God’s Nature

His Nature: Relationship

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“Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” -James 4:8a

In order to properly explain why this is an aspect of God’s character, first I need to briefly highlight a couple of other attributes. Those attributes are His eternal nature and that He is triune, which means He is a Trinity. Lets first look at the eternal nature. God has always been. He has no beginning or end. There is nothing that came before Him and nothing that will come after. Anything else that has ever existed came after Him and came into being because of Him. God has always existed. This means that the characteristics of God have always existed. The Power, The Love, The Wisdom… are all eternal.

That brings us to the Trinity. It’s common knowledge amongst the Church that God is a trinity. It’s also common knowledge that most of us struggle with explaining what that means. My understanding of the trinity is there is one God who is made up of three persons. The three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are individual while all making up one God. By individual I mean that there are things about each that distinguish them from one another. But they are all God and are all the same God. God is the type of Being. Just as we are a human being, God is a… well, a God Being I guess. If you disagree with my take on it, that’s cool. You’re entitled to your own opinion and I’m not claiming to be an expert.

So, that brings us to the relational aspect of God. If God is three Persons in One and each is able to interact with each other, and are not merely different forms of one Person as some think of the trinity, than that means the Three have relationship with one another. And if They have always existed and if They have always been as They are now (see my previous article about His unchanging nature) then the concept of relationship has always existed. Relationships were not created when God made Adam. In fact, relationships weren’t created at all. They always have been because The Father, Son and Holy Ghost have always been communicating, trusting, creating, and loving with one another.

So what does that say about loneliness? In short: it’s a lie. Even if God had never made Eve, Adam would still have had God with him. This is true today for each and every one of us. God is with us always. And we always have access to Him thanks to the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. As it says in 2 Corinthians 5:18 “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;“. So anytime we find ourselves feeling lonely we need to stop and recognize that something is amiss. Sure, our circumstances may be that we don’t have good relationships with others or that we don’t have any friends. But you always have God, and if you doubt the truth of that then you have bought a lie of the enemy.

I’d like to go back to Adam though. Every time God made something He said it was good. And this makes sense, because He is good and perfect. It stands to reason then that everything He makes is good and perfect. So why then does He make Adam only to say “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”(Genesis 2:18) This seems a bit odd. Did God mess up when He made man? No. He made him just right. So why did He not make Eve at the same time? Could it be that God wanted to get our attention so that He might express an extremely important truth to us? God is a relational being. God made man in His image. Therefore man is a relational being. Isolate yourself too long and bad things tend to happen. Succumb to loneliness and you will live a sad and depressing existence. Even in the prison system, prisoners are punished with solitary confinement. People have literally become mentally unstable as a result of not having healthy interactions with the rest of humanity. This isn’t just a statement about husbands and wives but about the human experience in general. Don’t neglect relationships, with God or with man. These are of the utmost importance. After all, is it not when we engage in relationship with others, showing them the true love of Christ that we truly make an impact on those whom we meet? Have you ever heard of someone encountering the love of God from a Christian who was too busy running away from them, shouting “Stay away” as they ran in the opposite direction? I sure haven’t.

One last point that I would like to make is the significance of personality. We mostly think of our own personality as that which makes us unique. It’s what makes you who you are. And that is true. But there is another aspect of personality that I believe most of us miss out on. That aspect is this: our unique personality, designed by God, is for the benefit of others. If God had made Adam and chose to be distant with him, not having a relationship with him and then He never made Eve either, what would be the point of Adam’s personality? Would the trees and animals really care if he were an intellectual? Or if he were humorous? Who would be affected by his individuality? No one. Your personality is a gift to humanity. Only you can be you, no one else can correctly mimic who you have been made to be. That is why the enemy attempts to create conformity through fear. “Follow the trends so you’ll fit in” the enemy says to the insecure. No. Be yourself. God made your identity and it is walking in relationship with God that keeps your identity secure. Abiding in Christ results in the development of your true personality. God made our personalities but He didn’t actually create personality itself. Personality flows from Him. He is the source of identity. The first Identity and Personality. Our identities and relationships are inseparable.

By being who we are truly meant to be as we walk with God we show the world the creativity of our God. Even when we look to the gospels and observe how God expressed Himself in the form of a man we see individuality. The Son came to earth in the form of a baby, grew up and walked as a man. What ever He said and did, He did because He saw Father doing it (John 5:19). And whatever He accomplished He did so through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Trinity walks in relationship together.

The walk of Enoch is a lifestyle of living in relationship with God. A life of constant communication with the Divine. It’s a continuous process of experiencing the identity of God and discovering your identity in Him. God is relational and desires relationship with you. He is always with you. So be with Him. Now and always.

