Our Great God

7 “Can you solve the mysteries of God?
    Can you discover everything about the Almighty?
8 Such knowledge is higher than the heavens—
    and who are you?
It is deeper than the underworld—
    what do you know?
9 It is broader than the earth
    and wider than the sea. – Job 11:7-9 NLT

33 Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!

34 For who can know the Lord’s thoughts?
    Who knows enough to give him advice?
35 And who has given him so much
    that he needs to pay it back?

36 For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen. – Romans 11:33-36 NLT

33 We cannot imagine the power of the Almighty; but even though he is just and righteous, he does not destroy us. – Job 37:33 NLT

We cannot even begin to comprehend the greatness of God. But we should try. While He remains far beyond our capacity to fully understand, He still expects us to desire and to pursue an ever-increasing awareness of Himself. The apostle Paul prayed regularly that the Colossian believers would grow in their knowledge of God.

So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better. – Colossians 1:9-10 NLT

Paul prayed a similar prayer for the believers in Ephesus.

I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. – Ephesians 1:16-18 NLT

God is infinite. He is eternal, having no beginning or end. To attempt a study of God is to attempt the impossible. You will never fully know Him. You will never plumb the depths of His greatness. But that does not make it an exercise in futility. The pursuit of the knowledge of God is the calling of every child of God. The Bible is the Word of God, His revelation of Himself to mankind. Every page contained in the Scriptures contains glimpses of His glory and goodness. And He desires that we read His Word, not as some kind of self-help manual full of tips for living the good life, but as an indispensable resource for discovering eternal life through Him.

It is interesting to note what Jesus prayed in the garden on the night He was to be betrayed. In one of His last moments on earth before His crucifixion and death, Jesus spent time alone with His heavenly Father and poured out His heart.

“Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” – John 17:1-3 ESV

Jesus came that we might have eternal life. But eternal life is far more than just a promise of a life free from death. While the thought of a place where there will be “no more death or sorrow or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:4) sounds very appealing, those things are not what make eternal life well worth the wait. No, Jesus makes it quite clear. He states that “this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

The essence of eternal life is an intimate knowledge of God and His Son. Heaven will remove the blinders and barriers that prevent us from knowing God well. The presence of sin in our lives prevents us from seeing and knowing God clearly. It is like looking at a beautiful landscape through a dirty window or trying to view a sunset through a pair of glasses with foggy lenses. The glorious view is obscured and distorted by the flaw in our vision. And the apostle Paul reminds us that the day is coming when those limitations will all be removed, leaving us completely free to know God in all His glory.

Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. – 1 Corinthians 13:12-13 NLT

Getting to know God better should be the overarching desire of every child of God – to know the One who made us, saved us, and has an eternity in store for us. This all-knowing, all-powerful God has planned a future for us in which we will enjoy unbroken fellowship with Him. Yes, it will be a place free from pain, sin, sorrow, and death. But the real joy of heaven will be found in our ability to know God intimately and fully.

The truly amazing thing is that God considers us His children right here, right now. In spite of our ongoing struggle with sin and our persistent habit of disobeying His will, God calls us His own. He is the forever faithful, always loving, ever gracious, and consistently merciful God who never fails to keep His promises. And the apostle John would have us remember that our loving heavenly Father has adopted us into His family and has great things in store for us.

See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him. Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure. – 1 John 3:1-13 NLT

So, why wouldn’t we want to know our great God better?

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Our Righteously Wrathful God – Part II

8 For the Lord holds a cup in his hand
    that is full of foaming wine mixed with spices.
He pours out the wine in judgment,
    and all the wicked must drink it,
    draining it to the dregs. – Psalm 75:8 NLT

28 “Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” – Matthew 10:28 NLT

5 “But I’ll tell you whom to fear. Fear God, who has the power to kill you and then throw you into hell. Yes, he’s the one to fear.” – Luke 12:5 NLT

9 So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment. – 2 Peter 2:9 NLT

Discussing the wrath of God can come across as if we are dealing with a flaw in the divine character. It seems out of step with His love, grace, and mercy. But the wrath of God is never displayed in an arbitrary manner. He need never apologize for it or be embarrassed because of it. And His never unleashes His wrath undeservedly or unjustly. Unlike us, God never loses His temper. He never flies off the handle or suffers from a lack of self-control. He is always purposeful when displaying His wrath against sinful mankind. When doing so, He is displaying who He is, displaying His divine nature and bringing glory to Himself. In fact, God’s wrath is inseparably linked with His glory. When He exercises His wrath, He is revealing the fullness of His glory.

The book of Exodus records the encounter that Moses had with God on Mount Sinai. Moses, the deliverer God had chosen to lead His people out of slavery in Egypt, made a bold request of God. He asked the Almighty, “Please show me your glory” (Exodus 33:18 ESV). God agreed to do so, but with one condition.

“I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord’…But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” – Exodus 33:19, 20 ESV

God warned Moses that viewing His face would prove deadly. Why? Because of Moses’ sinfulness. No man can behold the full, unveiled glory of God while in his sinful state. Moses wanted to see God’s glory, but to do so without God’s protection would result in Moses’ destruction. Because the wrath of God goes hand-in-hand with the glory of God.

God kept His word, but in a display of His goodness and mercy, He prevented Moses from seeing Him in all His glory.

“I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.” – Exodus 33:22-23 ESV

Moses, as a fallen human being, deserved to come under the wrath of God but, instead, he experienced God’s grace and mercy. Remember what God had said to Moses immediately after making his request:

“I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” – Exodus 33:19 ESV

God, because of His righteousness and holiness, is obligated to punish sin. He cannot overlook or ignore it. But He can make provision for it. And, in this case, that is what He did.

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.” – Exodus 34:6-7 ESV

As God passed, with His hand placed protectively over His servant, He proclaimed His mercy and grace, His patience and steadfast love, His faithfulness, and forgiveness. In other words, He declared His divine attributes. But don’t miss this part. While God declared that He is willing to forgive iniquity, transgression, and sin, He will NOT clear the guilty. The Hebrew word translated as “clear” is naqah and it means to “acquit” or ”to leave unpunished.” The guilty must be held to account. They must pay for their sins. God cannot simply whitewash over them.

Just before Moses had been given this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the glory of God, he had been given the law of God – the Ten Commandments – on tablets of stone. And Moses had returned from the mountaintop, tablets in hand, only to find the people worshiping false gods down in the valley. In his shock and anger, Moses had destroyed the tablets containing God’s law. And God, in His wrath, brought a plague on the people, punishing them for their rejection of Him and their rebellion against Him.

…the Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.”

Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made. – Exodus 32:33-35 ESV

God punished the guilty. He could not and would not allow them to get away with their sin. The entire law, as prescribed by God on Mount Sinai, was based on the premise “without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22 NLT). There were those who would die by the plague that God had sent. Their deaths would assuage or propitiate God’s wrath. He had to punish the guilty. He could not simply clear or acquit them.

God gave Moses a second set of tablets, containing His code of conduct for the people of Israel. His laws were intended to set them apart as His chosen people. In them were contained all they needed to know about living life as His children. He left nothing up to their imaginations. They would not be free to live on their own terms or to follow the examples of the other nations around them. But Moses, knowing the hearts of his people, made yet another request of God.

“If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.” – Exodus 34:9 ESV

Moses knew that, without God’s grace and mercy, the people of Israel would find themselves the fully deserving recipients of God’s wrath, once again. So, God renewed His covenant commitment with the people of Israel, but He warned them:

“…for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” – Exodus 34:14 ESV

God will not tolerate unfaithfulness. He will not put up with His creation turning their backs on Him by worshiping something or someone other than Him. But it is not because He is overly sensitive or wears His feelings on His sleeve. It is because He is God and worthy of all glory, honor, and praise.

In the book of Revelation, John records his vision of the throne room of God in heaven. He describes the four living creatures, standing around the throne of God:

Day after day and night after night they keep on saying,

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty—
    the one who always was, who is, and who is still to come.” – Revelation 4:8 NLT

And they are joined by the 24 elders, who lay their crowns before God’s throne and say:

“You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and they exist because you created what you pleased.” – Revelation 4:11

God is worthy of our praise. He deserves our worship. He created us. We exist for His glory. And when we refuse to give Him the glory He deserves, we sin against Him. Sin is not so much the action we commit, as it is the heart behind the action. What we do is an outward display of the state of our hearts. Jesus said that “from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander” (Matthew 15:19 NLT). Then He added, “These are what defile you” (Matthew 15:20 NLT). The Greek word for “defile” is koinoō and it means “to make common or unclean.”

Our actions, which stem from our hearts, end up making us unacceptable to God. They display our love for something other than Him. When we sin, we are giving evidence that our hearts do not belong to God. We love something other than God. Such as pleasure, sensuality, self, success, power, position, prominence, or happiness. Those things become idols or substitutes for God. And our sin is an expression of our love affair with these false gods.

But God’s holiness demands justice. And His justice requires that He display His wrath “against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Romans 1:18 NLT). Yet, in His mercy and grace, God came up with a way to satisfy His wrath and display His goodness at the same time. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission or forgiveness of sin. And since all men have sinned, all men deserve to fall under the wrath of God. But Paul reminds us of the amazing grace of God as displayed through the gift of His Son.

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus. – Romans 3:23-26 NLT

God satisfied His own wrath by sending His own Son as the payment for mankind’s sin debt. He gave His sinless Son as the atonement for sinful men.

God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. – 2 Corinthians 5:21 NLT

He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God. – Romans 4:25 NLT

But to escape the wrath of God, sinful men and women must accept the free gift of God’s sacrifice on their behalf. They must acknowledge their sin and their need for a Savior. The payment has been made. The gift has been offered. But it must be accepted. Paul goes on to state: “We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ” (Romans 3:22 NLT). And a few chapters later, he adds: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23 NLT).

The wrath of God is real. But so is His grace and mercy. God is a just God who must punish sin. But He is also a gracious God who has provided a way that He might justify the ungodly. All for our good and His glory.

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Our Rigtheously Wrathful God

39 Look now; I myself am he!
    There is no other god but me!
I am the one who kills and gives life;
    I am the one who wounds and heals;
    no one can be rescued from my powerful hand!
40 Now I raise my hand to heaven
    and declare, “As surely as I live,
41 when I sharpen my flashing sword
    and begin to carry out justice,
I will take revenge on my enemies
    and repay those who reject me. – Deuteronomy 32:39-41 NLT

36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. – John 3:36 ESV

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. – Romans 1:18 ESV

The wrath of God seems to be a forbidden topic among many Christians. We’re almost embarrassed to bring it up in polite conversation. We treat it as if it’s some kind of flaw in the character of God that no one wants to admit or talk about. Like that drinking problem that your favorite uncle has struggled with for years. Everybody knows about it, but it’s just easier to treat it as if it doesn’t exist.

But it’s difficult to ignore the wrath of God. It’s an unpleasant yet unavoidable reality that shows up throughout the Scriptures. And it’s can’t be relegated to the pages of the Old Testament.  Many believe that the God described in the gospels is far more loving, gracious, and kind than the God who commanded Abraham to sacrifice His Son, told the Israelites to massacre entire communities, and decreed the stoning of rebellious sons . And yet, Jesus Himself said, “anyone who believes in God’s Son has eternal life. Anyone who doesn’t obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remains under God’s angry judgment” (John 3:36 NLT).

