When I Say "God," You Think...

 What do you think of when you hear the word "God"?

Seriously, what is the first thing that pops into your head when you hear the word "God."? Or maybe it is "god."

I mean, it's just a little, 3 lettered word. What's so difficult about answering that question?

Could it be that that little 3 lettered word is a key that unlocks your soul? Could it be that in answering the question, you expose who you really are?  Or don't you want to answer? After all, how could one be so narrow minded to admit that there is a "god" never mind "God"? And yet, once the question is asked, why can't we get it out of our minds? Why does that question nag us or haunt us? Why do we struggle with that? What don't we want to admit about ourselves when we begin to ponder "God"?

Now, I didn't ask, "what do you think about God?" Why? Because whatever our puny, finite minds may begin to think about God is almost completely irrelevant. Did I say "almost?" Sorry, it IS irrelevant. How does finite man begin to comprehend, let alone apprehend, an infinite God? Take a look at the Old Testament book of the prophet Isaiah chapter 55 and especially verses 2 - 11, it says:

 

"Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.
³ Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.
⁴ See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
    a ruler and commander of the peoples.
⁵ Surely you will summon nations you know not,
    and nations you do not know will come running to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor.”

⁶ Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near.
⁷ Let the wicked forsake their ways  and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.
⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.
¹⁰ As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish,
    so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Then there is Psalm 104:1 - 9:

¹ Praise the Lord, my soul.

Lord my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty.

² The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;
    he stretches out the heavens like a tent
³     and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.
He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind.
⁴ He makes winds his messengers,
    flames of fire his servants.

⁵ He set the earth on its foundations;
    it can never be moved.
⁶ You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;
    the waters stood above the mountains.
⁷ But at your rebuke the waters fled,
    at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
⁸ they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys,
    to the place you assigned for them.
⁹ You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth.

In fact, read the rest of the Psalm as well.

Psalm 139:1-6, contrasts us with God:

¹ You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

Job 38:31-41 says:

³¹ “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?
    Can you loosen Orion’s belt?
³² Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
    or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
³³ Do you know the laws of the heavens?
    Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?

³⁴ “Can you raise your voice to the clouds
    and cover yourself with a flood of water?
³⁵ Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
    Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
³⁶ Who gives the ibis wisdom
    or gives the rooster understanding?
³⁷ Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
    Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
³⁸ when the dust becomes hard
    and the clods of earth stick together?

³⁹ “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
    and satisfy the hunger of the lions
⁴⁰ when they crouch in their dens
    or lie in wait in a thicket?
⁴¹ Who provides food for the raven
    when its young cry out to God
    and wander about for lack of food?

All of these passages are simply glimpses of who God is.

Who is God?

When Moses asked God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?" God properly  answered (obviously), "I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you." ...This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation." Exodus 3:13-15. God simply "is." Because God is outside of time, He always was, always is, and always will be.

Don't worry, I'm struggling with all of this too. After all, if He (there I go claiming the gender of God and that He even exists), does exist, then... And then we open the door to too many seemingly unanswerable questions. For this reason, we are obligated, out of pure love, leading to obedience, to begin comprehending and apprehending WHO God is. We do this by regular reading and studying of His Word, the Bible, prayer (talking to God, then listening), and understanding orthodox or correct Doctrine.

Returning to the idea of God's existence, allow me to rephrase that, God just doesn't simply exist, He is existence itself - and nothing exists without Him. We humans have no purpose without God; none whatsoever. Existing in perfect tri-unity as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, He doesn't even need us for relationship. To you, this may sound self-serving, but all of creation exists for the pure pleasure and glory of God Himself and nothing else. And yet He does this out of His abundance, never out of need. God doesn't need anything...

And yet He chose to create each galaxy, each star, each planet, and mountain and river and tree and flower and animal to bring glory to Himself. And then there is every one of us. Man is a little more special because we are created in HIS image and He has chosen to bestow on us (unlike every other created being or thing) some of HIS attributes. Attributes such as love, honor, justice, forgiveness, and even grace and mercy - should we be so bold as to attempt to use those attributes. But the bottom line is that when all is said and done, God can still exist without man but conversely, man cannot exist, let alone live, without God. Without God, I have no purpose whatsoever.  That's a real blow to the theist or deistic unbeliever I know, because it begs the question, "so what?" The same question is brought to the feet of the agnostic or the evolutionist and we ask, "so what?"

Man struggles to survive because he believes he has purpose; but purpose to do what?

To build, to think, to write, to sing, to pro-create, to recreate. So what?...If we're here for a paltry 80 years or so, compared to billions (if you believe the evolutionist), so what? What's the point?

But if we have the purpose, the "divine" purpose of giving back glory to God and enjoying fellowship with Him for eternity, well...that's quite a different story isn't it? Eternity and God suddenly mean something, don't they? Not just believing in, but trusting in the eternal security and mercy of a perfectly holy God gives you something to live for, doesn't it? Having a perfect relationship with God who already is in a Perfect relationship within His own God-head of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is something to behold. Something that should make us fall on our faces in worship.

And we haven't even begun to speak of or contemplate His majesty, as mentioned in 1 Chronicles 29:11 which reads:

"Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power
    and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
    for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, Lord, is the kingdom;
    you are exalted as head over all."

Or, how about His sovereignty, Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

How about His perfect righteous, Psalm 145:17-18,

"The Lord is righteous in all his ways
    and faithful in all he does.
The Lord is near to all who call on him,
    to all who call on him in truth."

Then there is God's perfect wrath to punish the sin of man as written of in Amos 2:3-5

"'I will destroy her ruler
    and kill all her officials with him,'
says the Lord.

⁴ This is what the Lord says:

“For three sins of Judah,
    even for four, I will not relent.
Because they have rejected the law of the Lord
    and have not kept his decrees,
because they have been led astray by false gods,
    the gods their ancestors followed,
⁵ I will send fire on Judah
    that will consume the fortresses of Jerusalem.”

What of the Holiness of God as shown in the book of Isaiah 6:1-4?

"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. ² Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. ³ And they were calling to one another:

'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
    the whole earth is full of his glory.'

⁴ At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke."

God is so holy that without His personal intervention and salvation, I cannot have fellowship or relationship with Him. God chose to have a relationship with us; with you and me. How will we individually answer His call?

As we open God's Word and study Christian Doctrine, let's ask God to more fully reveal Himself to us.

All Bible quotes are from the Holy Bible New International Version.

 

Knowing God By J.I. Packer / Inter-varsity Press J. I. Packer's Knowing God has become a classic of the Christian faith. Why? While it gives us information about God with clarity and grace, it does much more---it aids us in actually knowing him, in building our relationship with him, and helps draw us closer to him in love and worship.