God is Holy

“Who among the gods is like you, O Lord?  Who is like you—majestic in holiness,

awesome in glory, working wonders? Exodus 15:11

To try and understand God, or an attribute of God, we must by necessity compare that which we know against that which we don’t know.  And it is just here that we think of God as unholy before we can think of Him as Holy.  Holy is to be set apart separated from everyday common use.  Holy is absolute perfection.  Holy is to be completely pure, entirely without evil.  We know of nothing in our everyday lives with which to compare absolute good.  There is no comparison; for it is not a measure of how holy, but a case of completely holy.  He is the standard and cannot be measured by it.  He is in every respect other than we are; He is totally wholesome.  He is morally perfect.  He has no limitations in His moral excellence.  “There is none holy as the Lord.” (1 Samuel 2:2)  Yet He commands us “Be holy, because I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:16)

Holiness is another moral attribute of God.  We can possess a certain level of holiness but we cannot truly understand holiness.  Just when God begins to reveal His holiness, we find ourselves utterly deplorable like Isaiah. We say with him “‘Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am ruined!  For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty’” (Isaiah 6:5).  God’s holiness is something we must receive from Him and endeavor to preserve.  He washes away our sin and calls us righteous.  All our righteousness is like filthy rags to Him (Isaiah 64:6).  Such goodness, such purity, such perfection cataclysmically rejects and brings righteous judgment upon the slightest hint of imperfection.  It is through this lens of holiness that the grace of God shines so extraordinarily, incalculably, intensely brilliant.  The mere thought that God could reach down out of His absolute, unconditional perfection and embrace the sinner is nearly unthinkable until grace and mercy leak in, first a drop then a trickle then like a tidal wave after the colossal dam has burst but this is an inaccurate picture also.  For God is perfectly balanced within Himself, so that grace and mercy are presented at the same time as His holiness.

It is only by His grace we should see Him.  It is only by His mercy we should know Him.  It is only because He has given Himself to us to cover ourselves that we can begin to reveal our fallen selves back to Him without fear of His perfection ruinously destroying us.  In short, He helps us to help ourselves receive from Him.  Indeed all throughout Scripture when God shows Himself to His people, fear and trembling are the normal reactions of those to whom He has revealed Himself.  The command not to fear is usually given to these precious souls who experienced the Presence of God.  I believe part of this has to do with the incredible revelation of His Holiness combined with a nearly inconceivable understanding of our wretchedness compared to Him.  Yet He reaches out and lifts them up and gives them the stamina they need to be in His presence.  He gives them Himself to counter the encounter of Himself.  So we see divine holiness balancing justice and mercy, and choosing which and how much of each (or both) should be applied to any given circumstance through His all-knowing perfect wisdom.  One thing is certain, those who come in contact with the bona fide presence of God cannot but be altered in some way.  For the Christian it is a sharing of His holiness that we could participate in the divine nature (1 Peter 1:3-4).  So we can proclaim with the seraphs “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3).

“Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves form everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God” (2 Corinthians 7:1).   This is our calling friends, to put off the old self with its sinful desires “and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24).  “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.  And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ…but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Romans 8:9-10, 13).  Remember it is the Holy Spirit who is living in you.  The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in you when you are a Christian (Eph 1:19-20; Romans 8:11).  So God is enabling us to live holy by His Holy Spirit living in us and helping us to put to death the sinful deeds of the body and live for righteousness.

Oh, Lord God Almighty, Holy One, we praise your name and renown!  You are perfect, O Lord.  Your holiness out shines the Sun. Your perfection is greater than the universe. You are the Father who lives in unapproachable light.  You are the light of life.  You are wonderful, magnificent, and truly awesome!  Your greatness no one can fathom.  Your beauty is beyond compare.  We are humbled you consider us.  We are amazed you would rescue us.  You paid the incredible ransom.  You adopted the orphan.  You live among the poor and needy – you live INSIDE us.  Great God, help us to avail ourselves of Your awesome power, Your Holy Spirit, living inside us, that we might choose to walk in righteous ways and endeavor to be holy as you are holy.  It is nearly beyond hope, but there it is, You promise to help us become like You.  Father, build in us Your likeness.  Jesus, help us be dependent on the Father and Spirit as you where when You walked this earth.  Sweet Holy Spirit have your way in us and help us choose Your way above our own that we may be like Him whose name we bare.  In Jesus’ Almighty Name, Amen!