The prophet Nahum provided a stark warning regarding the pagan people of Nineveh:

The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. – Nahum 1:2 ESV

Ezekiel delivered God’s warning regarding the Philistines, the enemies of Israel:

“I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful rebukes. Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I lay my vengeance upon them.” – Ezekiel 25:17 ESV

Isaiah prophesied of a future day when God’s wrath would come on all mankind:

Look! The Lord is coming from heaven to punish the people of the earth for their sins. – Isaiah 26:21 ESV

And if you fast-forward all the way to the end of the final book of the Canon of Scripture, you find the wrath of God revealed yet again.

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. – Revelation 19:11-16 ESV

So, what are we supposed to do with this uncomfortable aspect of God’s nature? Do we simply ignore it, rationalize it away, or reject it out of hand? A. W. Pink provides us with a powerful response to those questions.

It is sad to find so many professing Christians who appear to regard the wrath of God as something for which they need to make an apology, or at least they wish there were no such thing. While some would not go so far as to openly admit that they consider it a blemish on the Divine character, yet they are far from regarding it with delight; they like not to think about it, and they rarely hear it mentioned without a secret resentment rising up in their hearts against it. Even with those who are more sober in their judgment, not a few seem to imagine that there is a severity about the Divine wrath which is too terrifying to form a theme for profitable contemplation. Others harbor the delusion that God’s wrath is not consistent with His goodness, and so seek to banish it from their thoughts.

Yes, many there are who turn away from a vision of God’s wrath as though they were called to look upon some blotch in the Divine character, or some blot upon the Divine government. But what saith the Scriptures? As we turn to them we find that God has made no attempt to conceal the fact of His wrath. He is not ashamed to make it known that vengeance and fury belong unto Him. – A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God

At some point, we have to ask the question: What is the source of God’s anger or wrath? We inherently know that God does not have an anger “problem.” He’s not an angry individual who lacks self-control and is unable to manage His emotions. It is far too easy to view God through a lens that is heavily distorted by our own human flaws and frailties. We struggle with anger, so we assume that God’s anger manifests itself in the same way. In our minds, anger is a liability, not an asset. It is negative, not positive. But because we are talking about the holy, righteous, perfectly sinless God of the universe, we can’t attribute His anger to some flaw in His character. His anger, like every other one of His character qualities, is fully justified and holy.

So, why would anger be an attribute of God? It is because He is holy. The apostle John wrote, “God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all” (1 John 1:5 NLT). Darkness is a metaphor for evil or wickedness. It stands in stark contrast to the “light” or righteousness of God. That’s why Paul wrote, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18 ESV). What truth? The truth of God’s existence as revealed in His creation.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 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. – Romans 1:19-20 ESV

But Paul goes on to point out that, despite God’s revelation of Himself in creation, mankind “became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21 ESV). And “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25 ESV). As a result, God’s wrath was revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

But what is the nature of God’s wrath? Is it some kind of out-of-control, vengeance-laced tirade against those who don’t agree with Him? Is God some petty tyrant who uses His power to punish those who refuse to do what He wants? To understand God’s wrath, we have to see things from His perspective, not ours. Again, A. W. Pink provides some helpful insights into this matter.

The wrath of God is His eternal detestation of all unrighteousness. It is the displeasure and indignation of Divine equity against evil. It is the holiness of God stirred into activity against sin. It is the moving cause of that just sentence which He passes upon evil-doers. God is angry against sin because it is a rebelling against His authority, a wrong done to His inviolable sovereignty. Insurrectionists against God’s government shall be made to know that God is the Lord. They shall be made to feel how great that Majesty is which they despise, and how dreadful is that threatened wrath which they so little regarded. Not that God’s anger is a malignant and malicious retaliation, inflicting injury for the sake of it, or in return for injury received. No; while God will vindicate His dominion as Governor of the universe, He will not be vindictive. – A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God

To add further clarity to this topic, J. I. Packer gives us a much-needed word study on the meaning behind “wrath” and “anger.”

“Wrath” is an old English word defined in my dictionary as “deep, intense anger and indignation.” “Anger” is defined as “stirring of resentful displeasure and strong antagonism, by a sense of injury or insult;” “indignation” as “righteous anger aroused by injustice and baseness.” Such is wrath. And wrath, the Bible tells us, is an attribute of God. – J. I. Packer, Knowing God

A sense of injury or insult. About what? Deep, intense anger and indignation. Against what? Against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Or to put it in more simplistic terms, against sin. Sin is an affront to a holy, righteous God. Mankind was created by God. Mankind exists because of God. And when men reject Him as their God or rebel against His divine sovereignty as their creator, provider, and sustainer, God is rightfully offended.

Robert L. Deffinbaugh describes divine wrath as “God’s righteous anger and punishment, provoked by sin.” It is never arbitrary or unwarranted. God’s wrath is never unjustified or undeserved.

The wrath of God is His eternal detestation of all unrighteousness. It is the displeasure and indignation of divine equity against evil. It is the holiness of God stirred into activity against sin. It is the moving cause of that just sentence which he passes upon evildoers. God is angry against sin because it is a rebelling against His authority, a wrong done to His inviolable sovereignty. – A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God

The God of the universe is the ultimate master of the domain which He created and over which He rules. And He will vindicate His sovereign rule, but He will never do so vindictively.

One of the things we overlook when discussing the wrath of God is how it demonstrates God’s hatred for sin. We tend to tolerate sin and view it as little more than a flaw in the human character. But God sees sin as rebellion. It is a rejection of His Word, His ways, and His divine will for mankind. That is why Paul describes it as ungodliness and unrighteousness. Sin is ultimately anti-God and anti-righteousness. It is the anthesis of all things having to do with God. It stands in direct opposition to the very essence of God.

Paul paints a bleak picture of man’s rebellious condition, revealing that sin has serious consequences.

…since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. – Romans 1:28-32 ESV

Notice those three simple words in the middle of the preceding paragraph: Haters of God. Ultimately, sin is an expression of hate for the Almighty. And that hatred results in godless actions and attitudes, each of which is a proof of man’s rejection of God. These outward displays are God-directed, but also self-destructive. Sin does irreparable damage to the individual, a family, a community, the nation, and the world. And that is not something a holy God can or will tolerate. But more on this in tomorrow’s post.

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Our Persistently Patient God

8 The Lord is gracious and merciful,
    slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. – Psalm 145:8 ESV

18 The Lord is slow to anger and filled with unfailing love, forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion. But he does not excuse the guilty. He lays the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations. – Numbers 14:18 NLT

9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. 10 But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment. – 2 Peter 3:9-10 NLT

The patience of God. We all desperately depend upon it because, without it, we would be in trouble. Most of us understand the holiness of God and have no trouble recognizing that we are anything but holy. So, we count on God’s longsuffering nature to overlook our many shortcomings. We memorize verses that speak of God’s slowness to get angry. We meditate on those passages that speak of His unfailing love. The doctrines of His mercy and grace become near and dear to us. In fact, Exodus 34:6 combines many of these attributes of God into a single verse.

The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness…

David wrote about these very same characteristics in one of his psalms.

The Lord is merciful and gracious,
    slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always chide,
    nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
    nor repay us according to our iniquities. – Psalm 103:8-10 ESV

The mercy, grace, and patience of God go hand in hand, but they remain separate and distinct qualities or attributes of God. Wayne Grudem provides us with succinct definitions for each of them.

God’s mercy means God’s goodness toward those in misery and distress

God’s grace means God’s goodness toward those who deserve only punishment

God’s patience means God’s goodness in withholding of punishment toward those who sin over a period of time – Wayne Gruden, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine

All three are expressions of God’s inherent goodness. We know He is good because He is merciful, gracious, and patient. And we regularly find ourselves the undeserving recipients of His mercy, grace, and patience. Yet of these three, His patience is the one we tend to take for granted the most. Notice Gruden’s definition. He specifically states that Go’s patience is His withholding of well-deserved punishment from those who have sinned repeatedly and regularly. Their activity warrants God’s judgment but instead, He responds in patience.

The apostle Paul describes this as God’s forbearance. In chapter 3 of Roman, Paul writes about “Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins” (Romans 3:24-25 ESV). The Greek word Paul used is anochē and it can also be translated as self-restraint or tolerance. It involves a wilful action on God’s part to acknowledge the sins of men while choosing to withhold His divine judgment for a time. It does not mean that God “overlooks” or “excuses” our sin. To do so would be out of character for God. It would go against His very nature. But as Paul states, God was willing to put on hold His condemnation of man’s sin because He knew He was sending His Son as the propitiation or means of providing a satisfactory solution for the problem.

God could have punished all mankind and been totally just in doing so. As Paul states, “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23 NLT), and God, as the righteous judge of the universe, would have been right and just for pronouncing and carrying out judgment upon all humanity. But He showed patience instead. He postponed the inevitable because He was about to do the unimaginable.

God was going to send His own Son as the payment for mankind’s sin debt. And that debt was formidable and well-deserved. Paul describes mankind as…

…full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too. – Romans 1:29-33 NLT

Paul goes on to say that this sad description of mankind’s state was universal and all-inclusive.

…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. – Romans 3:23 NLT

All deserved to die, but God was willing to forego the inevitable until the time came when He could send His Son into the world. And God’s timing was perfect.

When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. – Romans 6 NLT

Just one verse later, Paul adds, “God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8 NLT). A lot of time had passed since that day on which God made mankind after His own image to the moment when He sent His Son, in the form of a man, but bearing the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). And with each passing century, God displayed His divine patience, postponing His right to mete out His wrath upon sinful humanity, in order that He might one day display His love through the sacrifice of His own Son.

Paul reminds us that God “did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all” (Romans 8:32 NLT). God’s patience and love are inseparable. God was willing to wait  because He wanted to shower His undeserved love on His creation.

For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. – John 3:16-17 NLT

A. W. Tozer describes God’s patience in this way:

The patience of God is that excellency which causes Him to sustain great injuries without immediately avenging Himself. He has a power of patience as well as a power of justice. – A. W. Tozer, The Attributes of God

God has the power to judge. But He also possesses the power to forego judgment for a season. Because of our sin natures, we can end up using any power we possess as a weapon. The evil in our hearts causes power to go to our heads, resulting in injustice and inequity. We become the judge, jury, and executioner, meting out our brand of vigilante justice rather than choosing to show patience, mercy, and grace. Part of the problem is that we lack the strength to control our own power. Unlike God, we do not possess the self-control that would allow us to replace our need for justice with a desire to show loving patience.

In Matthew’s gospel he records a parable by Jesus designed to illustrate the Kingdom of Heaven.

“Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt.

“But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.” – Matthew 18:23-27 NLT

The servant owed more than he could ever pay, so he begged his master for patience. To his shock and surprise, he received the complete forgiveness of his debt. But the story goes on.

 “But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment.

