Sometimes in life, we experience the fallout that happens when we discover that someone isn’t who they said they were. The disappointment we feel can be really painful, and even cause us to never look at people the same way as before.
God is not a person. He’s God. He is the great I Am.
Maybe you already know that, but you’ve never really thought deeply about who He is and what that should mean to your life. Maybe you don’t know who God says He is. Maybe you don’t know God at all. My prayer is, that by taking a small look at who God says He is, you will be blessed. Let’s focus on these four things:
- The Creator
- Love
- Holy
- Eternal
The Creator
You need only open the Bible to the first page to see that God is the Creator of all things known to man.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1
The first words spoken by God recorded in the Bible, are just two verses down from that. He says,
Let there be light.
Genesis 1:3
God spoke light into existence. When He said it, it happened.
Creation, in all its intricacy, complexity, and beauty was created by God. There was no big bang, no waiting for chance. Something did not evolve from nothing. There was only God.
When Job was so desperate in his grief and wanted to talk to God, God shows up. He reprimands Job for some of the foolish things he said and reminds him – in no small way – of just who He is. He asks Job,
Where were you when I established the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? What supports its foundations? Or who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Job 38:4-7
God continues with Job for four more chapters. I encourage you to read it. God is the Almighty Creator.
God created everything. He wrote all the laws about how everything functions. Man does not understand them all and never will. Many people, in their ignorance, have chosen to worship the creation and not the Creator.
How does knowing God is the Creator of all things help you understand His authority over your life?
Here are some more verses to look at:
Love
Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Love never ends.
The depth of God’s love is what powers everything. Creation, salvation, forgiveness, mercy, patience, grace, and so much more. Love is why we are here. Love is why we can be saved. Love is why God wants us to spend eternity with Him. God is love.
The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
1 John 4:8-10
The Divine love of God is difficult for many to understand. It’s so much more than any love we, as humans, have experienced. The love we have as humans can be so big, so deep, so lasting that it gives us a glimpse of His love. As Christians, we have the love of God in us, and we are capable of letting it out if we only open our hearts.
God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Romans 5:5
God wants us to love. He told us to love our neighbor (Mark 12:31), and even our enemies (Luke 6:27). Above all, we are to love Him (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37).
Jesus even issued a new command to His Apostles:
I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
John 13:34-35
And here’s the best thing – God’s love is so powerful, that nothing can take us away from Him.
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39
Love does not die. Love is powerful, lasts forever, and never fails. God is love, and He loves us. We don’t have to earn it, and it’s immeasurable. We should all be praying regularly for God to help us love as He loves.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
John 3:16-17
Do you feel comfortable with how/who God wants us to love?
Here are some more verses to look at:
Holy
I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.
Isaiah 46:9
The natural state of God is Holy.
A dictionary might define “Holy” as being religious or morally pure and things to that effect. So, most modern understanding of the term has, in many ways, lost the full meaning.
Looking at the Hebrew culture of Biblical times, the word translated as “Holy” was, “qadosh”. It literally means, “to be set apart for a special purpose”.
Be honest, have you ever read parts of the Bible that talk about a day that is holy (Genesis 1:3), or things that are holy (Numbers 10:21), or the nation of Israel that is holy (Jeremiah 2:3), and had this little feeling down deep inside that it just didn’t make sense? I mean, you know not every person in Israel was without sin, was righteous, was pure. So how could they be holy? How could ANYTHING be called holy that isn’t God? Right?
But…God Himself told us to be holy.
But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct; for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy.
1 Peter 1:15-16
Now, when you read that verse with the understanding that holy means to be set apart for a special purpose, it becomes much clearer. When God tell us to be holy, He’s telling us to be set apart for Him. How we do that is by being His, and not following the ways of the world who do not follow Him. Believers do not conduct themselves as the world does. Believers conduct themselves as God wants us to because He has changed us.
There are two categories: 1) God 2) everything else.
God is in a category all alone. Nothing else compares to Him. He is set apart from all things.
Yes, His other attributes and characteristics are tied to His Holiness. He’s pure, 100% good, without sin, never changes, all-knowing, and so much more.
We are human. Just because your smart home may be able to turn a lamp on when you tell it to, doesn’t mean you created light. God spoke all things into existence because He is Holy. He is so Holy, Heavenly creatures in His presence sing about it, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Armies: His glorify fills the whole earth,” Isaiah 6:3.
Our natural state is a sinful one. God is offended by sin because He is Holy. Isaiah knew that, and when he found himself in the Holy Heavens, while in human form, and saw God, he felt he would surely perish.
Woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Armies.
Isaiah 6:5
However, because God loves us and wants to be with us, He made a way. Before Jesus came, the way was through Mosaic law. Now, through Jesus, we can be close to God, and through His Spirit, we can be transformed to look more like Him. The believer is not of this sinful world and is set apart for God. Because God made the way for us, we can spend eternity with Him.
If you’ve read the sections in Job I referred to in the first part of this article, you may be more enlightened to the depths of God’s Holiness.
What are some ways you can be holy today?
Here are some more verses to look at:
Eternal
This is a concept many humans have great difficulty with. To be eternal means to have no beginning and no end. That’s hard to grasp because in our experience, every living thing has a beginning and an end. We have to remind ourselves that God is not human. He made humans. He is Holy and like nothing else we know.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
Revelation 1:8
When God created the world and everything else, He created day and night (Genesis 1:5). Thus, He created time. God is not, was not, and will never be bound by time. He is God. Since the fall of man, the human experience is bound by time. Our flesh is born, lives, and dies, but our soul does not die. You can spend eternity with God or separated from Him. You get to choose.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23
And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Matthew 25:46
Eternity is woven through the scriptures. It isn’t just a concept of man. It’s the reality of God – our Everlasting God. It speaks to His authority (Psalm 145:13), power (Romans 1:20), trustworthiness (Isaiah 26:4), love (Jeremiah 31:3), mercy (Lamentations 3:23), unchanging ways (James 1:17), omnipresence (Psalm 139:7-10), and so much more.
How does knowing God is eternal comfort you?
Here are some more verses to look at:
To Wrap Up
You won’t find out that God isn’t who He says He is. You’ll discover that He is everything He says He is. If you didn’t already know that, you’ll never look at Him the same way as before. He is the great I AM (Exodus 3:14).
I certainly hope this short study has blessed you in some way. When I first seriously began to study who God says He is, it changed my life. Two things I’ll share with you today: 1) God has total authority in all things, whether we understand/like/agree with all of His commandments on the way to live doesn’t matter. He is God, and we must trust Him. 2) I realized the mistakes and sins of my past were actually me choosing my way instead of His way. I didn’t understand that when I was younger, and it was very painful for me to finally see it that way. However, I thank God for opening my eyes to who He is, for I have been richly blessed.
- Please leave a comment below or email us. We would love to hear from you.
- SHARE this article with others. HELP spread the Good News.
- May God bless you on your journey to know Him more.
Leave a Reply