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.

Finlayson, R. A. "Holiness, Holy, Saints." New Bible Dictionary. Ed. J. D. Douglas and N. Hillyer.      Second ed. Wheaton: Tyndale, 1962. 486-488. Print.

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

"Holiness." Dictionary of Biblical Imagry. Ed. Lelan Ryken, James C. Wilhoit, and Tremper Longman,      III. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1998. Print.

The Thompson Chain-Reference Bible New International Version The Old Testament and The New Testament Thompson's original and complete system of Bible study A complete numerical system of chain references, analyses of books, outline studies of characters and unique charts, with pictorial maps and archaeological discoveries. Ed. Frank Charles Thompson, et al. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1983. Print.

Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. 103-107. Print.

God is Gracious

For while the Law was given through Moses, grace (unearned, undeserved

favor and spiritual blessing) and truth came through Jesus Christ.

John 1: 17

Now it has been said that grace is “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.”  Further, it has been said that mercy is not getting what we deserve (death and hell - the fruits of our sin) and grace is getting what we don’t deserve (life and heaven and all the goodness and character of God – the fruits of God’s righteousness).  Grace gives us all that God has even though we deserve not the slightest bit of it on our own merit, but through God’s goodness, mercy, and grace He grants it to us anyway.  Without fully accepting God’s grace and benevolence, we are incapable of pleasing Him.  He gives us His goodness so we can be good, His mercy so we can forgive others, His love that we can love others, His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, honesty, purity, integrity, loyalty, etc., so we can be those things to the world.  Every last drop of goodness in you is at His bestowing because He is merciful and gracious.  He withholds nothing from us (Psalm 34:8-9, John 16:14-15, John 14:12, Eph 1:3)

We must remember as we discuss the attributes of God that they are not separate from each other but flow as a river out of His presence.  He is the source of all good things.  So the mercy and grace which we so callously dissect are really one and inseparable in Him.  So it is with all His attributes.  Could God be loving and not good?  Could God be eternal and not infinite? Of course not.  So we may look at mercy and grace as separate objects and we will do so but we must remember they work together and are not separate entities.  God does not shut off His grace or righteousness so He can be merciful nor does He shut off His mercy or righteousness to show grace.

This idea becomes more troublesome as we look at the law and grace.  The law demands absolute perfection of obedience, but mercy and grace make up for our lack.  So God does not abolish the law with mercy and grace, but rather He fulfills its requirements when we fall short.  It is important, as A. W. Tozer notes, that we not look at the Old Testament as the Law and the New Testament as Grace which eliminates the law.  God does not change.  He is the same yesterday, today and forever.  So, of course, grace and mercy existed in the Old Testament.  And we do find evidence of it there.¹  Abraham is called the friend of God.  Joseph whose circumstance God used for good.  David is remembered in the new testament (See Acts 13:22) as a man after God’s own heart.  Really, this murder and adulterer is a man after God’s own heart?  Yes he is.  Read his Psalms 103, 145, 3-32, 34-41, 51-65, 68-70, 86, 95, 101, 103, 108-110, 122, 124, 131, 133, 138-145.  Most of my favorites are in there 23, 34, 63, 103, 139, 145.  David’s response to God’s rebuke through the prophet Nathan concerning his adultery with Bathsheba tests us point blank in Psalm 51 “You [God] do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”  In a time when the only known recompense for sin was sacrifice, God allowed David to see His mercy and grace.

The mercy of God forgives our sin when we accept Christ as our Savior.  In the legal ledger we are just in the black with a balance of zero. The grace of God makes us rich beyond compare.  The legal ledger does not have enough space to say how rich we are.  Mercy makes the decision to save us and grace gives the resources to do so.  Mercy pardons punishment, grace endows rescue and reward.  A. W. Tozer defines them in Knowledge of the Holy as follows , “As mercy is God’s goodness confronting human misery and guilt, so grace is His goodness directed toward human debt and demerit.  It is by His grace that God imputes merit where none previously existed and declares no debt to be where one had been before.  Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines Him to bestow benefits upon the undeserving.”²  So we see mercy and grace at work in the salvation process because they are both part of God and He does not suspend one to use the other.