“His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.” – Matthew 18:28-30 NLT

The king, who possessed great power, showed remarkable patience. The servant, who had been the recipient of the king’s undeserved patience, showed his own sinful heart by having his fellow servant thrown into jail. This man had been more than willing to accept the gracious, merciful, and loving gift of the king’s patience and forgiveness. But he was unwilling to pass on the goodness of his master to his fellow servant.

We must never undervalue or overlook the patience of God. It is on display all around us. We are daily the recipients of it. A. W. Tozer reminds us to consider the wonderful reality of the patience of God.

How wondrous is God’s patience with the world today. On every side people are sinning with a high hand. The divine law is trampled underfoot and God Himself openly despised. It is truly amazing that He does not instantly strike dead those who so brazenly defy Him. Why does He not suddenly cut off the haughty infidel and blatant blasphemer, as He did Ananias and Sapphira? Why does He not cause the earth to open its mouth and devour the persecutors of His people, so that, like Dathan and Abiram, they shall go down alive into the Pit? And what of apostate Christendom, where every possible form of sin is now tolerated and practiced under cover of the holy name of Christ? Why does not the righteous wrath of Heaven make an end of such abominations? Only one answer is possible: because God bears with “ much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.” – A. W. Tozer, The Attributes of God

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Our Amazingly Gracious God

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. – Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV

9 My grace is all you need. – 2 Corinthians 12:9 NLT

6 “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin…” – Exodus 34:6-7 ESV

11 For the grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people. – Titus 2:11 NLT

Marvelous grace of our loving Lord,
grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt,
yonder on Calvary's mount outpoured,
there where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.

Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace,
freely bestowed on all who believe:
you that are longing to see his face,
will you this moment his grace receive?

Grace, grace, God's grace,
grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
grace, grace, God's grace,
grace that is greater than all our sin.

The grace of God. We’ve all heard of it and have probably sung songs it. But what exactly is it? Tony Evans describes God’s grace as “His inexhaustible supply of goodness by which He does for us what we could never do for ourselves” (Tony Evans, Theology You Can Count On). A much older, but no less accurate definition comes from the pen of Abraham Booth: “It is the eternal and absolute free favor of God, manifested in the vouchsafement [favor] of spiritual and eternal blessings to the guilty and the unworthy” (Abraham Booth, The Reign of Grace, 1793).

Grace is a gift of God that flows from the very character of God. God is gracious and grace is available from Him because of who He is, not because of anything we have done. His grace is unmerited, unearned, and completely undeserved. No one can ever say to God: “You owe me this!” 

A. W. Tozer puts it this way: “Divine grace is the sovereign and saving favor of God exercised in the bestowment of blessings upon those who have no merit in them and for which no compensation is demanded from them” (A. W. Tozer, The Attributes of God). And the apostle Paul clearly understood the amazing nature of God’s grace.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God… – Ephesians 2:8 ESV

God’s grace is closely tied to His love. It is because of love that He extends His grace. In fact, it was Peter who said, “we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 15:11 NLT). And the apostle Paul expands on that thought by adding that we “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:24 ESV). A. W. Tozer provides us with further insight into the one-sided nature of God’s grace. It flows in one direction, from our gracious God to a world of undeserving sinners.

…it is the favor of God shown to those who not only have no positive deserts of their own, but who are thoroughly ill-deserving and hell-deserving. It is completely unmerited and unsought, and is altogether unattracted by anything in or from or by the objects upon which it is bestowed. Grace can neither be bought, earned, nor won by the creature… – A. W. Tozer, The Attributes of God

All of this seems to run counter to our human understanding of how things should work. We have been raised to believe that you don’t get something for nothing. There is no such thing as a free lunch. You only get what you deserve or what you have legitimately earned. And while modern society seems to have run amuck with the idea of entitlement, we all seem to know that earning and effort go hand in hand.

But not with God. God owes us nothing. He is beholden to no one. The apostle Paul, quoting from the book of Isaiah, asks the rhetorical question: “who has given a gift to him [God] that he might be repaid?” (Romans 11:35 ESV). Then Paul adds that the flow of God’s grace is one-directional. “For from him and through him and to him are all things” (Romans 11:36 ESV). 

One of the things we have to understand is that the goodness of God is only accessible to fallen mankind through the grace of God. Romans 3:23 reminds us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And Romans 6:23 provides us with the non-negotiable consequences of man’s sin: “the wages of sin is death.”

God’s justice and righteousness require that He condemn and pronounce judgment against all sin. He cannot leave sin unpunished and still remain holy and just. But in His divine wisdom, God chose to provide undeserving men and women a means by which they could be made right (justified) with Him.

God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. – Romans 5:8 ESV

God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God. – Romans 4:24-25 NLT

Tony Evans writes, “grace means giving a person something he doesn’t deserve” (Tony Evans, Theology You Can Count On). Because of sin, all men deserve death. But grace is God giving men the opportunity to experience forgiveness for their sins and eternal life in place of death and eternal separation from Him. And this amazing grace is available only through faith in God’s Son. As the prophet Isaiah foretold:

…he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. – Isaiah 53:5 NLT

As the old hymn so clearly points out:

Jesus paid it all,
All to him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow – Elvina M. Hall, 1865

Without the grace of God, every man and woman who has ever lived would stand before God as “a sinner condemned, unclean.” And yet, in 1905, Charles H. Gabriel penned the words to the hymn, My Savior’s Love, providing us with a timeless reminder of just how amazing God’s grace really is.

I stand amazed in the presence
of Jesus, the Nazarene,
and wonder how he could love me,
a sinner, condemned, unclean.

How marvelous, how wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
How marvelous, how wonderful
is my Savior’s love for me!

But God’s grace extends beyond the point of our salvation. It shows up in the everyday affairs of life, providing God’s children with the power to live the life He has called them to live. Each day, we must rely on His undeserved grace in order to experience the joy, contentment, peace, and power He has promised. At no point are we to fall back on our own strength or to live as though our spiritual growth is somehow up to us. Our salvation was based on grace. So is our sanctification. We cannot grow to be more like Christ through self-effort. In fact, it requires death to self. It demands that we give up any hope of transforming our lives by our own power.  We cannot earn God’s favor. We cannot score brownie points with God. But we can rest in His amazing grace and rely upon the power of His indwelling Spirit.

The author of Hebrews would have us remember that grace is a gift from God. And if we want to enjoy it, we must always go to the source of it.

So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. – Hebrews 4:16 NLT

And James would add that humility is a non-negotiable prerequisite for those who desire to experience the ongoing gift of God’s grace.

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. – James 4:6 NLT

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Our Relentlessly Loving God

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. – 1 John 4:7-8 ESV

9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. – 1 John 4:9 NLT

3 “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love.
    With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.” – Jeremiah 31:3 NLT

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints' and angels' song – Frederick M. Lehman, The Love of God, 1917

God doesn’t just express love, He is love. It is His very nature. Love is not some feeling or outward expression that he conjures up in response to something or someone that is lovely or loveable. No, what sets God apart from humanity is His lovingness (if that is even a word).

God is the very definition of love. And all His other attributes are infused and closely intertwined with His love. His power is always displayed in love. And His love never lacks the strength or energy to express itself. God’s holiness is directly linked to His love. Without love, His holiness or set-apartness could make God unapproachable and unknowable. But because God is love, He has made Himself available to and knowable by mankind.

For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, because they are understood through what has been made. So people are without excuse… – Romans 1:20 NLT

Luke supports Paul’s conclusion when he writes that God “did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17 ESV). And he goes on to describe how God, the all-powerful creator of the universe, has lovingly and graciously made Himself known to mankind.

From one man He made every nation of men, to inhabit the whole earth; and He determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands.

God intended that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. – Acts 17:26-27 BSB

God desires that men might know Him. Why? Because it is through a knowledge of God that men recognize His love for them. It is the love of this all-powerful, holy, and transcendent God that caused Him to send His Son as the payment for mankind’s sin.

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

Jesus, the Son of God, was the greatest expression of His Father’s love, having taken on human flesh and come to earth that He might be Immanuel – God with us.

No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us. – John 1:18 NLT

Jesus even made the bold claim, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father!” (John 14:9 NLT). God’s love was manifested or made visible through the birth, death, and resurrection of His Son.

God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. – Ephesians 1:4 NLT

Love is invisible to the human eye, but that doesn’t mean it is unperceivable. And while God Himself cannot be seen, His love can be experienced and appreciated. It can be felt, enjoyed, relished, and returned. When we understand just how much God loves us, it creates in us a desire to love Him in return.

This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. – 1 John 4:10 NLT

And it is when we understand that the God of the universe loves us that we are able to express love to the rest of humanity, whom He has made.

We love each other because he loved us first. – 1 John 4:19 ESV

But our love will always pale in comparison to that of God. His love is infinite and holy, while ours is limited and marred by selfishness and self-centeredness. We tend to love, expecting love in return. Ours is a conditional kind of love, while His is unconditional, demanding nothing from us in return.

No tongue can fully express the infinitude of God’s love, or any mind comprehend it: it “passeth knowledge” (Eph 3:19). The most extensive ideas that a finite mind can frame about divine love, are infinitely below its true nature. The heaven is not so far above the earth as the goodness of God is beyond the most raised conceptions which we are able to form of it. It is an ocean which swells higher than all the mountains of opposition in such as are the objects of it. It is a fountain from which flows all necessary good to all those who are interested in it. – John Brine, 1743

What makes God’s love so remarkable is that He showered it on us in spite of us. He didn’t demand that we get our spiritual act together. He didn’t require that we stop sinning and start living righteous lives before He would love us. No, according to the apostle Paul, God loved us while we were mired in the midst of our sinfulness and rebellion against Him.

When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. – Romans 5:6-8 NLT

We have a difficult time relating to that kind of love because we tend to love the lovely and loveable. We put conditions on our love. And we demand that those we love show us love in return. But, fortunately for mankind, that is not how God operates. God’s love is a purely holy love. “God’s love is not regulated by caprice, passion, or sentiment, but by principle. Just as His grace reigns not at the expense of it, but “through righteousness” (Rom 5:21), so His love never conflicts with His holiness” (A. W. Tozer, The Attributes of God).

God’s love is always sacrificial and constantly beneficial. And while it may sometimes take the form of tough love, it always results in our good. As the proverbs states, “the LORD corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights” (Proverbs 3:12 NLT). His love is never smothering or manipulative. It is not a controlling kind of love. At no time does God preface His love with the thought, “What am I going to get out of this?”

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul lists the qualities associated with godly love. “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NLT).

That is the love of God spelled out in terms we can understand and even emulate. But unlike God, we are incapable of expressing this kind of love perfectly and selflessly this side of heaven.  Yet, as we grow to understand the incredible nature of His divine love for us, we can better appreciate how undeserving we are and turn that unmerited affection into tangible expressions of love for others.

God loves you. How much? He sent His Son to die for you. And there are not enough words in the human vocabulary or days on the calendar to fully describe just how great His love truly is. Frederick M. Lehman put it so eloquently in his great old hymn, The Love of God.

Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies of parchment made
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade

To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Our Amazing Merciful God

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness. – Lamentations 3:22-24 ESV

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Chris – Ephesians 2:-45 ESV

15 But you, O Lord,
    are a God of compassion and mercy,
slow to get angry
    and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. – Psalm 86:15 NLT

19 The Lord replied, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will call out my name, Yahweh, before you. For I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose. – Exodus 33:19 NLT

The mercy of God. To adequately understand this remarkable attribute of God, one must also dive into the depths of His goodness. Notice the Exodus passage above. Moses had just made a rather bold request of God: “show me your glorious presence” (Exodus 33:18 NLT). And in response, God said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you” (Exodus 33:19 NLT). The Hebrew word translated as “goodness” is tuwb, and it can refer to “that which is good, or the best of anything” (Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon). God’s goodness and mercy go hand in hand. It was David who wrote of God, describing Him as the Great Shepherd. And David reveled in the inseparable and indispensable nature of God’s goodness and mercy.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. – Psalm 23:6 ESV

According to Thomas Watson, “Mercy is the result and effect of God's goodness.” Without the inherent goodness of God, mercy would be unavailable to us. But the psalmist displayed his understanding of and appreciation for the goodness of God when he wrote, “You are good and do only good” (Psalm 119:68 NLT). God’s goodness shows up in the form of mercy.

Think back on that somewhat arrogant request Moses made of God. He asked to see God’s glory. In other words, He wanted to see God face to face. He had heard the voice of God, but now he wanted to see Him. But notice what God said to Moses:

“…you may not look directly at my face, for no one may see me and live.” The Lord continued, “Look, stand near me on this rock. As my glorious presence passes by, I will hide you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and let you see me from behind. But my face will not be seen.” – Exodus 33:20-23 NLT

God was going to allow Moses the unique privilege of seeing His glory and goodness, but to do so, God would have to be merciful. The glory of God is so great that one glimpse of His face would have destroyed Moses. Sinful men cannot stand in the presence of a holy God and live to talk about it. .So, when God appeared before Moses that day, He allowed His servant to see His glory and goodness but only by displaying His mercy at the same time.

Moses was undeserving of the privilege of seeing God’s glory. Yes, he was the servant of God, but he was also a man stained by the presence of sin. And he was ignorant of the magnitude of his request. He had no idea what he was asking. But God did. And in His goodness, God showed Moses mercy. In fact, God clearly stated, “I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose” (Exodus 33:19 NLT). And He explained to Moses just how He would do so. “I will hide you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by” (Exodus 33:22 NLT). God promised to protect a sinful man from the unavoidable outcome of standing in the glorious presence of unblemished, fully righteous holiness.   

There was another man who was provided the privilege of seeing God in all His glory. It was the prophet Isaiah who was given a glimpse into the throne room of God. And immediately after that experience, rather than boasting about his good fortune, Isaiah displayed an abject sense of fear.

“It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.” – Isaiah 6:5 NLT

The mercy of God is not to be taken lightly. That the all-glorious God would deem to show mercy and kindness to undeserving humanity should blow us away. It should leave us stunned. And yet, far too many of us treat God’s mercy with an attitude of flippancy and over-familiarity. We have somehow convinced ourselves that we deserve God’s mercy. But nothing could be farther from the truth.

It is not the wretchedness of the creature which causes Him to show mercy, for God is not influenced by things outside of Himself as we are. If God were influenced by the abject misery of leprous sinners, He would cleanse and save all of them. But He does not. Why? Simply because it is not His pleasure and purpose so to do. Still less is it the merits of the creatures which causes Him to bestow mercies upon them, for it is a contradiction in terms to speak of meriting “mercy.” – A. W. Tozer, The Attributes of God

Mercy is not something we earn. It is not dispensed by God based on the merit or worthiness of the recipient. It is solely the divine prerogative of God to show mercy upon whomever He chooses to do so. Moses did not deserve to see God’s glory. No, he deserved to come under God’s judgment. He was a sinner, condemned, and unclean, just like all the other Israelites.

It reminds me of the lyrics from the old hymn: I Stand Amazed.

I stand amazed in the presence
Of Jesus the Nazarene
And wonder how He could love me
A sinner, condemned, unclean

The mercy of God should leave us in a state of awe and amazement. Which brings to mind the lyrics of another, even more familiar hymn.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see

What makes God’s mercy so amazing is that He displays it in spite of man’s sinfulness. The apostle Paul reminds us that God displayed His love for us by sending His Son to die for us. We didn’t deserve it. We had done nothing to earn it.

But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. – Romans 5:8 NLT

God didn’t have to show mercy, but He did. And what makes this fact so difficult to comprehend and even harder to appreciate is that He did so in the face of mankind’s rebellion against Him. The apostle Paul describes just how bad things were when God made the decision to extend mercy.

“No one is righteous—
    not even one.
No one is truly wise;
    no one is seeking God.
All have turned away;
    all have become useless.
No one does good,
    not a single one.”
“Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave.
    Their tongues are filled with lies.”
“Snake venom drips from their lips.”
   “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
“They rush to commit murder.
   Destruction and misery always follow them.
They don’t know where to find peace.”
   “They have no fear of God at all.”  – Romans 3:10-18 NLT

All men deserve to experience God’s righteous wrath, the outpouring of His just judgment for their rejection of Him. Paul goes on to say, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard” (Romans 3:23 NLT). But then he adds that unbelievable addendum. “Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins” (Romans 3:24 NLT).

God showed mercy, and mercy is the withholding of a just condemnation. All have sinned. All have rejected and rebelled against God. And all deserve to experience the wrath of God. But “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 4:4-5 ESV). Paul expanded on this amazing news when he wrote to his young protége, Titus.

…he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. – Titus 3:5 NLT

Our God is amazingly merciful. And His mercies are new every morning. But how easy it is for us to take His mercy for granted or to view His mercy as somehow deserved. But the Puritan writer, Thomas Watson, would have us remember:

God's mercy is free. To set up merit is to destroy mercy. Nothing can deserve mercy, because we are polluted in our blood; nor force it. We may force God to punish us, but not to love us. I will love them freely.' Hos 14:4. Every link in the chain of salvation is wrought and interwoven with free grace. Election is free. He has chosen us in him, according to the good pleasure of his will.' Eph 1:1. Justification is free. Being justified freely by his grace.' Rom 3:34. Salvation is free. According to his mercy he saved us.' Titus 3:3. Say not then, I am unworthy; for mercy is free. If God should show mercy to such only as are worthy, he would show none at all.

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Our Good God

19 “No one is good except God alone.” – Luke 18:19 ESV

5 For the Lord is good.
    His unfailing love continues forever,
    and his faithfulness continues to each generation. – Psalm 100:5 NLT

68 You are good and do only good;
    teach me your decrees. – Psalm 119:68 NLT

6 Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the LORD forever. – Psalm 23:6 LT

The goodness of God. It’s not a topic most of us find familiar or easy to describe. But it is an essential aspect of God’s character that we tend to give less attention to because of His more impressive-sounding attributes like omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. In our English vernacular, the word “good” sounds a bit underachieving – as in “good, better, best.” Good sounds like you’re settling for less than the ideal.

But when the psalmist chose to describe God as “good,” he used the Hebrew word towb. Like many other Hebrew words, this one is rich in meaning. It can refer to something that is excellent or the best of the best. It was commonly used to refer to the moral excellence of a person or thing. And it was often used as an antonym for evil (ra'). God is totally and completely good, having no semblance of evil in His character. John described Him this way: “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5 ESV).

So, the statement “God is good” speaks of His moral excellence and His complete lack of evil. He is fully righteous, holy, and just in all His ways. Or as David put it, “The LORD is righteous in everything he does; he is filled with kindness” (Psalm 145:17 NLT). To say that God is good means that God always acts in accordance with what is right, true, and good.

God’s way is perfect.
    All the Lord’s promises prove true. – Psalm 18:30 NLT

Everything about God is good. All of His actions are motivated and empowered by His goodness. Unlike man, God does not have to work at being good. At no time can God be accused of doing anything “bad” and, therefore, He requires no one to demand that He “be good.” We may not like what God does, but as fallen creatures, we have no right to question His motives or methods.

He is originally good, good of Himself, which nothing else is; for all creatures are good only by participation and communication from God. He is essentially good; not only good, but goodness itself: the creature’s good is a super-added quality, in God it is His essence. He is infinitely good; the creature’s good is but a drop, but in God there in an infinite ocean or gathering together of good. He is eternally and immutably good, for He cannot be less good than He is; as there can be no addition made to Him, so no subtraction from Him. – Thomas Manton

God’s inherent goodness is essential to who He is. Consider what it would be like to worship an all-powerful deity who lacked the attribute of goodness. In ancient times, this was exactly the situation in which many pagan nations found themselves. Their gods were powerful, vengeful. They were mighty, but lacking in mercy. They were great, but not good. Power, devoid of goodness, results in despotism.

The power and goodness of God go hand in hand. It is His goodness that allows us to rest in His strength, knowing that He will never use it in a way that is unjust or unrighteous. Again, we may not always like what He does, but knowledge of His goodness provides us with the assurance that His actions are always right and righteous. While we may not understand His ways, we can trust that His goodness permeates all that He does. There is never a moment when God’s actions are tainted by evil. His intentions and conduct are always good, all the time.

To put it simply, evil is the absence of goodness. It is whatever God is not. When we sin, we are acting in opposition to and in rebellion against the expressed will of God. We are willingly choosing to commit wickedness rather than goodness. Which is exactly what Adam and Eve did in the garden.

When God completed each phase of His creation of the universe, He stated, “It is good.” But when He had made man and woman, He “saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31 ESV). Why? Because He “created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27 ESV). They were the apex of His creative order, designed to be suma cum laude, of highest distinction and worth.

And this man and woman enjoyed the goodness of God, as evident in the rest of His creation. They had access to the beauty of the garden. They could satisfy their hunger by eating fruit from any of the trees God had provided (except one). And they could enjoy unbroken fellowship with the one who had made them. But then, sin entered the equation. The evil one tempted them to reject God’s goodness, convincing them that his way was better than God’s. He lied, deceiving them into believing God was holding back on them. He painted God as a cosmic killjoy, withholding from them something they desired and deserved. And to convince Adam and Eve to take the bait, he contradicted the very words of God.   

“You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.” – Genesis 3:4-5 NLT

Don’t miss that last line. He promised them the capacity to know both “good and evil” – towb and ra’. Up until that point, they had enjoyed only the former, the goodness of God as evidenced by His “good” creation. What Satan was promising them was knowledge of the absence of God. They were about to find out what it was like to live in opposition to and separation from God. After having eaten of the forbidden fruit, “the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God” (Genesis 3:8 ESV). And it was just a matter of time before “the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden, he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24-25 ESV).

The goodness of God is the key to life. Sin separates man from God, eliminating access to His presence and resulting in an absence of His goodness. And just a few chapters later in the book of Genesis, we see the sad, but inevitable outcome of a life lived apart from the goodness of God.

The LORD observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. – Genesis 6:5 NLT

But we can’t blame God for man’s sorry state. His goodness is not diminished just because man’s wickedness flourished. A. W. Pink warns us not to describe the presence of evil as a deficiency in God’s goodness.

