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ewordministry.com |
Explore Who God is: Four Spiritual Laws?Source from the Discover God with Bill Bright website: http://www.discovergod.org/high_bandwidth/personal_spirit.htm God Is A Personal Spirit... Our View of God What would you consider the most important information you could ever study and apply in your life? What is so foundational that it under girds everything in your relationship to God and even to other people? What more than anything else should motivate you to love, trust, and obey God? Many years ago, I was interviewed by Dr. James Boice of the Bible Hour. One of the first questions he asked me was, "What is the most important truth to teach believers?" No one had ever asked me that question, and I was totally unprepared for it. I am convinced the Holy Spirit gave me the answer. But I was kind of surprised at my reply... I said, "The attributes of God." I have had years to think about that question, and I am more convinced now than ever that there is nothing more important to teach believers than what our God is really like. Our view of God determines our lifestyle. What we believe to be true about God’s character affects our friendships, our work and leisure, the friends we choose, the type of literature we read and even the music to which we listen. Everything about our lives, our attitudes, our motives, our desires, our actions, and even our words are determined and influenced by our view of God. There are no convictions in life that are more important to victorious living than what we believe to be true about God. In the preface to his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer writes..."The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us...With our loss of the sense of majesty has come the further loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine Presence... It is impossible to keep our moral practices sound and our inward attitudes right while our idea of God is erroneous or inadequate. If we would bring back spiritual power to our lives, we must begin to think of God more nearly as He is." Is He a big bully? Is He a dictator? Is He a divine Santa Claus? Or do you envision God to be something like your parents? To some of you, He is a loving, gracious, tender, compassionate God. Or, to some of you, He is someone who is critical, jealous, proud, and haughty. Someone who is hard to get along with...someone to be feared. We have all kinds of distorted views of God, and many people are afraid of God because they do not know who He is and what He is like. But God wants you to view Him correctly. In fact, God wants you to know Him intimately. David proclaimed that..."Friendship with God is reserved for those who reverence Him" (Psalm 25:14, TLB). Through the years, I have meditated on the attributes of our awesome God. I ask Him to saturate my thought life with His wisdom and release His power in me through the Holy Spirit. Several months ago, while I was writing about the attributes of God, I was overcome with a sense of my unworthiness to write about the great character qualities of God. Who am I – Bill Bright: sinful and depraved from conception? And I am trying to write about the great God of the universe who is all-powerful, holy, and righteous. I remember falling to my knees in tears and confessing to God..."Oh Lord, I am not worthy to write about Your character. Forgive me for even being so presumptuous. I am not worthy...I know I am not worthy." There I was on my knees sobbing. Then the Lord seemed to put His arms around m–in a figurative sense–and He assured me that He had called me to do this and that I must do it. And in a loving way, He helped me to realize that He wanted me to undertake this project even though apart from His grace, I was totally unworthy. I readily admit that as a human being, I am incapable of completely explaining God. However, we base our knowledge of God on the inerrant, proven Word of God. We also understand God by how He interacts with people and nations throughout history. We are finite, God is infinite–and our limited understanding is inadequate to comprehend the magnificent triune nature of God. With our limited comprehension, we simply cannot understand the Holy Trinity, in which God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are co-equal members of the Godhead. Our best efforts to explain the Trinity, fall far short. For example, as a man I am... a husband, a father, and the president of a worldwide ministry. I am one man with three functions. Or, consider that H-2-O can be three different things...it can be water, ice or steam. The same chemical formula manifested in three distinctly different forms. But the Trinity is far more complex and profound than these awkward illustrations. One of my seminary professors once said..."If you try to understand the Trinity, you will lose your mind. If you deny the Trinity, you will lose your soul." God is Gloriously Incomprehensible Let us briefly consider four qualities of God which are completely foreign to our understanding. That means God has no limits, no boundaries and no ending. He can not be measured or compared to any finite standard. Everything within our world is finite. God and only God is infinite. And this quality relates to all of God’s attributes. His love, holiness, mercy and all the rest of His qualities are unlimited in their scope and expression. He had no beginning. He was not created. Everything in the universe had a beginning, except God. Because He is the Creator...He is the only One who exists outside of the created order. He is not bound by the dimensions of time and space. He has no end. Before He spoke the first word of creation, time did not exist. He created time as a temporary context for His creation. It boggles my mind to realize that God experiences all past, present and future events simultaneously. With God, everything that has ever happened, or will ever happen, has already occurred within His awareness. God sees the beginning of the parade of life, and He sees its end. We look at it through a key hole, and all we know is what we see happening. I cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like to live outside the boundary of time. All of history is but a little speck within the spectrum of eternity. And God encompasses all of eternity! He has no needs. He is dependent upon nothing outside Himself. All of creation relies upon God for existence and the maintenance of life. But God has no need for anything. He is not vulnerable in any way. He does not need our help. He only offers us the privilege of being involved with Him in the fulfillment of His purposes. God does not need us, but wants us to be involved with Him. Yes, our glorious God is truly incomprehensible. We will never be able to fully understand His magnificence. His infinity, self-existence, eternalness, and self-sufficiency are totally unimaginable. I have often marveled that God would be willing to step within the boundaries of space and time to become a human being–born of a woman, and live on this grain of sand within the universe that we call "earth." It is incredible to think that He was willing to make such a great personal sacrifice because He wanted to give us the opportunity to experience His love and to behold His glory. As our great Creator, God is all-powerful. He is present everywhere. He knows everything. And He is sovereign. As our divine Judge, God is holy. He is absolute truth. He is righteous. And, He is just. But God is also our gracious Savior. He is love. He is merciful. He is faithful. And He never changes. These are the basic characteristics of our supremely awesome God. But we need to understand that an over emphasis of any one of these attributes can lead to heresy. All of these characteristics are always demonstrated by God simultaneously. Whenever we exalt one of God’s attributes over another, we have a distorted view of His character. Even as we study each quality individually, we must remember that it is only one aspect of God’s magnificent nature. My desire is not to just share knowledge with you about our God–although that is important. But, I trust that the Holy Spirit will help me communicate my heart about God so that you may be encouraged to know Him and love Him more deeply. He alone is worthy of our love, trust, worship, and adoration. It is my prayer and desire that new knowledge of God will wash over you as the waves of the ocean, cleansing you of unworthy, inappropriate thoughts about Him. And as a result, you will be willing to genuinely trust Him, with all of your life as never before. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you many new insights into God’s majestic nature. Then, allow those insights to take root in your heart so your very life will be transformed through your greater understanding of our supremely holy, righteous, and loving God. There is no greater joy in life than to experience God and live in the holiness of His presence. When we truly see God as He really is, our lives will be changed forever. "I will meditate on your majestic, glorious splendor and your wonderful miracles" (Psalm 145:5). The greatest truth known to mankind is this–God is a person who we can know personally. And this divinely magnificent person wants us to have an intimate relationship with Him for all eternity. When I tour a historic mansion and carefully scrutinize the building’s details, from the quality, design and decor I can draw some conclusions about the owner of the mansion. However, no matter how much I learn about that person by studying the mansion, I still do not have a relationship with him. Knowledge about someone is essential, but it is not enough. Developing a relationship also requires desire, communication and commitment. We live on a grand estate called earth. As we look around at the beauty and intricacies of our residence, we marvel at the creativity and genius of the design. When we gaze up into the heavens we are overcome with awe at the vastness of what our Creator has brought into being. Beholding our God’s handiwork provides evidence of His existence and nature, but our God also wants us to know Him personally. He does not just want us to know things about Him. He desires intimate fellowship with us. But how is that possible? Our magnificent Creator is spirit. And although we also are spiritual beings, we are currently confined to a physical body and live within the dimensions of time and space. Furthermore, how can we, as microscopic microbes of life, interact with such an awesomely great and holy God? But our God, through His infinite love and goodness, has provided a way for us to have a personal relationship with Him. God has revealed Himself to us through His Word, the Bible. The Scriptures provide us with a clear description of God–what He is like, and what is important to Him. And God, who created more than 100 billion galaxies, came down from heaven to live on this little speck of dirt called earth. For a brief 33 years it was possible for human beings to observe the incarnate God through their senses, as they walked and talked with His Son, Jesus here on earth. The reason Jesus came to sacrificially died on the cross for our sins was to pay the penalty for those sins so they would no longer be a barrier between us and our holy God. Then, when Christ left planet earth, He sent the Holy Spirit to indwell Christians with His presence. Our Creator God did all this so we could go beyond just knowing about Him and being acquainted with Him. We can actually enter into a warm friendship and intimate family relationship with Him. Developing intimacy with God is a growth process. When our son, Zachary, was only a few days old, my wife, Vonette, asked me to watch him while she shopped. I was very tired and afraid that I would go to sleep so I took the baby in my arms to make certain that he would not roll off the bed in case I dozed off to sleep. Later, when Vonette came back, we laughed at my ignorance of babies. He couldn’t possibly have fallen off the bed. As a newborn, Zachary had neither the strength nor ability to move one inch from where he had been laid, but I didn’t know that. As Zachary grew older, he was able to roll over, then sit up. After several months he could crawl. Then he made attempts to stand, but he would fall and pick himself up. When he reached the place where he could take a step or two, we were elated at his progress. And when he could totter across the room from Vonette’s protective arms to mine, we were ecstatic. Soon he began to walk more steadily, and then he learned to run. And as he grew physically his mental capabilities were also developing so we could communicate better. Similarly, as we grow spiritually, God makes it possible for us to relate and communicate more intimately with Him. However, there are three prerequisites you must meet before you can have an intimate relationship with God. 1. You must be born spiritually. God is spirit. Although He is a person He does not have a body. He is not a material being. Therefore we must relate to Him spirit to spirit. (John 4:24) records the words of Jesus when he told His disciples that "God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth." In the third chapter of John, Jesus explained spiritual birth to Nicodemus, a religious leader who came to Jesus for counsel. Jesus told him, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit (John 3:3-6). If you have never been born spiritually by inviting Jesus to come into your life as your Savior and Lord, then do it today. Take some time after this class to speak with your Bible Study leader or pastor about any questions you may have. 2. You must be filled with the Holy Spirit. This is the second prerequisite for having an intimate relationship with God. We will only draw close to God when we permit the Holy Spirit to enable us to receive supernatural insight. Jesus promised His disciples that He would send the Holy Spirit, Who would be their Counselor and reveal truth to them. In 1 Corinthians 2 the apostle Paul writes, "But we know these things because God has revealed them to us by His Holy Spirit, and His Spirit searches out everything and shows us even God’s deep secrets." Without the Holy Spirit’s help it is impossible for us to comprehend spiritual truth. We have lived our entire lives within the boundaries of time and space and under the influence of our culture and the world’s values. As a result, we do not even have reference points to help us understand certain aspects of God’s spiritual nature and purpose. 3. You must seek God whole-heartedly. God’s Word promises, "You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:13 NIV). And in Hebrews 11:6 we are promised that God "... rewards those who earnestly seek Him" (Hebrews 11:6, NIV). One Sunday when Vonette and I were newly married we had a discussion on the expectations which we had for each other in our marriage. I suggested to Vonette that we each take a sheet of paper and go to a different room and write down our expectations before God. So we did. Vonette, who is so practical, wrote down some fundamental goals for our marriage like having a nice home, having children and living a life that pleases God. I, on the other hand, was wrestling with what I really wanted out of life. I decided to renounce every single thing to the control of the Lord Jesus Christ. I placed my life, Vonette, our family, home, business, all of our material possessions, present, entirely under the ownership of Jesus. I declared in writing that I was assuming the position of a bond slave to the Lord Jesus Christ, like the apostle Paul, and that whatever my Master would tell me to do, I would do. When we got together again and compared our papers–they were quite different. We each recognized the validity of the other’s goals before God. And then, we agreed that as an act of faith we would sign those papers as an expression of our devotion to God. Establishing that contract with God was a major spiritual mile-stone for Vonette and me. We were saying, "God, we want to follow you wholeheartedly, irrevocably, no matter what the cost." And as a result, we have experienced God’s most incredible blessings during these many years since the spring of 1947. How high of a priority do you place on knowing God intimately? Your way of expressing it may not be through a contract like Vonette and I signed. However, whatever you do, you must take the lordship of Jesus Christ very seriously. If you do, I don’t care what your problems are, a right understanding of God’s character is a big step toward solving them. Do you have a poor self image? Do you feel shy? Unworthy? Has someone robbed you of your value, worth and dignity? If you have the right view of God, your attitude toward yourself will change. Do you think of yourself as someone who is superior? Brilliant of mind? A gifted personality? If you have the right concept of God, you will never think more highly of yourself than you ought to think. Everyone of us has great potential for God which has never been tapped. We utilize only a fraction of our God-given potential. Our time, talents and mental capacity, are all greatly exercised when we have the right understanding of who God is and what He is trying to do through our lives. I trust and pray, that with the Holy Spirit’s help, these next few weeks will be life-changing. As you gain new insights into the awesome character of the God whom we are privileged to call our Father, may you be filled with renewed passion for Him and His purpose. |