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” – Eph 2:4-7

Grace makes us sons and daughters of God (see Rom 8:14, 1 Jn 3:1, Eph1:5, Gal 4:4-7, Jn 1:12, Lk 20:35-36), gives us all spiritual blessings (Eph 1:3), seats us in Heavenly places with Christ (Eph 2:4-7 above), gives us is power (Eph 1:18-21), and gives us His incomparably great love (Eph 3:17-19, Rom 8:35-39). Oh the riches we possess in the grace of God!

Oh God, highly exalted and benevolent one, grant to us that we would understand the gift of your grace, the place you have given us as children of God, the honors you bestow upon us, the riches you have made available to us.  Give us the humility to embrace all that you have for us and use it for your glory.  Help us to believe in all that you have done and appropriate it for ourselves.  Enable us not to take for granted all you purchased for us in Christ.  Help us to be the children of God that our lives would draw others to you.  Give us your mercy and grace to extend your unconditional love to all those around us and to return it you as our gift of grace.

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. 93-96. Print.

² Tozer. 93.

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 Merciful

“David said to Gad, ‘I am in deep distress.  Let us fall into the hands of the Lord,

for his mercy is great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.’”

2 Samuel 24:14

Mercy is another attribute of God.  Mercy is God not giving us what we deserve.  It is God forgiving our debt because we embrace the sacrifice of His Son on our behalf.  It is God throwing our sin into the sea of forgetfulness and posting a “No Fishing!” sign.  But how can this be?  “Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy.”  Micah 7:18. 

Now we know God is just and requires the perfection of the law to be met and we know that none of us is perfect.   What are we to do?  Then God comes up with this brilliant solution only He could architect.  He sends His Son to die on our behalf so the righteous requirements of the law can be met, but we can still live to tell about it.  We who were worthy only of death due to our sins, now the righteousness of God.  For “he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).

Mercy is God’s response to the believer’s sin debt.  We can say with the Psalmist, “Answer me, O Lord, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me”  (Psalms 69:16).  And He can because the requirements of the law have been met – our deficiency has been filled by the blood of Christ.  How great was our debt – we owed our very lives!   Yet God sacrificed His Son so we could live and know the depths of His mercy.  Therefore, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).  Mercy is pardon of what we deserve – punishment for our sins.  Grace is a gift we have not, and can never, earn.  Mercy is the debtor being set free from debtors’ prison.   But mercy only serves to bring us back to ground zero in our ledger.  Grace puts us in the black, way in the black.  It is the beggar inheriting the entire kingdom. 

Mercy is the wrath of God avoided.  It is the ultimate goodness of God not destroying the wretchedness of man because God has made a way for His goodness to fill our gap.  It is the foreclosing mortgage paid.  Just when we were about to lose it all, God steps in with His mercy and erases the debt and in its place writes, “Paid in Full!” on the bill.  Here we are relieved of the debt, whew, but yet unable to buy the next meal so to speak.  Grace makes us billionaires in the kingdom.  “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,  made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved”  Eph 2:4-5.  “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship”  Romans 12:1.  Consequently, here is the reason why we owe God everything, He paid the bill.  Our part is to play the indentured servant.  To sacrifice ourselves back to Him for sacrificing Himself for us.  He asks of us nothing He has not already done Himself.  “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). 

Our gratitude is displayed in our response back to him and to others.  “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:7).  God expects the mercy He displayed to us to overflow into our showing mercy to others, “because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful.  Mercy triumphs over judgment!” (James 2:13). 

Almighty, powerful, awesome God, we humble ourselves before your great judgment seat.  You have seen the error of our ways and provided our way of escape from your heavy hand of judgment.  We are exceedingly grateful to you!  Help us to display our gratitude to you by showing your mercy to others.  Let us remember it is the goodness of God which leads to repentance.  Thank you for erasing our colossal debt.  Help us to remember the place you have made for us now and also the place from which you delivered us, that we might avail ourselves of all the fullness you died to bring us and remember the wretched state we were in without Your mercy.  Oh great God be praised!  We marvel in your mercy and thank you with sincere hearts, souls and minds!