Nor can the benevolence of God be justly called into question because there is suffering and sorrow in the world. If man sins against the goodness of God, if he despises “the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering,” and after the hardness and impenitence of his heart treasurest up unto himself wrath against the day of wrath (Rom 2:4,5), who is to blame but himself? Would God be “good” if He punished not those who ill-use His blessings, abuse His benevolence, and trample His mercies beneath their feet? It will be no reflection upon God’s goodness, but rather the brightest exemplification of it, when He shall rid the earth of those who have broken His laws, defied His authority, mocked His messengers, scorned His Son, and persecuted those for whom He died. – A. W. Tozer, The Attributes of God

The truly amazing thing about God’s goodness is that He did not choose to abandon mankind altogether. It is His goodness, exhibited by His boundless grace and mercy, that explains our continued existence. We do not deserve to here. We have done nothing to earn His favor or to avoid His righteous anger against our sin and open rebellion to Him. Like Adam and Eve, all of us have chosen to listen to the lies of the enemy and yet, God has “overlooked people’s ignorance about these things, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him” (Acts 17:30 NLT).

The apostle Paul reminds us that God is good, but man is evil.

“None is righteous, no, not one;
   no one understands;
    no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
    no one does good,
    not even one.”
“Their throat is an open grave;
    they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
   “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
   in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.”
   “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” – Romans 3:10-18 NLT

But man’s badness is counterbalanced by God’s goodness. 

…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. – Romans 3:23-26 ESV

God’s goodness included His plan to send His Son as the payment for mankind’s sin. That is why He was able to put up with man’s rebellion for so long. He knew what was coming. His good and gracious sovereign plan had always included the sacrifice of His Son so that mankind might once again experience His goodness. And the proper response to His goodness is gratefulness.

Gratitude is the return justly required from the objects of His beneficence. – A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Our Forever-Faithful God

9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations. – Deuteronomy 7:9 ESV

13 If we are unfaithful,
    he remains faithful,
    for he cannot deny who he is. – 2 Timothy 3:13 NLT

22 The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
    His mercies never cease.
23 Great is his faithfulness;
    his mercies begin afresh each morning. – Lamentations 3:22-23 NLT

Reliable, steadfast, dependable, and trustworthy. Those are just a few of the many words that come to mind when we think of faithfulness. And yet, for many of us, we find it difficult to think of an individual who models faithfulness – faithfully. We all have our moments of faithfulness, but they can tend to be shortlived or interspersed with displays of unexpected and even unintended actions that portray us as untrustworthy and unreliable.

Human beings are flawed creatures who must battle daily with the very real effects of sin. We want to be faithful, but too often we find ourselves lacking the inner resolve to stay true to our word, devoted to our relationships, and consistent in our character.

But then there’s God. He is forever faithful. It is not an optional outcome or outward display of character that God has chosen to manifest. It is the essence of who He is. He is faithful, and he cannot choose to be otherwise. Faithfulness is not an option for God. It exudes from every pore of His being. The psalmist understood the all-encompassing, non-negotiable nature of God’s faithfulness.

O Lord God of hosts,
    who is mighty as you are, O Lord,
    with your faithfulness all around you? – Psalm 89:8 ESV

A. W. Pink described God’s faithfulness as “one of the glorious perfections of His being. He is as it were clothed with it” (A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God). Like all His other attributes, God’s faithfulness is an inner quality that manifests itself in visible, tangible ways. Displays of His faithfulness are all around us.

For the Lord is a great God,
    and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth;
    the heights of the mountains are his also. – Psalm 95:3-4 ESV

Here, the psalmist is emphasizing God’s power, His ability to create and control the universe. But this passage also speaks of God’s faithfulness. Should he ever stop holding the depths of the earth and the heights of the mountains in His hands, the world would cease to exist. God boldly proclaims, “It was my hand that laid the foundations of the earth, my right hand that spread out the heavens above. When I call out the stars, they all appear in order” (Isaiah 48:13 NLT). And He faithfully maintains all that He has made. After God had brought devastation upon the earth through the flood, He promised Noah: “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22 ESV).

Then what do we do with a passage like 2 Peter 3:10? In it, Peter seems to paint a different picture of God’s faithfulness, describing a future day when God will destroy the heavens and the earth with fire.

But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment.

This raises another aspect of God’s faithfulness. He is true to His word. What always does what He says He will do. When God makes a promise, He keeps it. He never fails to follow through with His commitments. His faithfulness extends to the very words that come from His lips.

God is not a man, so he does not lie.
    He is not human, so he does not change his mind.
Has he ever spoken and failed to act?
    Has he ever promised and not carried it through? – Numbers 23:19 NLT

According to the author of Hebrews, “God has said, ‘I will never fail you. I will never abandon you’’” (Hebrews 13:5 NLT). And he didn’t dream up this reassuring aspect of God’s faithfulness. Centuries earlier, Moses had told the people of Israel: “the LORD your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you” (Deuteronomy 31:6 NLT). Years later, God would assure Joshua, “I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will not fail you or abandon you” (Joshua 1:5 NLT). And God was good for His word. He did what He said He would do.

But God’s faithfulness to keep His word also includes His warnings of judgment for sin and discipline for disobedience.

“I, the LORD, will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their sin. I will crush the arrogance of the proud and humble the pride of the mighty.” – Isaiah 48:13 NLT

“I correct and discipline everyone I love.” – Revelation 3:19 NLT

God is faithful, even when it comes to fulfilling His promises and following through with His warnings. He does not make idle threats. To do so would make Him a liar. To fail to keep His promises would make Him unreliable and unworthy of adoration and praise. Unfaithfulness would render God unholy. An unreliable, untrustworthy God would be no God at all. But our God is fully and completely faithful – all the time.

Everything about God is great, vast, incomparable. He never forgets, never fails, never falters, never forfeits His word. To every declaration of promise or prophecy the Lord has exactly adhered, every engagement of covenant or threatening He will make good… – A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God

Faithfulness requires consistency and constancy. To be truly faithful requires an absence of fickleness or capriciousness. Humans have difficulty remaining faithful because they are easily distracted and find their commitments blown about like leaves in the wind. Lack of follow-through, unreliability, and broken promises plague mankind. Trust is in short supply because trustworthy people seem to be few and far between.

But God can always be relied upon. He is constantly consistent in every way. He is always loving, always just, always righteous, always holy, and always faithful. No one who has ever placed their trust in God has been let down or disappointed with the results. That doesn’t mean to say they always liked the results they got. David trusted God’s promise that he would be the next king of Israel, but then he spent the next years of his life living like a fugitive, trying to escape King Saul’s relentless pursuit. When God commanded Moses to lead the people of Israel out of captivity in Egypt and into the land of promise, he believed and obeyed. And yet, Moses never set foot in the land of Canaan.

God’s faithfulness is not intended to be a warm and fuzzy, feel-good attribute that assures us that life will be problem-free and happiness-filled. The doctrine of God’s faithfulness is meant to preserve us in those moments when all looks lost and He seems distant. There will be times when the presence of God is difficult to comprehend. It will appear as if He has vacated the premises. It will feel as if He has abandoned us. 

There are seasons in the lives of all when it is not easy, no not even for Christians, to believe that God is faithful. Our faith is sorely tried, our eyes be dimmed with tears, and we can no longer trace the outworkings of His love. Our ears are distracted with the noises of the world, harassed by the atheistic whisperings of Satan, and we can no longer hear the sweet accents of His still small voice. Cherished plans have been thwarted, friends on whom we relied have failed us, a professed brother or sister in Christ has betrayed us. We are staggered. We sought to be faithful to God, and now a dark cloud hides Him from us. We find it difficult, yea, impossible, for carnal reason to harmonize His frowning providence with His gracious promises. – A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God

But the truth of God’s faithfulness should bolster us during those moments of doubt and fear. He has not left us. He has not forsaken us. His love for us is not diminished. His strength to save has not decreased. His capacity to care for and comfort us in our time of need remains unchanged. And Isaiah would have us keep God’s faithfulness in mind when the darkness surrounds us and doubt begins to overwhelm us.

If you are walking in darkness,
    without a ray of light,
trust in the Lord
    and rely on your God. – Isaiah 50:10 NLT

And God would remind us we are never to judge Him based on our circumstances. It should always be the other way around. The presence of problems is not proof of the absence of God. Our feelings of having been abandoned by God may be real, but they are never true. In those moments, we are operating at a disadvantage. We cannot see what God sees. We do not know what He knows.

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
    “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so my ways are higher than your ways
    and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” – Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV

The apostle Paul reiterates the amazing nature of God’s unsurpassed wisdom so that we might find comfort even in the darkest, most difficult to understand moments of life.

Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! – Romans 11:33 NLT

God is faithful. He is forever faithful. And while we might not understand His ways or like His means, we can trust that God will prove trustworthy and faithful in all His interactions with us.

So if you are suffering in a manner that pleases God, keep on doing what is right, and trust your lives to the God who created you, for he will never fail you. – 1 Peter 4:19 NLT

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Our All-Powerful-All-the-Time God

1 Then Job replied to the Lord:

2 “I know that you can do anything,
    and no one can stop you. ” – Job 42:1-2 NLT

6 The Lord merely spoke,
    and the heavens were created.
He breathed the word,
    and all the stars were born.
7 He assigned the sea its boundaries
    and locked the oceans in vast reservoirs.
8 Let the whole world fear the Lord,
    and let everyone stand in awe of him.
9 For when he spoke, the world began!
    It appeared at his command. – Psalm 33:6-9 NLT

36 And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” – Luke 1:36-37 ESV

When we, as humans, attempt to discuss the power of God, we are at a distinct disadvantage. We are finite creatures who are well acquainted with personal limitations. It is impossible for us to consider something being all-anything. That little three-letter word “all” conveys the idea of wholeness or completeness. And while we might say that a glass or bowl is all full, we know that it will not remain full permanently. Upon completion of a task, we might proclaim, “All done.” But we will do so knowing that the finished task will likely need to be repeated at some point.

Someone who claims to be all-in regarding a project or endeavor will likely have his commitment tested somewhere along the way. His assurance of whole-hearted engagement will likely waver, given enough time or the lack of his expectations being met.

We live in a world full of limitations. No one is truly all-knowing. They may know a lot, but there will always be more to know. Someone may appear to have “all the money in the world,” but logic precludes the veracity of that statement. No one can literally have all the money. And while someone might wield a great deal of power, there is no one who is truly all-powerful. Even the world’s most powerful people experience limitations to that power. And the sad reality of life is that no one can ever seem to get enough power. And the same can be said of fame, money, or time.

Which brings us back to our all-powerful-all-the-time God. Theologians refer to this as God’s omnipotence. The word omnipotent comes from omni- meaning “all” and potent meaning “power.” And when used of God’s power, that word “all” is meant to convey the complete and wholly undiminished nature of that power. His power is without limits. It never diminishes in intensity. God does not grow tired. In fact, the psalmist states, “he who watches over Israel never slumbers or sleeps” (Psalm 121:4 NLT).

God isn’t just more powerful, extremely powerful, or simply powerful. He is all-powerful.

