God's Self-Revelation

One has to have an informed idea of WHO GOD IS, in order to infer the right things from WHAT HE HAS SAID. That is why it is important to study His attributes.

When we think of God, our brain immediately assigns Him a number of attributes (or characteristics). This is because, in order to think of a subject, you have to think something about that subject.

If one were to ask you to think of a “horse” right now, the picture your mind would produce would have hundreds of attributes already in place. The moment you imagine this horse, you’ve already ascribed attributes to its size, to its look, its nature, and so on.

In this same sense, when we think of God, our brain immediately ascribes Him attributes. The question is: are we ascribing the right ones?

When we think of God, do we think of Him as sovereign, as independent, unchanging, all-powerful, loving, just, merciful, and more? And if so, then another question would be: how do we know this? What is our basis for believing these things about God?

The only way that anyone can know anything about God is if He first reveals Himself to us.

In other words, the foundation for a right understanding of God is His own self-revelation, and not our best “guesses” as to what He may or may not be like.

What Makes Amazing Grace So Amazing?

If someone were to ask you to prove God’s grace and mercy, you might answer with two words: Genesis 4. When mankind fell in Genesis 3, God would have been perfectly just to have closed the book on humanity.

And yet, He did not.

And yet, He ordered all of redemptive history around the death of His Son.

You see, we do not have a symbiotic relationship with God, wherein He keeps us around because He benefits from our presence. There is no “man shaped void" in God that necessitates our existence. So when our federal head (Adam) sinned, was God under any obligation to forgive? Absolutely not.

Now, this may seem intuitive, but let me explain why it matters.

In a human context, the grace that we're talking about is completely foreign. Much of the forgiveness we see in our world comes because it is, to some extent, owed. If a father forgives a child, it may flow from his love, but also from his responsibility. We would view a father who was unwilling to forgive a child’s minor transgression as being callous, because we see forgiveness as necessary to the father/son relationship.

However, the forgiveness offered through Christ is wholly different.

When creation sins against the Creator, it is in no way incumbent upon the Creator to remediate the situation. And yet, we have those two amazing words: Genesis 4. Immediately after Adam sinned, God announced the coming Christ (Genesis 3:15). He did not wait for man to bridge the gap (as man could not) but decreed that He would do so Himself.

What grace this is! What undeserved mercy! And for that matter, what love… because to redeem us, the wrath of God would have to be spent upon His only Son. The love of God is sealed by the blood of the Lamb; blood that we do not merit, but which was nevertheless shed on our behalf.

Praise God for His undeserved mercy and grace. May we never take it for granted!

Wisdom And Obedience Are Inseparable

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all those who do His commandments. His praise endures forever.” - Psalm 111:10

Biblical wisdom is not a function of one’s intellect or brilliance. Nor is Biblical wisdom founded in man’s ability to interpret creation… rather, it is founded in man’s recognition and reverence for his Creator.

In Psalm 111:10, we read that reverent, Godly fear is the beginning of wisdom. What this implies is that the attitude of one’s heart toward God is the precursor to the shaping of sound views, doctrines, and judgments.

Now, with that said… what are the hallmarks of the Biblically wise? Well, the assertion of Verse 10 is this:

“A good understanding have all those who do His commandments.”

If we are truly wise, what will we do? We will DO THE COMMANDS of the One who created us. Biblical wisdom begins with the recognition of our frailty and need for Christ, and culminates in our EMULATION OF HIS HOLY CHARACTER. True wisdom is when weak, sinful people begin to emulate the attributes of a perfect and Holy God.

So if Biblical wisdom entails being conformed to Christ, then the question we must ask ourselves is: to what degree do our lives reflect our King?

Prayer And The Glory of God

God has never taken an action that was not centered around His own glory. How important it is to understand this, and even more so when we pray.

When you and I offer God our prayers and petitions, we do so with a lot of different motivations. Some of our prayers are reasonably selfless, others are ignoble, and most are a mix of the two. In His love and mercy, God is patient when we approach Him… His Spirit interceding for us in those times when we don’t even know how to pray.

And yet, when the finger of God is lifted in response to prayer, it is lifted ONLY in accordance with those prayers that will ultimately bring Him glory. He will not, for example, satisfy our desire for material goods for the sole reason of gratifying man. This is a King we serve, not a Genie. However, if being materially blessed generates our thanksgiving, then this is one way He is glorified. In His wisdom, God can ALSO direct our prayers unto outcomes that exceed our original intent. But one thing He does not do is ordain responses to prayers that will in any way diminish His namesake.

If we truly believe that man’s whole duty is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, then our prayers need to reflect this. We should consider our petitions not only in light of our needs, but of His eminence. Doing so will help us avoid praying for that which is of no eternal merit, and will refine our objectives for what it is that we DO pray for.

Again, the finger of God moves only in that which promotes the glory of God. There is no action he partakes in that will lessen His majesty, nor any action that is neutral to His majesty. So when praying, it is wise to consider this thought:

“How will the outcome of what I’m praying FOR bring glory to the One I’m praying TO?”

The Goodness of God

When we say that “God is good,” this is not a verdict we render on the basis of WHAT HE DOES (although we could) but rather on the basis of WHO HE IS.

Or, to put it another way, goodness is not a moral threshold that God happens to hold to… but it is an essential characteristic of His very nature. And this means that when we say "God is good" we are making a far different statement than we sometimes think we are.

Let me explain by way of analogy. If a man goes down the street and comes across an old lady who has fallen, and he helps her up, we might then say that this man has done a “good deed.”

In fact, people watching this take place might be inclined to say “what a good man he is.”  What they would be doing is interpreting the man’s actions through their lens of right and wrong, and then labeling him accordingly. The problem is that their judgment does not speak to the man’s real nature, but instead to their perceptions of His nature.

In other words, in order for someone to be called “good” in our culture, we do not require there to be UNITY between a person’s nature and a person’s actions. And as a result, the concept we have for “goodness” is a moving target. "Goodness" itself is reduced to a vague, moral sounding label… a descriptive term with no lasting value, because that which society calls “good” one day, it might well call “bad” the next.

On the other hand, when we affirm that “GOD IS GOOD,” we are saying something completely different.

Again, goodness is not a label to describe what God does, but it is an attribute defining who He is. God’s being and God’s actions are always unified; there is never a gap between His decisions and His identity. So God’s goodness, then, is not just a descriptive term… but instead speaks to what we call the ontology (or the very nature) of God himself.

What confidence it should give us that God's goodness is inherent to who He is, and will not change!