God is Self-Sufficient

“Whatever God is, and all that God is, He is in Himself.”¹ A.W. Tozer

Self-Sufficiency is another one of the kinds of attributes only God can possess.  In short God is the only thing we could think of which does not have needs or dependencies.  He is fully complete in Himself.  God’s self-sufficiency is a core part of whom God is.  To suggest God has needs or is incomplete in Himself is to suggest He is not God.  To think of Him otherwise is to imagine something of Him which is untrue.  He does not need us in any sense of the word.  Who wants to serve a God whose needs change or can be influenced?  A. W. Tozer puts it this way in The Knowledge of The Holy:

An elementary but correct way to think of God is as the One who contains all, who gives all that is given, but who Himself can receive nothing that He has not first given.

To admit the existence of a need in God is to admit incompleteness in the divine Being. Need is a creature-word and cannot be spoken of the Creator. God has a voluntary relation to everything He has made, but He has no necessary relation to anything outside of Himself. His interest in His creatures arises from His sovereign good pleasure, not from any need those creatures can supply nor from any completeness they can bring to Him who is complete in Himself.²

Here again we see God in a category He alone occupies.  He interacts with all that is, not out of need, but out of His good pleasure.  It is His desire, not His need.  His interaction is driven by His pleasure not a need to interact or a dependency upon interaction.  Created things have dependencies; the self-existent God does not.  The Westminster Confession puts it like this:

God hath all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of Himself; and is alone in and unto Himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which He hath made, not deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting His own glory in, by, unto, and upon them: He is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things; and hath most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them whatsoever Himself pleaseth.³

God does not need our help.  He does not need our knowledge or perspective.  He sees all things from any and every angle.  He has not necessitated our worship and service to Him.  However, Tozer points out, “…the blessed news is that the God who needs no one has in sovereign condescension set Himself to work by and in and through His obedient children… He needs no one, but when faith is present He works through anyone. Two statements are in this sentence and a healthy spiritual life requires that we accept both.”⁴  So, on the one hand we must hold God as not needing our help, and on the other hand Him accepting our offer of help and using us to help Him.  Notice here how God is using us, but it is still Him doing the work.

To think of it a different way, there is no power He lacks, no knowledge He does not contain, no task too difficult for Him, no glory not due Him, no unmet emotional needs He is waiting to have met.  Had He any of these, He would at that point cease to be self-sufficient and therefore, cease to be God.  There is no input required and no output necessary for Him to function.  He is truly, wholly independent in the most complete sense of the word.  Acts 17:24-25 says, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.  And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.”  God can be the sustainer of all that is because He is self-sufficient.  Romans 11:34-36 putts it this way, “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become his adviser?  Who has given him something only to have him pay it back?  For all things are from him, by him, and for him. Glory belongs to him forever! Amen.”  All things are from Him, by Him and for Him (or of Him, through Him and to Him) because He is the self-sufficient One!  Tozer rightly says, “Whatever God is, and all that God is, He is in Himself.”¹

Footnotes

¹ Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. 32. Print.

² Tozer. 32.

³ "Westminster Confession of Faith: Chapter II." Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2011. <http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/>

⁴ Tozer. 36.

References

All Scriptures not specified are quoted from Life in the Spirit Study Bible (NIV). Stamps, Donald C., and John Wesley Adams. Life in the Spirit Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. Print.

Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. Print.

God is Self-Existent

“If you ask why we should obey God, in the last resort the answer is, 'I am.'
To know God is to know that our obedience is due to Him.”¹ – C.S. Lewis

“It is not easy to categorize the Attributes of God.  There are clearly two general kinds, but proper words to distinguish them are hard to find.  One kind, only God possesses; another kind, man may possess to a limited degree” ²

Self-existence is the kind of attribute only God can possess.  Scripture shows us God is self-existent, uncreated, and without origin.  John 5:26 says, “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.” Here Jesus reveals to us the self-existence of the Godhead.  God reveals Himself in Exodus 3:14 as “I am who I am.”  He always has been, and has always been what He is.  “A more positive assertion of selfhood could not be imagined than those words of God to Moses: I AM THAT I AM. Everything God is, everything that is God, is set forth in that unqualified declaration of independent being. Yet in God, self is not sin but the quintessence of all possible goodness, holiness and truth.” ³  God is the origin of all that is.  Tozer again points out:

“God has no origin,” said Novatian and it is precisely this concept of no-origin which distinguishes That-which-is-God from whatever is not God.