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 Just

“Clouds and thick darkness surround him;

righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne”

Ps 97:3

Justice.  The word summons unique images to different people.  For me I see a great building with a columned exterior and grand courtroom inside where the judge is going to hand down a verdict.  I imagine this is a common image for many people.  Another commonality may be that the judge must be a hard soul, an impartial evaluator, a cold, hard person who acts only on the facts.  You can almost hear him interrupting your defense of your actions with his thunderous gavel – boom, boom, boom – “Just the facts, please, just the facts!”  You are trying to tell him why you did what you did, but your emotions and faulty reasoning are not facts.  You did wrong. Period. That is the fact.  Here is another: all people who do wrong are sentenced.  Yet another: the sentence for doing wrong is an all-expenses-paid, one-way trip to Hell, for eternity. 

Seems a bit harsh, don’t you think?  What about the extenuating circumstances?  What about the peer-pressure? What about the need for pleasure?  Well, here’s the rub.  We are standing before the judge, who must, by definition, be impartial, and who must uphold the law.  We mentioned last month that all things are good in so far as they agree with the attributes of God, and bad in as far as they disagree with the attributes of God.  Now remember an attribute is something which is true of its object.  God cannot separate Himself from Himself or He would cease to be God.  So how can God, who is perfect, judge the imperfect and come up with anything other than a guilty verdict in comparison to Himself?  Simple.  He cannot. 

Seems a bit harsh, don’t you think?  Well, here’s the rub again.  The law, which the judge must uphold, is not partial.  It expects perfection, absolute obedience, and flawless precision in conformity to itself.  Now there is nothing outside of God which influences Him or changes Him in any way.  So perfection is what God expects, it is all He can expect.  To expect other than perfection would be to make Him unjust.  Since God is perfect, it follows He must be perfectly just.  One who is perfectly just cannot turn a blind eye to injustice (lack of conformity to perfection).   Okay, so where does that leave us?  Unfortunately, it leaves us in Hell. 

Seems a bit harsh, don’t you think?  Well maybe to us, but to the perfect one, the high judge of all, it can be no other way.  But God, being who He is, is also perfectly merciful.  So how does He reconcile the imperfect with the perfect?  There can be only one way.  The perfect must be sacrificed for the imperfect.  The only one who could claim perfection must die for the imperfect and take away all their imperfection.  Infinite perfection and absolute justice dies at the hand of the ridiculously corrupt, the epitome of impurity.  So the righteous (just) requirements of the law are met on behalf of the imperfect if they claim the sacrifice as their own.   And just how do they do that? They must ask Christ to forgive their sin and be their Lord (master).  This is the ONLY way.

Seems a bit harsh, don’t you think?  I don’t!  His sacrifice is the most self-less act ever committed.  It is the most beautiful display of love and mercy.  It is complex yet utterly simple.  But on this there is no bending of the rules: we must confess our guilt (our lack of perfection), for we have parted ways with His infinite goodness.  We have sinned.  But “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9).  “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe…He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:22, 26).  So God has satisfied the righteous requirements of the law in that He died as a sacrifice for sin (see Romans 8:3-4).  So God is just when He condemns the sin and merciful when He pardons it.  He is the perfect judge who has over-whelming compassion on all those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior.

God does not act outside of accordance with His nature.  But to look at it as God being forced to act a certain way because of His attributes is wrong.  His attributes are names we give His consistent behavior.  We say God is just because He acts that way.  But it goes deeper than that.  God IS just, He does not merely act that way.  He IS the truth, He does not merely have it.  He IS merciful, He does not merely operate that way.  He IS love, He does not merely posses it.  So when He judges He IS both just and merciful in perfect balance.  “The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.” Psalm 103:6

Oh great Judge, help us to understand our hearts are deceitfully wicked and we have no hope of righteousness except by faith in Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.  We accept your correction as loving guidance and see your wrath upon the wicked as just.  There but for the grace of God we are.  Open our hearts a fresh to receive your cleansing mercy.  You are perfectly just and perfectly merciful!  Only in you could such perfection bring harmony between justice and mercy.  We thank you Oh, Lord for your wisdom.  Your greatness no one can fathom!

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.

The Thompson Chain-Reference Bible New International Version The Old Testament and The New Testament Thompson's original and complete system of Bible study A complete numerical system of chain references, analyses of books, outline studies of characters and unique charts, with pictorial maps and archaeological discoveries. Ed. Frank Charles Thompson, et al. Grand Rapids: Zondervan      Bible Publishers, 1983. Print.

