Who is God? God is Love

1 John 4:8 (ESV)
Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

(This is part 14 of our study on ‘Who is God‘)

God is Love. This is the Big One. This is the one everyone wants to quote, and wants to believe about God.

But what does it really mean?

It means that God is love! Love is defined by God – because He is Love. It means that love first comes from God. To better understand it, 1 John 4:7-21 is a good place to start (I will just quote up to verse 10 here).

1 John 4:7-10 (ESV)
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Personal Application

God loves you.

Not because you choose to love God. Not because you are necessarily loveable. Not because you are good, or because you do good things. Not because you are holy, or because you always try your best (or at least sometimes do).

God loves you.

Despite your sin. Despite your rebellion. Despite all of the wrong things you have said and are yet to say. Despite all of your offences against God.

God loves you. Unconditionally. That means that there are no conditions to Gods love – He simply loves you.

And because God loves you, you should respond to Him in some way.

And because God loves you, you should do your best to love others, just as God has loved you. Not because they are good. Not avoiding love because they are bad. But you should love others because God loved you.

So it really is that simple – God loves you. Take some time to think about it, despite the difficulty. Not just rejoicing in the fact that God does love, but that He is love. And He loves you not because of anything you have done, are doing or will do – but because of who you are.

That is a truly revolutionary thought – there is nothing I can do to make God love me more, or less. So stop striving for the unreachable, but take comfort knowing His love is unconditional.

John 3:16 (ESV)
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Your Freedom and the Word of God

Imagine, for a moment, you were born somewhere in Europe, around the year 1350. More likely than not, you would not have been literate, and indeed, language at this time was very segregated by region. Languages could change 10 times in what we would now call a single country, because there were still not many ways of communicating other than hand written letters and books.

The church held most of the power in regards to education and literacy. If you were to become ‘literate’, you almost certainly had to be a monk or a priest,unless you were very well off (and then still the church controlled education). And further to this, the church mass, and indeed the whole realm of Christian scripture, was in Latin. The problem was, by 1350, Latin was not anyone’s primary language.

In a world where many people couldn’t read and write their own language, knowledge of something you heard for an hour on Sundays (if you even went to church weekly) was very limited.

Even further to this, it was church policy that only the church should interpret Scripture – the common person couldn’t be trusted with their own interpretation, and so, it was illegal to translate the Bible into anything but Latin.

So, chances are, you would have never read the Word of God, and even if you went to a Church, may never have heard any of it in a language you understood. You may not have understood much of the mass at all! If I spoke the below to you today (and for most people in 1350), you would just look at me funny.

sic enim dilexit Deus mundum ut Filium suum unigenitum daret ut omnis qui credit in eum non pereat sed habeat vitam aeternam

Worked it out? No? That is John 3:16 direct from the Vulgate.

Romans 10:14-17 (ESV)
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Your Freedom

In our modern era, we take access to the Word of God for granted. It is no thought to us any more – book stores (even secular ones) carry Bibles. There are internet websites that carry translations in more languages than ever before. Even in our English language, you can get enough translations to fit a bookshelf.

But do you appreciate it?

What was they key trigger for the reformation? It was people first reading the Word, and having God reveal it to them. This then spread, and the reformation took hold.

What are you doing with your freedom to read and study the word, to worship and live for Christ, and for most of you, free from serious persecution…

What would happen if you studied the Word like it was a precious resource, and then discussed it – like the reformers?

Don’t take your freedom for granted, but thank God for it, and make full use of it!

Who is God? God is Good

Psalm 34:8 (ESV)
Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

(This is part 13 of our study on ‘Who is God‘)

God is Good. This is something that those who go to church might hear a lot. It is an affirmation of the Christian, an affirmation pronounced from the pulpit. But what does it mean?

Good means that which is morally right, or, that which is righteous.

So God is morally right. God does the right things. God is righteous.

And yet, it is more than just ‘being right’. God defines goodness at it’s very core – our definition of good and right is God.

Wayne Grudem (systematic theology) has a great definition – The goodness of God means that God is the final standard of good, and that all that God is and does is worthy of approval.

In the negative sense, it also means God is not evil. God does not do evil. God does not approve of evil. You can never ascribe evil to God, because by definition if God is good, he cannot be evil. We do not believe in a ‘dualistic’ God where he is both good and evil.

God IS good.

Personal application.

What does this mean for me I hear you say? It means that since God is good, His intentions towards you are also good. His wishes for you are good. His will for you is good. Anything He chooses for you, no matter what it feels at the time, is ultimately good.

If you want to reverse the analogy, then God is not evil. He does not wish or will evil upon you. He does not intend evil for you. His will for you is never evil.

God is good. Take some time and meditate on the verses below – I pray they will help you see more the goodness of God, and His purposes for your life.

John 10:10-11 (ESV)
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Romans 8:28 (ESV)
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Jeremiah 29:11 (ESV)
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Quote of the Week

Where a people prays, there is the church; and where the church is; there is never loneliness.

It is much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying. Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1928

Who is God? God is Omnipresent

Jeremiah 23:23-24 (ESV)
“Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD.

(This is part 12 of our study on ‘Who is God‘)

God is everywhere, always.

God is always present. God is always ‘right there’. There is nowhere you can hide from God – there is nowhere that you are out of His reach.

Psalm 139:7-10 (ESV)
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.

Personal application

God is always there for you. No matter what is going on in your life, no matter what your struggle, God is there. There is no place He cannot be! Think about that. The bottom of the sea? God is there. In the International Space Station? God is there. In the middle of the Sahara desert? God is there. In the middle of the most sinful place you have ever been and now are desperate to get out? God is there.

Quite simply, God is always there.

Psalm 17:6 (ESV)
I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God;
incline your ear to me; hear my words.

There is another part also to God being everywhere. He sees your sin. You might be able to hide it from your partner, husband, wife, parents, children, workmates and even yourself. But you can never hide it from God. He not only knows your heart, He sees your sin.

Luke 12:1-3 (ESV)
In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.

In the end though, this brings amazing comfort! How?

We know that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. And we can know that even included the sins we have hidden from everyone but God. There is no sin hidden from God, and there is no sin that He did not cover on the cross. Jesus has already done the work on the cross – all you need to do is accept that work!

Romans 5:6-11 (ESV)
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.