The power of God is that ability and strength whereby He can bring to pass whatsoever He pleases, whatsoever His infinite wisdom may direct, and whatsoever the infinite purity of His will may resolve...  – Stephen Charnock, Discourses Upon the Existence and Attributes of God, Volumes 1-2

Notice what Charnock says. God can bring to pass whatever He pleases. God’s power is directly tied to His will. Unlike man, God’s will is never a case of wishful thinking. There is never a case when God desires something, but finds Himself lacking the power to make it happen. God has never had to say, “If I only I could….” He has never had to sit back and watch His will go unfulfilled because of a lack of strength.

A. W. Pink states, “He who cannot do what he will and perform all his pleasure cannot be God. As God hath a will to resolve what He deems good, so has He power to execute His will” (A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God). This is essential if we are to understand and fully appreciate the transcendent nature of God. He is not a slightly improved version of man. He is not a human on steroids, but He is the infinite Almighty God who spoke the universe into existence.

And God’s power was not acquired, developed over time, and is not running out. C. H. Spurgeon put it this way: “God’s power is like Himself, self-existent, self-sustained. The mightiest of men cannot add so much as a shadow of increased power to the Omnipotent One.” The greatest earthly examples of power we can think of are all limited. Niagara Falls, while impressive, is not self-existent or self-sustaining. It has a source, or it would not exist. And it will one day cease to exist. Simply divert the headwater that provides the source of its power, and the falls will become nothing more than exposed rocks and a dry river bed.

But because God’s power is self-existent, it cannot be diminished or diverted in any way. His power is unmatched in its intensity and irrepressible in its intent.

All the people of the earth are nothing compared to him. He does as he pleases among the angels of heaven and among the people of the earth. No one can stop him or say to him, “What do you mean by doing these things?” – Daniel 4:35 NLT

The LORD does whatever pleases him throughout all heaven and earth… – Psalm 135:5 NLT

It was Job who confessed to God, “I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you” (Job 42:2 NLT). And Job argued with his well-meaning, but misinformed friends, “who can turn him back? Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’” (Job 9:12 ESV).

It was Lord Acton who wrote the oft-quoted line, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” But that truism does not apply to God. Because He is holy, just, and righteous in all He does, God’s power cannot be corrupted – even though it is absolute. God is deity, not humanity. He is nothing like us, and cannot be measured according to our standards or evaluated based on our limited and sin-influenced perspective.

God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through? – Numbers 23:19 NLT

God’s undiminished and non-constrainable power always accomplishes what He intends. God, Himself stated, “My word that proceeds from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please, and it will prosper where I send it” (Isaiah 55:11 BSB).

While we may not fully comprehend or appreciate the extent of God’s power, we all relish the idea that it might be at our disposal when needed. We love the thought of the all-powerful God putting all that power at our beck and call. But God’s power, while accessible by us, is not answerable to us. He is not our cosmic Genie-in-a-bottle or personal valet. God’s power exists to accomplish God’s will, not ours. And A. W. Pink would have us maintain a delicate balance when it comes to our reaction to and relationship with God’s power.

Well may all tremble before such a God! To treat with impudence One who can crush us more easily than we can a moth, is a suicidal policy. To openly defy Him who is clothed with omnipotence, who can rend us in pieces or cast us into Hell any moment He pleases, is the very height of insanity.

Well may the enlightened soul adore such a God! The wondrous and infinite perfections of such a Being call for fervent worship. If men of might and renown claim the admiration of the world, how much more should the power of the Almighty fill us with wonderment and homage. – A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Our Wholly Holy God

4 Who will not fear, O Lord,
    and glorify your name?
For you alone are holy. – Revelation 15:4 ESV

11 “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?
    Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
    awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?” – Exodus 15:11 ESV

13 You who are of purer eyes than to see evil
    and cannot look at wrong… – Habakuk 1:13 ESV

God is holy. In fact, the seraphim who surround God’s throne describe Him as holy, holy, holy. The prophet Isaiah was given a glimpse of that heavenly scene and he provides us with a vivid description of what he saw.

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!” – Isaiah 6:1-3 ESV

The apostle John was also given an opportunity to peek behind the heavenly curtain and see the throne room of God. And his description is very similar to that of Isaiah.

And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
    who was and is and is to come!” – Revelation 4:8 ESV

These heavenly creatures weren’t content using one “holy” to describe God. They made sure to use the word three times and to do so without ceasing, day and night. This three-fold repetition is called a trihagion, and it was a common literary and linguistic tool used by the Hebrews to provide emphasis and force to a statement. It was like saying, “God is super holy.” Or “He is holier than holy.”

But what does it mean to say that God is holy? We’re familiar with the word, but do we fully understand the significance of what it says about God? In some ways, the word holy has become overly familiar to us. And yet, biblically, holiness is considered one of the primary and self-defining attributes of God. Tony Evans defines God’s holiness as “His intrinsic and transcendent purity; His standard of righteousness to which the whole universe must conform” (Tony Evans, Theology You Can Count On).

The Hebrew word that is used most often to describe God's holy nature is qodesh. It means “set-apartness” or “separateness.” God is unique and without equal. But it’s not just that God is one-of-a-kind. As Tony Evans points out, God’s holiness is tied to His purity. So, it’s not enough to say that God is different. What makes Him different is that He is holy – thoroughly righteous, without sin, and intrinsically pure in every way. He is The Holy One. As A. W. Pink puts it, “He is so because the sum of all moral excellency is found in Him. He is absolute Purity, unsullied even by the shadow of sin” (A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God).

But there is more to God’s holiness than His moral perfection. When the seraphim shout “holy, holy, holy” they are declaring far more than just His sinlessness. And they are not simply stating His separateness. There is no doubt that God stands alone, having no equal and being incapable of duplication or emulation. Man may have been created in God’s image, but that doesn’t make man a god. God remains set-apart and distinctly different from all that He has made. Which means He is transcendent.

When we speak of the transcendence of God, we are talking about that sense in which God is above and beyond us. Transcendence describes His supreme and absolute greatness. The word is used to describe God’s relationship to the world. He is higher than the world. He has absolute power over the world. The world has no power over Him. Transcendence describes God in His consuming majesty, His exalted loftiness. It points to the infinite distance that separates Him from every creature. He is an infinite cut above everything else. – R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God

To consider and treat God as holy is to revere Him for who He is. It is to acknowledge His infinite greatness and incomparable otherness. “God’s holiness unlocks the door to understanding and making sense out of everything else about Him. This attribute infiltrates all the other attributes” (Tony Evans, Theology You Can Count On).

To treat God as holy is to recognize and revere His otherness – His set-apartness. It is to lift up and celebrate His extraordinariness. But if, in our attitudes and actions towards Him, we give the impression that He is ordinary in any way, we profane His character and defame His holy name.

When God consecrated Aaron and his sons to serve as priests before Him, He commanded them “to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean” (Leviticus 10:10 ESV). Later on, God would give a similar command to the Levitical priests: “They shall teach my people the difference between the holy and the common, and show them how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean” (Ezekiel 44:23 ESV). They were to teach the people about what God meant by holiness or set-apartness. The tabernacle was to be considered holy. The sabbath was to treated as holy. They were to be a holy nation. God had set them apart for His service. They belonged to Him. And their lives were to reflect their unique status as His chosen people.

But back to God and His holiness. Unlike the tabernacle or the sabbath, God has not been set apart by someone else. He simply is set apart. He didn’t have to be consecrated, He always has been. God stands completely apart from the rest of the created order. Whether we are talking about angels or atoms, planets or people, there is nothing and no one who compares with God.

That is why it is why considering God as common or ordinary is one of the greatest sins a human can commit. Even worse yet is the audacity to treat God as non-existent. The great King David described the idiocy of discounting the existence of God.

Only fools say in their hearts,
    “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, and their actions are evil;
    not one of them does good!

The Lord looks down from heaven
    on the entire human race;
he looks to see if anyone is truly wise,
    if anyone seeks God.
But no, all have turned away;
    all have become corrupt.
No one does good,
    not a single one! – Psalm 14:1-3 NLT

How stupid can you be? And yet, we all have moments in our lives when we act as if God does not exist. We fail to acknowledge Him. We refuse to turn to Him. Rather than go to Him for strength, help, and hope, we ignore Him, relying on our own power, or placing our trust in someone or something else. God becomes a second- or third-tier option on our list of saviors, just another common and pedestrian source of potential rescue.

During the period of the judges, God got fed up with Israel’s propensity to treat Him as ordinary rather than extraordinary. They had treated Him with disdain, acting as if He was no more set-apart and holy as all the gods of the Canaanites. So, when they found themselves in trouble and called out to Him, He decided to refuse their cries for help.

“Yet you have abandoned me and served other gods. So I will not rescue you anymore. Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen! Let them rescue you in your hour of distress!” – Judges 10;13-14 NLT

If they weren’t willing to treat God as extraordinary and holy, they could seek help from one of their many false gods. Yahweh was not willing to play second fiddle to some pagan deity. And He wasn’t going to allow His people to treat Him as some ordinary, run-of-the-mill God. He was God Almighty, the Holy One.

When Isaiah was given the privilege of seeing the throne room of heaven and catching a glimpse of the seraphim pronouncing the holiness of God, he was awestruck and filled with fear. He was seeing the unimaginable and incomprehensible.  He describes the impact this vision had on him.

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” – Isaiah 6:4-5 ESV

Witnessing the holiness of God was too much for him. In the presence of the all-powerful, perfectly pure God of the universe, Isaiah was immediately struck with his own sin and insignificance. He was nothing when compared to God, the Holy One. In the presence of unblemished purity, Isaiah recognized his own sinful state and his unworthiness to stand before the throne of God. But, amazingly, the Holy God did a wholly unexpected thing.

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” – Isaiah 6:5-7 ESV

The holy and wholly righteous God of the universe graciously atoned for Isaiah ’s sins, setting him apart for His own use. And when God asked, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”, Isaiah responded, “Here I am! Send me” (Isaiah 6:8 ESV). And the Holy One simply said, “Go!”

Understanding God’s holiness is essential to our own usefulness. Until we fall on our knees before Him in awe of His holiness and in recognition of our own sinfulness, we will never be awed by His amazing grace. That the set-apart One would set us apart for His use should leave us stunned and yet stammering the words of Isaiah, “Here I am! Send me.”

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Our Constantly Consistent God

6 “…I the Lord do not change…” – Micah 3:6 ESV

14 God replied to Moses, “I am who I am. Say this to the people of Israel: I am has sent me to you.” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: Yahweh, the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.

This is my eternal name,
    my name to remember for all generations.

16 “Now go and call together all the elders of Israel. Tell them, ‘Yahweh, the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—has appeared to me.” – Exodus 3:14-16 NLT

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

Our God is unchanging. He is consistently constant and constantly consistent in every way. He does not grow older. He cannot increase in intelligence. There is never a time when He is weak or tired. According to the psalmist, “he who watches over Israel never slumbers or sleeps” (Psalm 121:4 NLT).

This is all tied to His eternality, a one-of-a-kind attribute that He alone possesses. His eternality declares that He has always existed and is uncreated. Which means there He has no beginning or end. God has no birth date and, contrary to the opinion of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, God has no death date. James refers to Him as “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17 NLT).