Origin is a word that can apply only to things created. When we think of anything that has origin we are not thinking of God. God is self-existent, while all created things necessarily originated somewhere at some time. Aside from God, nothing is self-caused.

By our effort to discover the origin of things we confess our belief that everything was made by Someone who was made of none. By familiar experience we are taught that everything “came from” something else. Whatever exists must have had a cause that antedates it and was at least equal to it, since the lesser cannot produce the greater. Any person or thing may be at once both caused and the cause of someone or something else; and so, back to the One who is the cause of all but is Himself caused by none. ⁴

Colossians 1:16-17 says, “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.  He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”  God is THE ORIGIN.  He is also THE SUSTAINER.  All that is owes its allegiance to the source and sustainer.

"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.  And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.  From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.” – Acts 17:24-26

God does not need – from anyone or anything or anywhere.  He alone is self-sufficient.   He is self-existent.  He never has a need and therefore never changes; just as James tells us “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17).  The Psalmist puts it another way, “Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him.” – Psalm 115:3.  His knowledge alone is perfect.  The creator thoroughly understands what He has created.  He is not in need of someone to advise Him.  Romans 11:34-36 quotes Isaiah 40:13 and Job 41:11 writing, “Who has known the mid of the Lord?  Or who has been his counselor?  Who has ever given to God that God should repay him?  For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be the glory forever! Amen.”  God is completely without need in knowledge or power or all else that He is because He is self-existent.  He is wholly other than we can conceive of.  All that we know of beside Him has needs and dependency.  He and no-one else is fully independent.  Where He to withdraw His hand from creation, it would cease to exist.  Remember Colossians 1:17, “…He is before all things, and in him all things hold together?”  God speaks of Himself to Isaiah in chapter 40 and verse 25, “’To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?’ says the Holy One.”  Tozer again sums up for us:

To admit that there is One who lies beyond us, who exists outside of all our categories, who will not be dismissed with a name, who will not appear before the bar of our reason, nor submit to our curious inquiries: this requires a great deal of humility, more than most of us possess, so we save face by thinking God down to our level, or at least down to where we can manage Him. Yet how He eludes us! For He is everywhere while He is nowhere, for “where” has to do with matter and space, and God is independent of both. He is unaffected by time or motion, is wholly self-dependent and owes nothing to the worlds His hands have made.⁵

Perhaps some sincere but puzzled Christian may at this juncture wish to inquire about the practicality of such concepts as I am trying to set forth here. “What bearing does this have on my life?” he may ask. ”What possible meaning can the self-existence of God have for me and others like me in a world such as this and in times such as these?”

To this I reply that, because we are the handiwork of God, it follows that all our problems and their solutions are theological. Some knowledge of what kind of God it is that operates the universe is indispensable to a sound philosophy of life and a sane outlook on the world scene.⁶

There is no one else self-existent.  God alone holds this place.  He alone has no need.  He alone is unchangeable.  He alone is independent.  He alone is self-sufficient.  He alone is the origin.  He alone is eternal.  He alone is all-powerful.  He alone is self-existent. 

Oh Almighty Sufficient One, teach us our place of dependence on You.  Help us to understand Your awesome power at work in all creation; indeed at work in us.  Thank You for sustaining all things. Thank You for Your power at work.  We worship You for who You are All Sufficient One!  You are the SOURCE of all good things. We draw strength from You.  We look to You.  We trust in You.  Help us to see you as our Sufficient One and trust in You.  In Jesus', Almighty Name, Amen!

Footnotes

¹ Lewis, C. S. Surprised by Joy: the Shape of My Early Life. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1995. 224. Print.

