on perfectly. And yet – he provided many foods, many varieties. There is such a broad scope of shape, color, flavour and texture just in the food available to us, it is amazing! And as you travel to more places than where you grew up, you see that the products for one region have little in common with those of the next. God is amazingly creative! And this is just taking food as an example. What about differences between people? Animals? Plants? Snowflakes? Such amazing detail shows a God who is diverse, imaginative and creative.

God is a God of order. When you examine many of the things in this world, you will find defined order. Look at water – it runs downhill to the sea, evaporates into clouds, rains back on the land and starts again. Look at animal reproduction, it is an ordered system every time from embryo to birth. Look at plant reproduction, it is ordered and predictable. Look at yourself, your life is ordered by patterns of day and night, sleep and wakefulness, the need to eat and drink. Look at the seasons that not only provide variety, but are part of the whole order of reproduction and growth for animals and plants. We could go on for a long time with this one, but we can see that God is a God of order.

What can we take away from this?

Power. The God we are searching for, serve and worship is a God of power. If He can not only create, but also maintain such a massive yet detailed universe, He can surely deal with any small thing in our lives.

Creativity. God is not bound by boredom and grey walls. God defines ‘outside the box’. He provided us with a mind that we can think through things and provide solutions for ourselves, but be ready to be surprised, as God works in ways that are so much greater than ours, and provides solutions that we could not have even imagined, in our wildest dreams. When you pray to God, be ready for something amazing to happen. Next time you walk into the grocery store, thank God for such amazing variety and choice! Be amazed at the pure size and scope of all that God has created.

Order. Know that God loves order – He invented it after all. Don’t despise good habits because they may seem mundane or boring, but know that God blesses order. We are born and we all will die. We all need to work to support ourselves and our family. These are all things of order that God has ordained. God is amazingly creative, but He is also the creator of order. Don’t jump out of a moving bus to try and be different! What do I mean by this? God may well choose to work miraculously, but only as an exception. More often He will work through our day to day lives and circumstances when dealing with us, and still manage to amaze and astound us.

Lord God, thank you for being The Creator. Grant us an eye to notice your creation again, to see it with fresh eyes that can only be amazed and turn to you in wonder and thankfulness. Help us to see You in creation, and worship You as is right. In Jesus Name. Amen.

(Photo : Nasa)

Who is God?

(This is part 1 of our study on ‘Who is God‘)

Over the next few weeks, we will be delving into the scriptures to find out an important question – who is God?

We spend so much time talking about God, that it is a worthwhile task to sit down and take a look at who God really is. Don’t worry, this is not going to be a boring ‘lecture’ without life application! For everything we look at I will also be studying how we can apply that knowledge to our lives – now.

So how do we find out about God? Let’s ask a more simple question first – how do we find out about a person? There are two ways – you can observe them, and you can ask about them. From observation you might learn some basic things, such as their height, hair color, what clothes they like to wear or what they might like to eat. You might even learn a bit more, but not much. To learn even more you are going to have to research, asking others about the person. From that you will learn more, but only from limited perspectives. To finally really know a person you are going to have to talk to them directly!

How does this relate to our search for who God is? The first is that though we can’t observe God directly, we can observe His works. We can look at creation. We can look at the things He has done in the past to learn something of Him – this is what is often called ‘general revelation’. Secondly, we are then going to have to investigate further! We are going to have to see what others have said of God, and even what God has said of Himself, as that is His primary method of revelation. We are going to need to delve into the scriptures! And hopefully, at the end of all that study, we can finally come to know God personally, and enter into a deeper relationship with Him.

So over the next few weeks, I want to research more of who God is. And from that I want to see not only how that can apply to our lives now, but hopefully bring us into a closer relationship with Him.

Lord God, thank you for revealing Yourself to us! Guide us in this study, teach us more about You, bring us not only to a closer knowledge of You, but to a closer relationship with You. In Jesus Name. Amen.