When God spoke to Moses from the midst of the burning bush, He identified Himself as “I am who I am.” That sounds like an odd way for anyone to introduce Himself, let alone God. But in Hebrew, the statement is ehyeh asher ehyeh and it has a rich and expansive meaning. The word ehyeh is the verb to be, but it appears in this verse in the first person common singular. If God has simply answered Moses by saying, “I am God,” that would have been perfectly normal and acceptable. But He said, “I am who I am.” He repeated the same word twice, declaring His self-sufficiency, self-existence, and immediate presence. God was letting Moses know that he was talking to the eternally constant God, the ever-present and unchangeable creator of the universe.

In the book of Revelation, God refers to Himself as “the Alpha and the Omega…who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8 ESV). Later on in the same book, Jesus declares Himself to be “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13 ESV). Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, respectively. They start and finish it. Just as God is the start and finish of all things. But unlike the Greek alphabet, God is without beginning and without end.

When we speak of God’s unchanging nature, we are dealing with what theologians call His immutability. That’s a high-sounding word that simply means that God is changeless and unchangeable. In other words, He does not change Himself and He cannot be changed by others. He is impervious to change. The very idea of change suggests either improvement or diminishment. For something to change, it must get better or become worse. It must move from one state to another. And to do so requires time. But God exists outside of time. Again, the psalmist points out God’s timelessness which makes possible His changelessness.

Lord, through all the generations
    you have been our home!
Before the mountains were born,
    before you gave birth to the earth and the world,
    from beginning to end, you are God. – Psalm 90:1-2 NLT

A. W. Pink expresses God changelessness this way:

God is immutable in His essence. His nature and being are infinite, and so, subject to no mutations. There never was a time when He was not; there never will come a time when He shall cease to be. God has neither evolved, grown, nor improved. All that He is today, He has ever been, and ever will be. – A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God

God can’t change for the better, because to do so would mean He was somehow insufficient or imperfect to begin with. God has no deficiencies or defects. He has no lacks in His personality or weaknesses in His attributes that need improvement. A. W. Pink puts it this way: “His power is unabated, His wisdom undiminished, His holiness unsullied.”

This particular attribute of God is difficult for us to understand because we are creatures who exist within and are governed by time. We are born and then we begin the process of growth. We grow up. We gradually become stronger. But our strength is often accompanied by weakness. Eventually, we may find ourselves growing smarter. But our intelligence is never perfect or complete. We will even experience the frustration of forgetting what we once knew. And in time, we will grow old and experience the ultimate and unavoidable change called death.

So, it is almost impossible for us to comprehend the immutability of God. And it doesn’t help that when we read the Scriptures, they seem to portray a God who exhibits all kinds of changing characteristics. When we read the Old Testament, we seem to find a God who is harsh, unforgiving, and legalistic in His relationship with mankind. But the God of the New Testament appears more living, gentle, and kind. But the doctrine of God’s immutability reminds us that our God is the same yesterday and today and forever. What the Bible reveals to us is our unchanging God relating to humanity at various times throughout history. It is the circumstances that are changing, not God. More often than not, it is the particular people group with whom God is interacting and the cultural context within which they lived that is creating the sense of mutability or change in God.

But He is and always has been the same. He has always been loving, righteous, just, holy, set apart, and transcendent. He has always hated sin. He has always shown grace. He has always extended mercy. But He has also been consistent in His hatred of pride, His punishment of the wicked, His desire for mankind’s redemption, and His plan to bring it about through the death of His Son on the cross.

God’s immutability should bring us comfort. What A. W. Pink refers to as “solid comfort.”

Human nature cannot be relied upon; but God can! However unstable I may be, however fickle my friends may prove, God changes not. If He varied as we do; if He willed one thing today and another tomorrow; if He were controlled by caprice, who could confide in Him? But, all praise to His glorious name, He is ever the same. His purpose is fixed; His will is stable; His word is sure. Here then is a Rock on which we may fix our feet, while the mighty torrent is sweeping away everything around us. The permanence of God’s character guarantees the fulfillment of His promises… – A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God

In a world where inconsistency, unreliability, and constant change are the new normal, it is comforting to know that we worship a God who is consistently constant and constantly consistent. He is totally reliable because He is completely unchangeable. His love never fades. His plans never fail. His power never diminishes. His patience never runs out. His promises never disappoint. And according to the prophet Isaiah, “His government and its peace will never end.”  This comforting fact will be made possible through the eventual return of His Son to earth, when “He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity. The passionate commitment of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies will make this happen!(Isaiah 9:7 NLT).

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Our Supremely Sovereign God

10 “Only I can tell you the future
    before it even happens.
Everything I plan will come to pass,
    for I do whatever I wish.” – Isaiah 46:10 NLT

34 His rule is everlasting,
    and his kingdom is eternal.
35 All the people of the earth
    are nothing compared to him.
He does as he pleases
    among the angels of heaven
    and among the people of the earth.
No one can stop him or say to him,
    “What do you mean by doing these things?” – Daniel 4:34-35 NLT

According to Dictionary.com, sovereignty is “the quality or state of being sovereign, or of having supreme power or authority.” And a “sovereign” is “a person who has supreme power or authority.” So, when we talk about the sovereignty of God, we’re referring to His absolute rule, control, and authority over everything He has created, including the affairs of men. A. W. Pink describes it as “the exercise of His supremacy.”

He is the Most High, Lord of heaven and earth. Subject to none, influence by none, absolutely independent; God does as He pleases, only as He pleases, always as He pleases. None can thwart Him, none can hinder Him. – A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God

The word “sovereignty” is not commonly used today. But when we hear it, we tend to think of kings and queens, those royal personages from ancient history who wielded great power and influence over nation-states and the citizens who comprised them. These privileged potentates enjoyed tremendous influence, reigning over vast kingdoms. Unlike Britain’s modern-day royal family, these ancient heads of state were much more than mere figureheads. They were the supreme rulers over their domains, with the authority to demand unwavering allegiance from their subjects. And it didn’t matter whether they were a good king or a bad one. Even an evil queen fully expected the citizens of her kingdom to submit to her will and obey her decrees. To fail to do so would be considered a display of insubordination at best or, at worst, an act of outright insurrection.

One of the things we must understand when considering the character of God is His sovereignty. The Scriptures often refer to Him as “God Almighty” or El Shaddai in Hebrew. It most likely means “God, the All-powerful One,” and refers to His ultimate power over anything and everything. In other words, He is all-powerful. And yet, that power is not limited to His physical capacity to accomplish great feats of strength. Yes, He is able to perform acts of unparalleled might, but His sovereignty includes the authority by which He does what He does.

As the sovereign King of the universe, God is in complete control of all things. And that authority has not been granted to Him by some outside or greater force. There is nothing greater than God. In the book of Isaiah, He declares His unchallenged authority in no uncertain terms.

“I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God…” – Isaiah 45:5 ESV

God answers to no one. He has no board of directors or parliament to whom He must report or from whom He must seek permission or approval. “Divine sovereignty means that God is God in fact, as well as in name, that He is on the Throne of the universe, directing all things, working all things ‘after the counsel of His own will’ (Ephesians 1:11)” (A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God).

…we proclaim an enthroned God, and His right to do as He wills with His own, to dispose of His creatures as He thinks well, without consulting them in the matter; then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on His throne is not the God they love. But it is God upon the throne that we love to preach. It is God upon His throne whom we trust. – Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s Sermons Vol. 2, 1856

God does what He pleases. That phrase can either encourage or enrage us. It can create in us a sense of peace and calm as we consider the unstoppable nature of His divine will. Yet, for some, the thought of God’s will going unchallenged creates a sense of fear or infuriation as we consider what we believe to be the loss of our own rights. As Tony Evans puts it: “The sovereignty of God means that He exercises His prerogative to do whatever He pleases with His creation. Why? Because, ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it’ (Psalm 24:1)” (Tony Evans, Theology You Can Count On).

For some of us, that last line by Tony Evans paints a picture of God that we find to be disturbing rather than comforting. And it’s most likely because we want to be the master of our own fate and the captain of our soul. We don’t mind God getting His way as long as it doesn’t interfere with our own. We like the idea of God being all-powerful, but only as long as that power is at our disposal to do as we see fit. But that’s not how it works. The apostle Paul wrote the believers in Corinth, reminding them that we exist for God’s glory, not the other way around. Contrary to popular opinion, God isn’t our personal valet or servant. He made us. But sometimes we act as if we made Him.

…yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. – 1 Corinthians 8:6 ESV

We exist because God chose it to be so. And we exist for Him. All of creation was intended to bring glory to God as it evidenced “his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature” (Romans 1:20 ESV). Even fallen humanity brings glory to God as He exercises His sovereign will over their lives. There is nothing that happens outside His purview or without His permission. And that should bring His children a sense of peace, confidence, and security.

…when you have a sovereign God, it means that the negative and the positive do not come by chance. The flat tire that made you miss the interview you were banking on to get that job was part of God’s sovereign plan. The situation you thought was going to work out a certain way, the job you were sure was yours which was given to someone else, was all a part of God’ sovereign plan. – Tony Evans, Theology You Can Count On

The sovereignty of God is a very deep subject. But its application is quite simple. We have a God who is all-powerful and in full control, no matter how things may appear. Circumstances may give the appearance that all is lost, the future is bleak, there is no hope, and there is nothing you can do. But the apostle Paul would beg to differ. He once wrote, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13 ESV). And right before Paul wrote these words, he prefaced them with the very real nature of his life on this planet.

I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. – Philippians 4:11-12 ESV

It didn’t matter what Paul faced, he was content because he knew his God was sovereign over all. And Paul encouraged the believers in Rome to hang onto the sovereignty of God, no matter what they encountered in this life.

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:38-39 ESV

The sovereignty of God is meant to encourage us. And the fact that our God is holy, just, righteous, and true in all that He does is what makes His sovereign will not only acceptable but preferable.

There is no attribute more comforting to His children than that of God’s sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe trials, they believe that sovereignty has ordained their afflictions, that sovereignty overrules them, and that sovereignty will sanctify them all. There is nothing for which the children ought more earnestly to contend than the doctrine of their Master over all creation—the kingship of God over all the works of His own hands—the throne of God and His right to sit upon that throne. – Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s Sermons Vol. 2, 1856

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Our Know-It-All God

22 He reveals deep and mysterious things
    and knows what lies hidden in darkness,
    though he is surrounded by light. – Daniel 2:22 NLT

13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable. – Hebrews 4:13 NLT

3 …for the Lord is a God of knowledge… – 1 Samuel 2:3 ESV

God knows everything. This attribute of God is what the theologians refer to as His omniscience, which simply means “all knowing” (omni = all; science = knowledge). To be omniscient is to have “complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding; to perceive all things” (Dictionary.com).

So, as we begin our task of getting to know God, we will begin with the mind-blowing concept that God knows everything. He never requires instruction because He has no gaps in His knowledge. There is nothing He does not know. He has perfect and complete knowledge of the past, the present and, amazingly, the future. God knows what is going to take place long before it happens. Something the theologians refer to as His foreknowledge. But more about that later.

God’s knowledge is so great that He knows the thoughts of every single human being. King David was understandably blown away by this idea. He confessed to God, “you have examined my heart and know everything about me” (Psalm 139:1 NLT). He knew that God knew. There was nothing about his life that was hidden from God’s all-knowing gaze. In fact, David went on to acknowledge the full extent of God’s knowledge of him.