² Duffield, Guy P., and Nathaniel M. Cleave. Foundations of Pentecostal Theology. Los Angeles, Calif.: L.I.F.E. Bible College, 1983. 69. Print.

³ Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. 25. Print.

⁴ Tozer. 25.

⁵ Tozer. 26-27.

⁶ Tozer. 27.

References

All Scriptures not specified are quoted from Life in the Spirit Study Bible (NIV). Stamps, Donald C., and John Wesley Adams. Life in the Spirit Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. Print.

Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. Print.

God is Three in One

The Trinity

The sovereign God wants to be loved for Himself and honored for Himself, but that is only part of what He wants. The other part is that He wants us to know that when we have Him we have everything -- we have all the rest. – A. W. Tozer

Under the subject who God is we must first talk about the Trinity.  This is one God revealed in three persons for all eternity.  We cannot properly conceive of three in one with perfect unity.  The idea is an oxymoron for us, it is itself contradictory.  I like A. W. Tozer’s idea on this, “The doctrine of the Trinity is truth for the heart.  The spirit of man alone can enter through the veil and penetrate into that Holy of Holies…Love and faith are at home in the mystery of the Godhead.  Let reason kneel in reverence outside.”¹ 

We must endeavor to grasp this on some level in order to attempt to think properly about God.  So put your faith and love into motion and ask God for illumination of the tri-unity of God.  Here are several belief statements we would do well to emulate in our thinking:

That there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

(Deut. 6:4; Isaiah 43:10-11; Matt. 28:18; Luke 3:22; John 14:16)²

“There is only One True God–revealed in three persons...Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (commonly known as the Trinity).”³

There is but one living and true God.  In the unity of the Godhead there are three persons, of one substance, power and eternity – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  The Father is one, neither begotten or proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Hoy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.⁴

Scripture itself reveals this tri-unity in several places.  Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him”  John 14:23.  “I and the Father are one" John 10:30.  There are a number of instances where the Bible records the three Persons of the Godhead in evidence at the same time.  Jesus is baptized and the Holy Spirit descends and God the Father speaks from heaven in Matthew 3:16 and 17.  Jesus is speaking to His disciples at the last supper and says, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth.” (John 14:16) and again He says, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (John 14:26).  The great commission, again spoken by Jesus says “…baptizing them in name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

“It is most important that we think of God as Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the substance.  Only so may we think rightly of God and in a manner worthy of Him and our own souls.”⁵   “In this Trinity, nothing is before or after, nothing is greater or less: but all three Person coeternal, together and equal.”⁶

“The Persons of the Godhead, being one, have one will.  They work always together, and never one smallest act is done by one without the instant acquiescence of the other two.  Every act of God is accomplished by the Trinity in Unity.  Here, of course, we are being driven by necessity to conceive of God in human terms.  We are thinking of God by analogy with man, and the result must fall short of ultimate truth; yet if we are to think of God at all, we must do it by adapting creature-thoughts and creature-words to the Creator.  It is a real if understandable error to conceive of the Persons of the Godhead as conferring with one another and reaching agreement by interchange of thought as humans do…..That instant, immediate communion between the Persons of the Godhead which has been from all eternity knows not sound nor effort nor motion.”⁷

“A popular belief among Christians divides the work of God between the three Persons, giving a specific part to each, as, for instance, creation to the Father, redemption to the Son, and regeneration to the Holy Spirit.  This is partly true but not wholly so, for God cannot divide Himself that one Person works while another is inactive.  In the Scriptures the three Persons are shown to act in harmonious unity in all the might works that are wrought throughout the universe.”⁸

So there is one essence, three distinct persons, eternally revealed as one God.  I know I fall into the trap often in my thinking that Jesus was separated from the Father or that the Holy Spirit dwelling inside me is somehow separated from the Father and Jesus.  This does a huge dis-service to whom God has revealed Himself to be.  God has given us Himself in the Holy Spirit to live in our hearts and given Himself at the cross for our sins.  Kind of changes your perspective, doesn’t it?  Wow, God lives inside us.  God went to the cross for us.  It is difficult, but not inaccurate, to see all of God doing these things.  He is a unity of three persons revealed in different ways.

Unity of the Trinity⁹

	Father	Son	Holy Spirit
Creation	Gen 1:1	Col 1:16	Job 26:13, Ps 104:30
Incarnation	Luke 1:35	Luke 1:35	Luke 1:35
Christ’s Baptism	Matt 3:16-17	Matt 3:16-17	Matt 3:16-17
Atonement	Heb 9:14	Heb 9:14	Heb 9:14
Resurrection	Acts 2:32	John 10:17-18	Rom 1:4
Salvation	1 Peter 1:2	1 Peter 1:2	1 Peter 1:2
Indwelling of man	John 14:15-23	John 14:15-23	John 14:15-23

Footnotes

¹ Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. 20. Print.

² From Statement of Beliefs of the Fellowship of Christian Assemblies at http://www.fcaoc.org/belief_s.html

³ From the 16 Fundamental Truths of the Assemblies of God at http://ag.org/top/Beliefs/Statement_of_Fundamental_Truths/sft_short.cfm

⁴ From http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/

⁵ Tozer. 20.

⁶ Tozer. 21.

⁷ Tozer. 22.

⁸ Tozer. 23.

⁹ Tozer. 23.

References

All Scriptures not specified are quoted from Life in the Spirit Study Bible (NIV). Stamps, Donald C., and John Wesley Adams. Life in the Spirit Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. Print.

Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. Print.

God loves you as much as He loves Jesus

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”¹ – A. W. Tozer

Do you love your enemies?  Do you love them the same as you love your spouse, children or parents?  God does.  In fact, He commands us to do like wise in Luke 6: 35 and 36 “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”  It doesn’t take Jesus to lash out at those who hurt us.  It takes Jesus to love our enemies unconditionally like He does.  You were once the enemy of God, remember?  Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

We talked last time about how God’s love is unchanging and unconditional.  God loves everybody the same, regardless of what they do or don’t do.  Would it surprise you to know that God loves you as much as He loves Jesus?  Do you really believe that?  I have to confess I’m still in awe of that one, but I’m working on it.  Okay, so your wondering just how I came to such a grandiose conclusion.  Well, He tells us so. 

But before we look at that, let’s think about what we know to be true of God.  He has no favoritism.  His love is unconditional.  He does not change.  Therefore, the level of His love could not change.  He is faithful and true.  All these could lead only to one premise.  God loves you the same as everyone else.  Yes, including Jesus.  If He did not, His love would be conditional on who you are.  God is no respecter of persons.  He loved you before you trusted in Him for salvation, while you were His enemy, a sinful person. 

Let’s think about what else we know about God.  He gave up Jesus for you.  He sent Jesus to die in your place.  He sent the most precious thing He could to be sacrificed on you behalf.  Why, because He loves you the same as He loves Jesus.  That should speak volumes about how much He loves you.  Look at Romans 8:31-32,  “What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”

One more time let’s look at this from another angle.  Father calls us His children and co-heirs with Christ.  Father calls us his children (Rom 8:12, 1 Jn 3:1, Eph 1:3, Gal 4:4-7, Luke 20:35-36, Eph 5:1).  Father also calls us heirs (Rom 8:17, Gal 3:29, Gal 4:7, Eph 3:6, Tit 3:7).  We are co-heirs with Christ and one of the Father’s children.  Father loves all His children the same.

Lastly, and most importantly (for man’s reason is fallible, especially on matters of God), God’s word tells us that He loves us as much as He loves Jesus. OK, here it is: John 17:23 Jesus is praying to the Father (one of the few recorded prayers of Jesus), “I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”  So God loves you as much as He loves Jesus.  Jesus said so.  It’s pretty hard to argue with that.  God help our unbelief.

 Father, please help me to understand and apprehend, to eagerly lay hold of, and count as my own, the truth that you love me unconditionally, as much as you love Jesus.  Give me the Spirit of revelation and understanding to strengthen me in my inner man that I might know and experience as my own the height, breadth, and width and deepness of your unconditional love.  For once I understand even a little of your love for me, I cannot help but give it away to those around me.  (See Ephesians chapters 1 and 3).

Footnotes

¹ Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. 1. Print.

References

All Scriptures not specified are quoted from Life in the Spirit Study Bible (NIV). Stamps, Donald C., and John Wesley Adams. Life in the Spirit Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. Print.

Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. Print.

God is Love

“The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him.” – A. W. Tozer¹

Haven’t you done something you’re delighted with only to find yourself secretly thinking that others should admire you for what you’ve done, that somehow you deserve to be loved?  Come on now…fess up.  What about the time you shipped a perfect quality batch, or the time you finish shingling the roof minutes before the rain?  What about the job you got done in the time-frame they needed it when everyone else thought it was impossible and gave up?  Or when you brought the new guy up to speed and now their working on their own?  Haven’t you ever felt that way toward God?  After this accomplishment, He should love me…look at all I did…

Or what about the other side?  Have you ever done something so bad that you got that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach?  You know like when you were a little kid and had to tell your parents you broke Mom’s favorite vase playing hide-and-seek or lost Dad’s favorite tool in the woods playing gun-spy?  How about the time you crashed into that parked car or “totaled” the car because you were not paying attention to driving?  Be honest, weren’t you just a little (or maybe a lot) afraid that Mom and Dad wouldn’t love you quite the same after this one…???  Have you ever felt that way toward God?  After this sin there’s no way He could still love me….I’m such a failure…

Well…I’ve got good news: God’s love is immutable (unchangeable). Rom 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  This means nothing we have done, are doing, or will do in the future can change how much God loves us.  The most heinous sin, the most righteous behavior bares no affect on God’s love for us.  He already loved us in our most sinful state.  God never changes.  He never grows or learns something that changes His thinking or His love for us.  There is “no shadow of turning” in Him.  We don’t have to worry about waking up one day to find out He’s angry with us, or frustrated about something we have done.  His love for us is pure and undefiled.  It is untainted by negative thoughts in the back of His head.  (He has no negative thoughts.)  His love is steady and unchanging – UNCONDITIONAL!  No condition “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39)

“Anything not rooted and grounded in the unconditional love of God eventually leads to legalism and bondage. Your human effort does not get God to love you more.  It is not based on what you have done.  It is based on the benevolence and goodness of God.  It is not based on how clean you are, it is based on what Jesus has done.  Walking with God is not about anger, duty and discipline; it is about love.” – Jack Frost

You are His child and He eagerly chooses to love you, wholly, unchangeably, and unconditionally.  God loves you as much as He loves Jesus (Jn 17:23).  God looks at you and smiles!  I think He’s talking to you right now, “You are my child in whom my favor rests!  I LOVE YOU!!”  - Dad  (See Ps 30:5)

Oh great God of love, come and fill us now.  We give our hearts to you.  Fill them as only you can.  Smooth over the cracks, repair the broken places.  Be our Father and let your unconditional love surround us as we trust in You (Ps 32:10).  Amen! 

Footnotes

¹ Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. 3. Print.

References

All Scriptures not specified are quoted from Life in the Spirit Study Bible (NIV). Stamps, Donald C., and John Wesley Adams. Life in the Spirit Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. Print.

Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. Print.

Who is God?

"What comes into our minds when we think about God,

is the most important thing about us." - A.W. Tozer¹

Ever feel like you want to know more about God but don’t know where to start?  How do you think about God?  What is he like?  Where do we begin when thinking about God?  I mean it’s not like you can flip open your Bible and go to the section marked “all about God.”  I hope to talk about who God is here in these articles and I would like to suggest some extra reading.  A. W. Tozer’s Knowledge of the Holy is excellent reading on whom God is.  I read somewhere recently that you could get a great deal of understanding who God is by looking at one of my favorite Psalms.  Let me encourage you to sit down for a few minutes and read through Psalms 103.  While you are reading, consider the following questions and write down your answers.  These are good questions for you to ask any time you are reading a passage of scripture from the Bible.

Bible Study Questions:

How does God reveal Himself in this passage?

Are there commands to follow, actions to take or to avoid?

Are there promises to claim?

How can I apply these truths to my everyday life?

Write out your answers and then compare them to the ones I found below.

How does God reveal Himself in this passage?

Lord	Healer	Righteous	Slow to anger	Knowledgeable
Holy	Redeemer	Just	Merciful (does not treat us as our sins deserve)	Eternal (from everlasting to everlasting)
Benefactor	Crowner	Compassionate	Abounding in love	Faithful
Forgiver	Satisfier	Gracious		Sovereign (Ruler over all)

Are there commands to follow, actions to take or to avoid?

Praise the Lord, O my soul

Fear (revere) Him

Are there promises to claim?

Forgiveness of sin

Healing of diseases

Redemption of life

Satisfaction with life

Righteousness and justice on our behalf

God would make Himself known to us

God treats us with grace, not as our sins deserve

God has great love for us if we revere (fear) Him

God has removed our transgressions from us

God has compassion on us

God’s love is with us for eternity if we fear Him and keep His commands

God rules over all

How can I apply these truths to my everyday life?

Ask Him to forgive your sin and fill you with love.  Ask Him to purify your desires and fulfill them.  Ask Him to make Himself known to you.  Ask Him for healing He has promised you.

Thank you, God, for revealing yourself to us in your Word, the Bible!  Help us come to know you better every day.  Help us to find You, follow You, claim your promises as our own and apply Your truths to our lives.  We trust in you.  Amen!

Footnotes

¹ Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. 1. Print.

References

All Scriptures not specified are quoted from Life in the Spirit Study Bible (NIV).

Stamps, Donald C., and John Wesley Adams. Life in the Spirit Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. Print.

Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. Print.

Physical Posture in Worship

When we talk about worship in Charismatic or Pentecostal circles, what are the first things that pop into our thoughts: Music (what kind of music), Lyrics, Instruments (which ones should be allowed, how many), physical expression (physical posture in worship), etc.  There seems to be a biblical tie between our physical posture in and our attitude in worship.  Look at the third commandment in the scriptures in the NAS, NKJV, and the NIV.

Exodus 20:5-6 NAS

You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,  but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. 

Exodus 20:5-6 NKJV

you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

Exodus 20:5-6 NIV

You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. 

The first word translated “worship” in the NAS is Shackah typically meaning “to bow down, to prostrate oneself.”  Of the 171 times this word is used in scripture 83 times it is translated as some form of the word “worship.” Sixty-four times it is translated as some form of “bowing down” and 17 times it is translated as “lie down” or some form of “prostrate”.

The word translated as “serve” in the NAS is Abad and can also be translated as “worship.”  This word normally means “to work for another, serve another by labor.”  It is most commonly translated as some form of the word “serve.”  This happens 200 times of the 290 it is used in the scriptures.  A total of 16 times it carries the connotation of being a “slave” or “laborer.”  Where it is translated as some form of “worship” only13 times. 

The point is clear.  Imagine God Almighty giving the ten commandments on Mt Sinai.  As the third commandment He shares with Moses, He gives the command to worship (bow down, prostrate, pay homage) and serve (worship, slave, labor) no other god but Him.  Remember, these are the words God Himself chose to describe the relationship He desires us to have only with Himself.  There should be a very real connection between our our desire to worship and an attitude of servant hood.  Equally there should also be a very real connection between our attitude of worship and our physical posture in worship.  God has equated them here with bowing down and prostrating ourselves before Him. 

Picture if you will, the servant of a great king entering into his presence and bowing down to paying homage to the king and then asking him how he would like to be served.  Here is our place in worship as God describes in the third commandment.  Now we must ask ourselves, do I desire to submit to God or just sing to Him?  Am I willing to show God my servant attitude by the way I physically worship Him?  These questions are a challenge to all of us.  Let us remember to treat God as the High, Holy King of All that He is!  Let's remember our humble place of servitude in honoring the Great King of Heaven not just with our songs but with our physical bodies and our lifestyles of servant hood!

References

All Scriptures not specified are quoted from Life in the Spirit Study Bible (NIV). Stamps, Donald C., and John Wesley Adams. Life in the Spirit Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. Print.