God is Good

“The Lord is good to all; He has compassion on all He has made”

Ps 145:9

Another moral attribute of God, which we can possess as well, is goodness.  Goodness defines right from wrong.  Without goodness, right could be wrong and wrong could be right.  Goodness makes moral judgments about the application truth.  To define Goodness is like trying to see the wind.  You cannot.  At best you see only the affects of the wind and not the wind itself.  Merriam-Webster defines goodness as: decent, ethical, honest, honorable, just, moral, right, righteous, right-minded, straight, upright, and virtuous.  They define the opposite of Good as:  bad, black, dishonest, dishonorable, evil, evil-minded, immoral, indecent, sinful, unethical, unrighteous, wicked, and wrong.¹

To describe someone as good is usually a judgment on their behavior.  Their behavior is seen as honest, moral, right, and virtuous.   We cannot fully know someone else and therefore the best judgments we can make about the person’s character are those we make because of their actions.  The same is true of God.  By His actions we can proclaim Him good, but with God it goes deeper than that.  His very nature is good.  And since it is part of His nature we know a few things about His goodness.  It is infinite, perfect, unchanging (never growing more or less good), dependable, and eternal.  Here is great comfort.  The goodness of God never changes, it is dependable and infinite. 

God is good to us because it is part of His nature, not because of some merit on our part or some compensation we deserve.  Salvation is a free gift because the good nature of God caused Him to provide it to all men at a tremendous personal cost to Himself.  It is available to all because He is good to all.  He blesses and causes blessing upon people because He is good.  He can only create good things.  He can only give good things.  “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.  He does not have bad things to give and He does not create bad things.  Last month we learned of the faithfulness of God as Psalm 145:13 says, “The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made.”  So the point is not only is He faithful, but He is faithfully good.  We can take great comfort in the fact that He is always good.  We can expect Him to always act good towards us.  “He is the same yesterday, today and forever” Heb 13:8. 

Since He is the truth, all things can be judged good or bad in their relationship to Him.  All things that are against the nature of God are bad or evil.  All things that agree with the nature of God are good.  Without goodness being an immovable, unshakeable attribute of God, we would have no basis to judge right from wrong.  Notions of right and wrong, good and evil, immoral and moral, just and unjust, ethical and unethical, indeed, every moral judgment has its roots in the goodness of God.  Without goodness being an immovable, unshakeable attribute of God, we would have no basis to expect good things from Him.  He has given us Himself and all He has as our inheritance (see John 16:13-15, 2 Pet 1:3-8; Eph 1:3; Rom 8:17, 32).  He has made all good things available to us.

Now remember that His goodness is in perfect harmony with His judgments and wrath.  When He pours out His wrath, He is still acting out of His goodness.  His compassion and grace flow out of His goodness and His judgments are mandated out of His goodness.  He cannot be good if He is not just.  Justice and goodness walk hand in hand.  When He spares the evil, it is because of His goodness and mercy and when He disciplines the evil it is because of His holiness, justice, and righteousness.  So whatever He does, it is always good.

“For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.” Ps 100:5

“Give thanks to the Lord, for his is good; His love endures forever.”  1 Ch 16:34

“Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.” Ps 34:8

“The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble.  He cares for them who trust in Him.” Nah 1:7

Footnotes

¹ "Goodness-Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dicitionary." Merriam-Webster. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2008. <www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/goodness >.

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.

The Thompson Chain-Reference Bible New International Version The Old Testament and The New Testament Thompson's original and complete system of Bible study A complete numerical system of chain references, analyses of books, outline studies of characters and unique charts, with pictorial maps and archaeological discoveries. Ed. Frank Charles Thompson, et al. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1983. Print.

God is Faithful

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.”