You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. – Psalm 139:4 NLT

But God’s intimate and somewhat invasive knowledge of him was not unsettling to David. It was comforting.

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.
    They cannot be numbered!
I can’t even count them;
    they outnumber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up,
    you are still with me! – Psalm 139:17-18 NLT

God’s knowledge is all-pervasive, penetrating the thoughts of men and the darkness of night. David went to admit, “I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night—but even in darkness I cannot hide from you. To you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to you” (Psalm 139:11-12 NLT).

There is nothing you can hide from God. There is nowhere you can go where His divine gaze cannot find you. And, according to Jesus, God’s knowledge of you is so complete that “the very hairs on your head are all numbered” (Matthew 10:30 NLT). He knows each and every detail about you. From the number of the hairs on your head to the thoughts of your heart. You can’t fool God.

One of the amazing things to consider about God’s omniscience is that He can never be surprised or caught off guard. There is never an occasion when God has to say, “How did that happen?” Because He knew in advance that it was going to happen. This is that aspect of His omniscience known as foreknowledge. In Greek, the term for “foreknowledge” is prognōsis. It comes from the Greek word pro, which means “before” and the Greek word ginōskō, which means “know.” The idea is that God has prior knowledge about all events. He “knows before.”  It expresses the idea of knowing reality before it is real and events before they occur.

Because God is divine, He is not bound by time and space. Past, present, and future are all the same to Him. He exists outside of time, so He is able to look into and perceive the future just as easily as He does the past. That is why we find so much prophetic content in the Bible. God’s foreknowledge allows Him to see and know all that will happen as if it has already taken place. That is why He told the prophet Isaiah, “I will tell you the future before it happens” (Isaiah 42:9 NLT).

God doesn’t predict the future, He pronounces it beforehand. He isn’t forced to respond to events as they happen. No, He has already predetermined His response to any and every circumstance because He knew in advance. Again, God assured the prophet Isaiah of His unparalleled foreknowledge.

“I am the First and the Last;
    there is no other God.
Who is like me?
    Let him step forward and prove to you his power.
Let him do as I have done since ancient times
    when I established a people and explained its future.” – Isaiah 44:6-7 NLT

“For I alone am God!
    I am God, and there is none like me.
Only I can tell you the future
    before it even happens.
Everything I plan will come to pass,
    for I do whatever I wish.” – Isaiah 46:9-10 NLT

But God’s foreknowledge is far more than an ability to see into the future and perceive what is going to happen. If this superpower allows God to see future events in advance, it would make sense that He would prevent some of them from happening. If God could have seen the rise of Nazi Germany, He could have kept it from taking place. But it did. So, we must conclude that God either ordained or allowed the events of WWII to come about for a reason. God’s foreknowledge is a true “knowing” of what will come to pass, based on His free choice. He actually decrees what will come to pass. That means that His foreknowledge is far more than an intellectual awareness of future events. It conveys the idea of His sovereign control over all things. Foreknowledge is equivalent to foreordination in that God ordains, or orders, all that will be.

There is an intimacy to God’s foreknowledge that should bring comfort to His children. Because, according to the New Testament, God’s foreknowledge is always directed at people, not events.

The fact is that “foreknowledge” is never used in Scripture in connection with events or actions; instead, it always has reference to persons. It is persons God is said to “foreknow,” not the actions of those persons. – A. W. Pink, Attributes of God

The apostle Paul puts it this way: “For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters” (Romans 8:29 NLT). And Peter adds: “God the Father knew you and chose you long ago, and his Spirit has made you holy” (1 Peter 1:2 NLT).

Paul went on to remind the believers in Ephesus, “we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance” (Ephesians 1:11 NLT). There is a deliberateness about God’s actions in these passages. He is not responding to things as they happen but is ordaining their occurrence from eternity past. His foreknowledge is tied to His foreordination. He foreknows because He has foreordained. God is not looking through His magic mirror and seeing future events before they take place. He is describing what He already knows because He has already declared it to be so.

There is much about this aspect of God’s nature that makes us uncomfortable. It raises all kinds of issues concerning the sovereignty of God and the free will of men. If misunderstood, it can leave us viewing mankind as helpless marionettes on strings, being manipulated by the divine puppetmaster. But if we relegate the knowledge of God as some kind of passive cognition of future events, He becomes all-knowing, but not all-powerful. He has intelligence but lacks influence. But “God foreknows what will be because He has decreed what shall be” (A. W. Pink, Attributes of God).

As difficult as this doctrine is to understand, it is meant to reveal the power and preeminence of God. He is like no other. He is not some distant, disconnected deity, looking down from the lofty heights of heaven and watching as His creation winds down like some kind of cosmic clock. God is not a spectator, viewing the events of our lives as they transpire and forced to respond in time. He is intellectually informed of every aspect of our lives because He has ordained them. And He is intimately involved in every area of our lives because He has had a plan for us that was in place long before we even existed.

And this knowledge of God’s knowledge of us should leave us echoing the words of David:

You saw me before I was born.
    Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
    before a single day had passed. – Psalm 139:16 NLT

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Getting to Know God

18 To whom then will you liken God,
    or what likeness compare with him? – Isaiah 40:18 ESV

5 “To whom will you liken me and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be alike?” – Isaiah 46:5 ESV

11 Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? – Exodus 15:11 ESV

18 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? – Micah 7:18 ESV

For those of us who claim to know God, there is a great deal of information concerning Him about which we are ignorant and even indifferent. Some of us have known Him for decades but, if put to the test, there would be little we could share that could give evidence that we knew Him intimately. So much of what we know about God is academic, a compilation of disconnected bits of information that bear little resemblance to the one true God.

If I asked you if you knew the president of the United States, you would probably respond by telling me his name. If pressed, you could probably tell me the year he was elected, his political party affiliation, the name of his wife, and your personal assessment of his administration’s policies and programs. But the truth would be that you do not know him at all. Your knowledge of him would have been gleaned from news reports, the op-ed section of the local paper, and from the opinions of others.

Sadly, the average Christian probably has more familiarity with the president of the United States than they do with God. Some of us spend far more time keeping up with the Kardashians than we do with the Creator God. We live in the information age, a time when access to knowledge about virtually any topic or individual is at our fingertips. And yet, we suffer from a lack of intimacy with and intelligence about God.

The goal of this series of blog posts is to help us get to know our God better. To do so, we will be exploring the attributes that God alone possesses. As the verses above so clearly state, our God is without equal. He is incomparable. He is not one among many, but He stands as the solitary and sovereign God of the universe whose power, knowledge, and all-pervading presence is unparalleled and non-reproducible. God can be mimicked, but never matched. He is, to put it mildly, one of a kind. And yet, how easy it is to treat Him with a familiarity that borders on contempt.

To know God. That was the divinely-ordained objective when God created Adam and Eve. They were made so that they might enjoy unbroken fellowship and undiminished intimacy with Him. But sin changed all that. Because the first man and woman chose to disobey God, they were banned from His presence. They found themselves cast from the garden and operating in isolation from the one who had made them. And with each succeeding generation, humanity moved further and further away from the garden and, at the same time, far from the presence of God.

But God still desires for men to know Him, and not just cognitively. He longs that mankind might know Him intimately and personally. And, as the apostle Paul points out, God has revealed Himself in the universe He created. He has placed signs of His presence and proofs of His character all around us. And yet, most of humanity has remained blind to the evidence and oblivious concerning the God to whom it points.

They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles. – Romans 1:19-23 NLT

Yet, as the prophet Jeremiah points out, God still longs for mankind to know Him. And He intimates that it is not only possible but preferable.

This is what the Lord says:
“Don’t let the wise boast in their wisdom,
    or the powerful boast in their power,
    or the rich boast in their riches.
But those who wish to boast
    should boast in this alone:
that they truly know me and understand that I am the Lord
    who demonstrates unfailing love
    and who brings justice and righteousness to the earth,
and that I delight in these things.
    I, the Lord, have spoken!” – Jeremiah 9:23-24 NLT

God is knowable. But He is also irreplicable. There is nothing in all creation that remotely resembles God Almighty. Even in His thought processes, God remains distinctly different from humanity.

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
    “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so my ways are higher than your ways
    and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” – Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT

Yet, we tend to view God as little more than a more powerful version of ourselves. The psalmist alludes to this common misconception when he quotes God as saying, “you thought that I was one like yourself” (Psalm 50:21 ESV). The French agnostic Voltaire said, “God created man in His own image, and man returned the favor.”

Psalm 97:9 describes God as “most high over all the earth” and as “exalted far above all gods.” He is transcendent. That simply means that He is totally distinct from all that He has made. He cannot be reproduced and there is nothing that remotely mirrors His likeness. Psalm 99:2 adds that God “is exalted over all the peoples.” Men are not mini-gods. Being made in His image does not infer that we resemble God. That is why Isaiah 40:18 asks the rhetorical question: “To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?” The answer is “No one and nothing!” God alone is God.

And God is in need of nothing. He has no lack or insufficiencies. He requires no complement or counterpart to complete Himself. He did not create humanity because He was lonely or in need of fellowship. There is nothing missing in God’s character. His being is whole and holy. The apostle John would have us remember that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5 ESV). Timothy adds, “He alone is immortal and dwells in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:16 BSB).

And yet, God has made Himself known to men. He has displayed His divine attributes through the universe He has made. All around us, we have evidence of His power, glory, wisdom, creativity, grace, mercy, and love. Our very existence is proof that He exists. Despite man’s wisdom, no one has been able to come up with an explanation for the existence of the universe. Our most educated and well-reasoned theories are little more than shots in the dark.

In the book of Job, we have recorded the words of God as He confronts the arrogance and audacity of mere humans who question His will and His work.

“Who is this that questions my wisdom
    with such ignorant words?
Brace yourself like a man,
    because I have some questions for you,
    and you must answer them.

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
    Tell me, if you know so much.
Who determined its dimensions
    and stretched out the surveying line?
What supports its foundations,
    and who laid its cornerstone
as the morning stars sang together
    and all the angels shouted for joy?

“Who kept the sea inside its boundaries
    as it burst from the womb,
and as I clothed it with clouds
    and wrapped it in thick darkness?
For I locked it behind barred gates,
    limiting its shores.
I said, ‘This far and no farther will you come.
    Here your proud waves must stop!’” – Job 38:2-11 NLT

Man has no business questioning God or trying to explain the existence of the universe apart from God. All that exists, does so by the expressed will of God. He spoke and it came into being. And within all that He made God has revealed Himself. But that is the most important point regarding the solitary nature of God. He must reveal Himself to man in order to be known by man. Man cannot find God on His own. In fact, according to the apostle Paul, “no one seeks for God” (Romans 3:11 ESV). And Paul was simply echoing the sentiments of David.

God looks down from heaven
    on the entire human race;
he looks to see if anyone is truly wise,
    if anyone seeks God.
But no, all have turned away;
    all have become corrupt. – Psalm 53:2-3 NLT

Amazingly enough, this transcendent, invisible, and unfathomable God has chosen to reveal Himself to man. And we will see more of His divine attributes on display as we continue our quest to know God better.

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson