God in a Box

Several years ago, J. B. Phillips wrote “Your God Is Too Small”. The basis of this book is that many Christians do not understand who God is and therefore, live below what God wants to do in and for them. Getting to know and understand God is one of the most important parts of serving Him. When we understand the attributes, we appreciate His nature. We also realise how He has provided for us to help us grow in our relationship with Him and in our service for Him.

The trouble with many people today is that they have not found a God big enough for modern needs. While their experience of life has grown in a score of directions, and their mental horizons have been expanded to the point of bewilderment by world events and by scientific discoveries, their ideas of God have remained largely static.

Many men and women today are living, often with inner dissatisfaction, without any faith in God at all. This is not because they are particularly wicked or selfish or, as the old-fashioned would say, “godless,” but because they have not found with their adult minds a God big enough to “account for” life, big enough to “fit in with” the new scientific age, big enough to command their highest admiration and respect, and consequently their willing co-operation.

What is God like? The Bible tells us "God is Love" (1 John 4:8). However, how can we even begin to understand that truth? Many passages in the Bible give us God's definition of love. For instance, "This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. In addition, this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God was not attracted to you and did not choose you because you were big and important--the fact is, there was almost nothing to you. The person who refuses to love does not know the first thing about God, because God is love--so you cannot know him if you do not love.

Can anyone really comprehend "unconditional" love? It seems the love that parents have for their children is as close to unconditional love as we can get without the help of God's love in our lives. We continue to love our children through good times and bad, and we do not stop loving them if they do not meet the expectations we may have for them. We make a choice to love our children even when we consider them unlovable; our love does not stop when we do not "feel" love for them. This is similar to God's love for us.

God loves us not because of what we have done or accomplished but because of his unfailing love. God incorporated mercy in his nature. Mercy is God’s grace in action; it involves a deeply felt concern for others, God’s tender-heartedness and loving compassion for His children. God's loyal love cannot run out, his merciful love cannot dried up. They are created new every morning. How great His faithfulness!

Many people today have a distorted view of God because they truly do not understand His character. The God we serve is loving, merciful and faithful. Knowing Him more can help us love Him more. The Bible is full of expressions of God’s nature. We must yield our hearts in order to receive the wonderful blessings He has for us. Communion with God is very important to our spiritual growth. The more we know about our great God, the more we should love and revere Him and become more like Him. When we pray and meditate on God’s word, we give Him opportunities to teach us.

His Death, His Passion

...Do you still have any reason not to worship one who went through all these for your sake? He died that you may live, he was made poor that you may be rich. Accept Him as your Lord and Saviour today and enjoy peace and all that comes with the Calvary experience.

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What is God like?

Imagine giving a Blackberry Porsche to an old grandmother in the village, because she does not know or fully understand what it is for, she would not put it to good use. You should not be surprised if she uses it as a candle stand. Many of us are far worse than that; because we do not understand who and what God really is; we use him for far less than a candle stand.

A person is to you the much you know about them. We usually are wrong when we try to know people from afar. We make the same error when we try to think we know God and we are distant from him. We assume a lot of things about God, most time we are wrong. The knowledge of who God really is key to Christian life. If we are God’s children, then we are to exhibit his attributes, characters, actions, attitudes, and His approach to things. We cannot be children of God and not be like Him.

What is God like? In answering this question, God’s attributes includes but not limited to: "God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth, all-sufficient, incomprehensible, everywhere present and knowing all things.  God is good, meaning that "God is the final standard of good, and all that God is and does is worthy of approval." God’s attribute is limitless.

God is much ‘bigger’ than we in every sense are. Therefore, we can never completely describe him or understand him. It would be like a slug trying to understand Einstein’s theories to expect us to understand God.

Some things about God only apply to him, other aspects of God we share in as beings who were created in his image. God is glorious, majestic perfection and utterly different to us in this way. He is infinite, without beginning, end, or any limitation at all. He is self-existent, not dependent on anyone for anything. He is consistent and unchanging, so always remains dependably the same as he relates to us. God is sovereign. He rules over all and is the final cause of all that happens in his universe. He is everywhere and knows everything.

God is holy. He is utterly pure and perfect and therefore utterly against evil, deceit, injustice and wrong doing. Because God is perfectly righteous he judges and punishes all that is wrong. God is good. He is loving, merciful and compassionate. God is complex and yet all these characteristics exist together perfectly in harmony. Jesus, the Son of God, reveals God to us perfectly. In Him we see compassion as he cares for the lost and needy. We also see his anger against hypocrisy and false religion. We see in his death the very moment when God’s justice against wrongdoing meets God’s mercy for those who need forgiveness.

God is holy, just and true in every way. These are just a few of what we call God’s moral attributes. We cannot understand Him without recognising how His attributes are related to moral beings. God is not only great, He is good too. The Bible is full of expression of God’s nature. We must allow our hearts to meditate on who He is and yield our lives to Him in these areas in order to receive the wonderful blessings He has for us. Communion with God is important to our spiritual growth. The more we know about our great God, the more we should love and revere Him, and become more like Him. When we pray and meditate on God’s word, we give Him opportunities to teach us.

Unfathomable

How incredible it will be when we meet God face to face and understand who He is! In the meantime, to a large degree, it is a mystery. He has revealed enough of His nature to man, to know that we will never understand all of Him. The more a believer learns about Him, the more he realizes how little he knows. God has been personally active in the world since its creation and yet He is also set apart from it, superior in nature. Thus, we have the mystery of God’s immanence and transcendence.

Being transcendent, God is both the unknown and unknowable, yet God continually seeks to reveal Himself to His creation, i.e., the unknown seeks to be known. Here is a paradox. Being transcendent, God is the incomprehensible Creator existing outside of space and time and thus is unknowable and unsearchable. By an act of our will nor by our own reasoning can we possibly come to understand God or experience Him personally. God wants us to seek to know Him, yet how can the finite possibly know and understand the infinite when our minds and thoughts are so far beneath His.

“Have you ever come on anything quite like this extravagant generosity of God, this deep, deep wisdom? It is way over our heads. We will never figure it out. Is there anyone around who can explain God? Anyone smart enough to tell him what to do? Anyone who has done him such a huge favour that God has to ask his advice?”

Because God is not limited by space, He can be everywhere at the same time to minister to the needs of all people. We can be confident that He is able to protect, help and respond to us at any given moment. If the Lord were not omnipresent, He would not be capable of coming to our aid when we are in need.

We serve a God who is present everywhere, knows everything, and has the power to do all things. As we considers these truths, let us ask the Lord to reveal His awesome nature to us. "I am a God who is everywhere and not in one place only. No one can hide where I cannot see him or her. Do you not know that I am everywhere in heaven and on earth?”

God’s transcendent nature strives to keep Him distant and remote from His creation both in space and time, yet on the other hand, His immanent nature works to draw Him near to His creation and to sustain the universe. God’s love for His creation is so great that we see His immanence overshadowing His transcendence. This becomes clear in His incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, as He breaks through the barrier of sin and separation to draw all humankind back into a close, personal relationship. We see God not only choosing to draw near to His creation but to come personally into the hearts and minds of His people through the indwelling power of His Holy Spirit. This is the miracle of God’s transcendence.

GOD, investigate my life… You know when I leave and when I get back; I am never out of your sight. You know everything I am going to say before I start the first sentence. I look behind me and you are there, then up ahead and you are there, too-- your reassuring presence, coming and going. This is too much, too wonderful-- I cannot take it all in! Is there any place I can go to avoid your Spirit? to be out of your sight? If I climb to the sky, you are there! If I go underground, you are there! If I flew on morning's wings to the far western horizon, you would find me in a minute-- you are already there waiting! Then I said to myself, "Oh, he even sees me in the dark! At night I'm immersed in the light!" It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you; night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you.

Spirit in a Costume

In describing who man is, an eleven-year-old boy said, “Man is a spirit putting on costume to be identifiable and distinguished one from another”. No wonder the bible said, “God is sheer being itself--Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration." (John 4:24, MSG). God being a spirit, having no material form or physical composition makes him limitless. God spoke in Genesis 1:26: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature..."(MSG)

God is not limited by geographical location, in fact, geography is not relevant has He is omnipresent (always present everywhere: continuously and simultaneously present throughout the whole of creation or found everywhere: present all the time or everywhere).

Physical representations of the Lord can only diminish who He really is in our thinking. When we give God a physical form, He automatically becomes limited in our minds. We also lower God by making Him into something that looks acceptable to us. God is never to be reduced or made into something other than He has revealed Himself to be. He is infinitely beyond anything we may worship or revere Him as He has revealed Himself to be. The father gave humanity a picture of who He is in the person of Jesus (“a spirit putting on costume, human flesh”). His life and ministry are all we need to understand God.

Being a spirit did not make God want to alienate himself from a fellowship with man. In fact, God yearns for a fellowship with man (He came down every evening to fellowship with Adam). After the fall and God further made a permanent arrangement for man to be reunited with Him. God longs for people to know Him personally. God also desires that we trust in His love and ability to care for us. Until will understand the personality of God, then we will being to enter into a relationship with Him.

The awesome thing about our God is that He is timeless. “God, it seems you've been our home forever; long before the mountains were born, long before you brought earth itself to birth, from "once upon a time" to "kingdom come"--you are God. (Psalm 90:1-2, MSG). He remains eternal and the same. His nature, His character, His will, His desires for people, His ways, His actions, will never be different from one day or one century to the next. God is completely dependable, constant and consistent.

Therefore, in a continually changing world, it is reassuring to know there is One who is the same yesterday, today and forever. “For Jesus does not change--yesterday, today, tomorrow, he is always totally himself. (Hebrews 13:8, MSG).

Since God is Spirit, He draws people to Himself in ways we cannot see. This is true in the lives of unsaved family and friends. Just because we do not see Him working does not mean He is not. Let us remember this as we faithfully pray for our unsaved love ones and friends.