Heb10:23

Here we come to the first of the moral attributes (things true of something) of God, attributes which we can possess as well.  The first one we will look at together is faithfulness.  The other attributes of God point out logically that this one must be true as well.  The immutability of God (He does not change) points to the supposition that He is faithful.  He cannot be otherwise.  He cannot lie (Num 23:19).  He is the truth (John 14:6).    Even if we are not faithful; God must be faithful.  His immutability, His omnipotence, His omniscience, His wisdom all point to His faithfulness.  A.W. Tozer points out in Knowledge of the Holy that we cannot think of the attributes of God in a vacuum.  Each one shows part of the truth of God.  But it is only looking at how the attributes flow together and influence each other that the true picture of God immerges.¹  Love and justice are at peace in Him.  Judgment and mercy are perfected in Him.  Love is present in His judgments.  Mercy is present in His justice.  So let’s look again to His attributes.  If He cannot change, is the truth, has all the power, knows all there is, and has perfect wisdom to apply His knowledge, how could He be anything but faithful?

Yet we don’t need to logically figure this out, the Scriptures are full of the testimonies of God’s faithfulness.  Colossians 1:16-17 remind us God created all things and in Him all things hold together.  God proclaimed Himself faithful to Moses, not only through the miraculous leading of the Israelites, but by passing in front of Moses saying, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,…” (Ex 34:6).  Moses took hold of the lesson because he later reminded the Israelites, “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.” (Deut 7:9).  Jeremiah reminds us of the faithfulness of God’s love and compassions, “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lam 3:23).

Herein the Christian should find great comfort; He who promised is faithful (Heb 10:23)!  We do not have a God who wakes up one day and decides to change all the rules, or eradicate earth for no reason, or suspend the law of gravity, etc.  He is dependable, constant, and faithful.  He is there holding the universe together.  He is there watching over His word to fulfill it (Jer 1:12, Isa 55:11).  The Psalmist reminds us, “For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does.” (Ps 33:4).  And again, “Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations. The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made.” (Ps 145:13).  Utter joy and sheer delight!  God is telling us we can depend on Him.  We can “take to the bank” all the promises He gives us in Scripture.  Salvation, redemption, sanctification, righteous, peace, and joy all there for the taking, freely offered and backed up by the word of the faithful God, who does not change.  Healing, forgiveness, miracles, spiritual gifts to further the Kingdom, meaning and purpose, incredible worth, adoption into His family, the secret things of God, the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead living in us, the right to hear His voice, His power for daily living, co-inheritance with Christ, seating in heavenly places with Christ, every spiritual blessing – they are ours, friends, because He who promised is faithful.  Let us be found faithful in our response to His faithfulness.  Let us be found appropriating His promises for ourselves.  Let us be found making good with the incredible inheritance which He has paid for with an inconceivable price.  Let us be found co-laboring with Christ for the Kingdom of God to come in our day.  Let us hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!” (Mt 25:21).  It is the Lord’s good pleasure that we should take Him at His Word and through faith in His faithfulness appropriate His great and precious promises!

O Lord God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, help us to take confident assurance and peaceful rest and active participation in your faithfulness!  Let us so faithfully dwell on your Word, your promises to us, that we find it defining reality more than our senses.  Let our experience not be counted true until it lines up with Your Word, for You are the truth.   Let us sing, believe and take to heart the great hymn of old:

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

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. 78-79. 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 Omnipresent

“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make by bed in the depths, you are there.”

Ps139:7, 8

“God dwells in His creation and is everywhere indivisibly present in all His works…The Universal Presence is a fact. God is here. The whole universe is alive with His life.”

A W Tozer – The Pursuit of God

The omnipresence of God is the momentous truth that God is everywhere present and nowhere absent.  He fills all time and space equally.  He is nowhere closer or farther away than anywhere else.  This seems hard to grasp, yet mere reason concerning the things we know to be true of God demands that this must be true as well.  How can God be infinite and not be everywhere?  (See Ps 139:7,8 above.)  How can God sustain everything if He is not everywhere?  Colossians 1:17 states “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”  How can He be sovereign without ruling over everything? (See Isa 66:1,2.)

I think the distinction must be made as it has been by John Bevere, Bill Johnson, and A. W. Tozer that although God is present everywhere, that are times when we feel His presence more than other times.  We call this the manifest presence of God.  This difference is not one on God’s side of the equation, but one on our side of it.  God is equally presence everywhere.  It is our awareness that changes.  I think too many Christians feel His Presence is only for special occasions and places like church and worship time.   We lose sight of the fact that God’s presence is always here.  Can God really make Himself less or more potent than He already is?  I think not.  He says “I am that I am” and He says “For I am the LORD, I change not.”  It is our understanding that needs to change.  It is our experience that needs to be different.  It is a matter of our faith and our desire for Him that must change.  “Now without faith it is impossible to please God, for the one who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who diligently search for him.” 

Yet we don’t feel His Presence all the time, so many times we must confess as Jacob did in Gen 28:16, “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.”  We must get away from the idea that we must pray for God to come close as if He were somewhere (heaven) far away and needed to travel to us in order to be next to us.  We must get away from the idea that the Holy Spirit must be invited to come into our meetings.  He is already there. We must ask Him to make us aware that He is there.  We must get away from the idea that God is somehow more present in church than He is in our living rooms, bedrooms and kitchens.  We must get away from thinking of God in spatial terms.  God fills all time and space but He transcends time and space.  Think of a glass representing all time and space there is, ever has been, and ever will be.  Now picture God as the ocean.  Drop the glass in the ocean and you have a picture of how God fills all time and space yet He is bigger (much bigger) than just that. 

We need to understand that it is our openness to Him which makes Him feel closer.  It is our response to His eternal, equilateral presence that determines how close to Him we feel.  It is the Christian disciplines which prepare us to feel more of Him or experience more of Him.  We need to acknowledge with David in Ps139:7, 8 “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make by bed in the depths, you are there.”  And we need to understand with Jeremiah in Jer 23:23, 24 “‘Am I only a God nearby,’ declares the Lord, ‘and not a God far away?  Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?’ declares the Lord.  ‘Do not I fill heaven and earth?’ declares the Lord.”  Doctor Luke shows us clearly in Acts 17:27 “God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.”  Indeed God is always not far from each one of us.  If you have asked Jesus to be your Savior, then the Holy Spirit lives IN YOU.  So our experiencing the manifest Presence of God is not so much a matter of God traveling from somewhere to be with us as it is Him quickening our Spirit-Man or Inner-Man to understand better the truth that He is here and to allow our physical senses to ‘feel’ His Presence with us.  Now surely God can, in His Sovereignty, impress His Spirit upon us so heavily that we have no choice but to feel it.  But this is not the norm, hence our experience of not feeling His Presence more often. 

If, however, this is our desire, to feel His Presence more often, there are things we can do to make ourselves more receptive to experiencing His Presence.  “Draw close to God and He will draw near to you.” James tells us.  Again here are the Christian disciplines leading the way.  Reading the Bible inspires our faith (Rom 10:17), and faith allows us to believe God is and is a rewarder of those who earnestly seek Him (Heb 11:1,6).  Here we see that there is a principle of the Kingdom of God which tells us not to trust in our experience until that experience lines up with the Word of God.  Indeed, we have in these two verses a mandate to have faith in what we do not see (experience) and hope for what the Word of God tells us is true.  This is how the Kingdom works.  Faith, prayer, praying in tongues, standing on the Word, fasting, memorizing the Word, proclaiming the Word over and over until our minds are renewed and the spiritual things become more real to us than the things we experience with our senses – these are some of the things the Scriptures tells us will activate our faith.  Then suddenly in a moment or several moments we become aware and being to experience what was there all along – His Presence.  Then we can with our senses experience the supernatural, the Presence of God.

Oh God, give us the passion for your Presence again.  May You become more important than anything else.  Take Your place of prominence and preeminence which you so rightly deserve.  Let us not by the senses you gave us, fall into the trap of thinking you are far off.  Help us to draw near to You and experience You drawing near to us.  Help us to live in the continual awareness of Your Presence.   Help us be disciplined and earnestly seek You.  For you declare, “‘Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord…” Jeremiah 29:12-14.  God help us to seek for you with all our hearts and let us be found byYou.

Resources:

Bevere, John. Drawing near. Walton-on-Thames: Thomas Nelson, 2006.

Johnson, Bill. Strengthen Yourself in the Lord. Shippensburg: Destiny Image Publishers, 2007. The Thompson Chain-Reference Bible New International Version The Old Testament and The New Testament Thompson's original and complete system of Bible study A complete numerical system of chain references, analyses of books, outline studies of characters and unique charts, with pictorial maps and archaeological discoveries. Ed. Frank Charles Thompson, et al. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1983. Print.

Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. 103-107. Print.

Tozer, A. W.  The Pursuit of God.