His Nature: Unchanging

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God never changes. He is who He is. Always. This is a key truth that every Christian who seeks to walk with God must accept. No matter what other characteristic of His nature you’re looking at, this is the one that says “You can trust God to stay that way”. I want to start off 2018 by exploring the nature of God. And what better place to begin then with this trait?

We learn that God is love but if we believe that God can change, then in our minds God may stop loving us because of our sin. Or perhaps because He’s just in a bad mood. But His unchanging nature, also called immutability, guarantee’s us that He still loves us. As it says in Romans 8:35-39 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution or famine or nakedness, or danger or sword? As it written, ‘For Your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

These verses show not only that God loves us and nothing can change that. It also shows us some of the circumstances that we may go through such as trials and tribulations, suggesting that the presence of such things is not evidence that God has stopped loving us or that we are being punished. But instead it shows us that He loves us even in those times as well. This is important, for many of us struggle with our faith in Him when everything is going wrong. We think “If God loves us then why do we suffer? Can’t He stop this from happening?” But the reality is that He still loves us but our understanding of it is too shallow. (I could go more in to this subject right now but I want to save that for a later article on love.)

Let’s look at another aspect of His character: His faithfulness. This says that God keeps His word, fulfills the promises He makes, will not let you down and is completely dependable. His faithfulness and His unchanging nature go together perfectly, If God were not unchanging than He could make a promise to man and then change His mind and not follow through with it. With man this is common. I’m sure most of us can recall either not following through with a promise we made or when someone else didn’t come through for us. And living with this great disappointment makes it hard to accept the idea that there is a Being who cannot fail to fulfill His promises. But Numbers 23:19 says “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He not speak and then act? Does He promise and not fulfill?” If God’s going to do a thing, no one can stop Him. So He will always be faithful and this too will never change. If you ever feel like God has failed you, He hasn’t. Your perspective is flawed and you need to approach Him with this and ask Him to show you the truth of the matter. Most likely the only thing God failed to do is to meet your expectations that you formed on your own.

Just remember the words of Isaiah 14:27 “For the LORD Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart Him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?”

This immutability affects every other aspect of His character as well. His sovereignty, power, goodness and so on. It serves to enable us to have faith in God. His immutability serves as a foundation that our understanding of His character can rest upon. God is love and that can’t change, so trust in His love. God is good and that can’t change, so trust in His goodness. God is all-powerful and that can’t change, so trust in His power. God is faithful and that can’t change, so trust in His faithfulness. God can’t change. So stop worrying and trust Him.

Spotting God’s Nature

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“Ears that hear and eyes that see – the Lord has made them both.” Psalm 20:12

Many times I ask fellow Christians about their thoughts on the nature of God and most often they either respond by saying their not sure what I mean or they completely misunderstand me. The scriptures are pretty clear about the unchanging truths and characteristics of God and if we are to walk with God like Enoch did than we must learn how to have faith in God for who He says He is and not just faith that He exists. Yet somehow many of us miss the significance of these truths about our God and instead worship a false version of Him. For example throughout the bible we read that God is merciful. But then many of us believe that God is upset with us every time we screw up, even after we ask Him to forgive us. If we believe He is going to stay mad and punish us than we clearly don’t believe that He is very merciful. None the less, we can spot His nature through both the scriptures as well as our encounters with Him in our relationship. That is, if we are actually looking.

Recently I was reading through the book of Daniel and noticed something interesting about the story of Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon and he worshipped many god’s. He had surrounded himself with many enchanters and magicians and yet when he has a troubling dream he behaves in a very unusual way. Instead of telling the magicians the dream he demands them to tell him his own dream and interpret it! A closer examination of the scriptures reveals that Nebuchadnezzar wants the truth and these enchanters and magicians have been deceiving him (Dan 2:8-9). He even goes as far as threatening to have them dismembered if they can’t interpret it. I’m assuming many Christians know this story so I’m not going to go through every detail. If you haven’t read it then I recommend you go ahead and do that now.

Today there are many people who claim to be able to interpret dreams. There is no end to the books and websites of various psychics and spiritualist claiming to know what your dream symbols mean. But when it comes to having a dream from God, He can and often will speak to us in a way that is either very specific to us or in a way that no one can understand without Him giving us the interpretation. Hence why we have the gift of dream interpretation. It seems that Nebuchadnezzar had been dealing with a similar situation with his magicians, enchanters, and sorcerers.

The First Encounter

So Nebuchadnezzar was tired of the deception and wanted the truth about this dream. Daniel receives both the dream and interpretation from the Lord and gives them to the king. But what I found interesting was how the king responded. He says “Truly, your God is God of god’s and Lord of kings, and a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this mystery.” (Dan 2:47)

The king in this moment recognized not only that the God of Israel was real but also spoke out a specific characteristic of His. He is a “Revealer of mysteries”. If Nebuchadnezzar had never gotten tired of his so called wisemen then Daniel may have never had this opportunity. He wanted the truth, and he got more than he probably expected. The king learned something about this God of the Jews and praised him as God of god’s and Lord of kings.

The Second Encounter

After this encounter however the king continued in his idolatry. He knew God was real, yet still didn’t worship Him alone. Daniel 3:1 tells us that the king then set up a golden image and required everyone involved in his kingdoms administration to bow before it. The scripture doesn’t tell us what exactly this image was of but the dream he had from God had depicted him as the golden part of the statue and the next thing he does is erect a golden statue. Perhaps the image was of himself, or at least what he had seen in his dream.

He commands all of his officials to bow to the statue or they will immediately be thrown into the fiery furnace. He then says “and who is the god that will deliver you out of my hands?”(Dan 3:15). Nebuchadnezzar thought too highly of his own power. After having Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego thrown into the fire for not worshipping the golden image the king saw what looked like a “son of the gods” in the fire with the three men. His second encounter comes when God shows up and delivers Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the fiery furnace.  Nebuchadnezzar responds “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent His angel and delivered His servants, who trusted in Him, and set aside the kings command, and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own.” The king went from thinking no one could deliver from his hand to recognizing God as the Deliverer. Whether the statue was of himself or not, this encounter showed Nebuchadnezzar who the God was that could deliver from his hand.

The Third Encounter

Nebuchadnezzar’s third encounter is when he speaks haughtily of himself and is driven from the kingdom and lives with the beast. When his reason is finally restored to him, he lifts up his eyes to heaven and blesses God. His words are “I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored Him who lives forever, for His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and He does according to His will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand or say to Him “What have you done?”

And again he says “Now I praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are right and His ways are just, and those who walk in pride He is able to humble.” This is a beautiful expression of praise for who God is. And this came in response to the king being driven mad and sent out into the field with the animals! I hate to have to say it but Nebuchadnezzar responded to this discipline a lot better than many Christians do today. Many of us want to get upset with God when something bad happens. Nebuchadnezzar praised God and recognized Him for who He was. In these final words he expresses God as eternal, Sovereign over all of heaven and earth, that He obeys no one but His own will and that He is all powerful with no one to stay His hand. Then he points out that His works are right and His ways are just and He humbles the proud.

My prayer for all of us is that God will open our eyes to see, our ears to hear, and our minds to recognize who He is. Through miraculous encounters and discipline alike we learn more about Him and proclaim praise of Him in response. And that like Nebuchadnezzar we grow in our appreciation of our God and His beautiful nature. Walking away from each encounter learning something new about God’s character.

The Mysteries of God

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“Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? It is higher than heaven – what can you do? Deeper than Sheol – what can you know? Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.” Job 11:7-9

I have always been a lover of mysteries, whether it is in books, movies, or the unsolved events of history. On my bookshelf I have a large volume of the entire Sherlock Holmes stories from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which was probably one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve had in a long time. The Aha moments that you get when you’ve figured out the mystery are awesome and exciting but that is just a singular moment that is fleeting. Once you have it, the mystery is done. You cannot relive the experience of finding out the mystery because you have been enlightened to the truth of the situation; you know what is going on.  But for me what really makes me love a mystery is not the Aha moment, but the pursuit of it. The finding, studying and contemplation of the facts, hints, and clues that gradually lead one to a greater understanding of what is going on. The diligent search for answers. To me the longer it takes me to figure out what is happening or who the murderer is, the better the story. When I know what to anticipate I become bored.

“It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” Proverbs 25:2

One of the attributes of God’s nature is that He is incomprehensible. This means that we cannot fully understand God. No matter how hard one studies the scriptures, no matter how deep one goes in their relationship with Him, even if one were to go to heaven and spend the rest of eternity directly in the Presence of God; they would never reach a full understanding of who God is. Some may mistakenly believe that once they arrive in heaven they will know everything but this is not true, at least not for knowing God. Even then He will still be too great for us to comprehend; due to Him being a greater being than we are. God is God and we will always be the created, not the Creator. We are beings with a finite mind trying to understand an infinite God. He is infinite in power, knowledge, love, and wisdom. And although we can never reach that full understanding of Him, God still desires for us to pursue that knowledge.

“This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.” 1 Corinthians 4:1

Some seek to understand God to explain or defend His words and deeds. I have noticed these people tend to struggle with knowing who God is because God will not explain Himself to them, for God is not subject to man that He should have to explain Himself or require one of us to explain Him. I thank God for giving me this love for mystery. This is because in Him I have a mystery so great and deep that I can constantly, for the rest of my life and into eternity, pursue the knowledge of God and actually acquire understanding and those Aha moments without ever fully reaching the end of the mystery. While some frustrate themselves trying to figure God out so they can put Him in a box, I can relax and pursue Him for the pure enjoyment of the pursuit and for the love of whom He is. And I have found that He willingly teaches me about who He is when I have pure intentions in my pursuit. And when I find something that I don’t understand about Him, I don’t worry. I just ask the Lord to tell me about Himself and while I wait for Him I practice my faith by trusting Him for who I already know Him to be. Which is always loving, unchanging, showering us with mercy and grace, slow to anger, and full of compassion, joy and creative power.

“Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.” Galatians 4:8

And unlike the mysteries of Sherlock Holmes, when I receive the Aha moments the mystery isn’t completely solved. On the contrary, every Aha moment enhances the enjoyment of pursuing Him. No matter how much I learn He is always able to keep me guessing, throwing in all kinds of unexpected plot twists and surprising me with His grace.

And with each revelation concerning His nature, I receive understanding as well as freedom from deception and bondage. Like many others I use to struggle with seeing God as unmoving and unemotional, ready to judge me for my sins. Until I stumbled upon the truth that God is joyous and my view of Him changed radically but it also changed me. Since then I have felt more confident in the truth that I am forgiven and that He loves me, that I am beautifully and wonderfully made and can relax and not take myself so seriously. Knowing that He is joyful has opened up the door for me to be more joyful.

Ultimately I believe that if we are to succeed at walking with God as Enoch did that we must learn to enjoy the walk itself. Instead of wanting to rush ahead to the end of the road, maybe we should just focus our attention on Christ as we walk with Him. We’ll reach the end eventually, so let us get to know Him the best we can along the way. Let’s learn to love the mysteries of God.

“Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and  righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.” Jeremiah 9:23-24

The Nature of God

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“Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those who by their nature are not gods.” Galatians 4:8

If we want to walk with God and avoid the constant tricks and lies of the enemy then it is imperative that we learn to understand the nature of God. So many Christians today are confused about who God is. Some believe that our God and gods of other faiths are one and the same because they fail to understand the difference. Calling something god, whether a spirit or the idols they hide behind, does not automatically make it equal to the one true God. Our God is unique, He is One and their is no other.

So what is Gods nature exactly? When I say nature what I mean are characteristics or attributes that are an innate part of something’s being. For example we have a human nature which means we have characteristics that are specific to a human being and we cannot be a dog or a bird, even though we often act like animals. They have their own nature and we have ours. So the nature of God, because He is the only true God, is unique to Him. These characteristics are things that are true about the way God acts or speaks and they are unchanging. They are automatically expressed when He moves. Scripture tells us that God is love which means that when God acts or speaks He does so out of love. He never reacts to us in hatred. God is good so He never makes or does anything that is bad. God is perfect and when He acts or speaks it is always perfect, making mistakes is something God never does. These are just a few examples of Gods character.

God made us in His image yet we have been corrupted because of sin. Some of Gods characteristics we can also express, while others we cannot. But when we do we only express them on a smaller scale and often imperfectly because we are changing while God is unchanging. And because we do not have certain attributes of His nature, namely His perfection and immutability(unchanging), we must make the choice to express love, mercy, etc. while God does so naturally.

Discernment

“Folly is joy to him that lacks sense, but a man of understanding walks straight.” Proverbs 15:21

Scripture tells us to discern between the spirits as well as to test everything, even the teachings from leaders that we trust (1 John 4:1). In order for us to do this we need to be able to recognize what is God and what is not. The devil does his best to mimic God yet because he does not have Gods nature he always speaks or acts in a way that is in line with his own nature. John 8:44 points out that the devil was a murderer from the beginning and the father of lies; his nature is opposed to God and he needs to disguise himself to trick us into believing him. We know that he wants our enslavement and destruction so even if he speaks something that seems to be true it will always be to lead us into sin and destruction.

He quoted scripture to Jesus in the wilderness yet Christ made it clear that he was wrong, not because he spoke the scriptures incorrectly but because he spoke them with the intention of leading Christ into sin. God hates sin and will never tempt us. When God speaks or acts we can recognize that it is Him by seeing if it is rooted in His character or the enemies. If something is said and we recognize that it is meant to inspire fear, doubt, selfishness or some other sinful behavior then we can assume that it is not of God. Sadly, many in the church, instead of engaging in discernment, would rather throw out everything that is said and claim that God doesn’t speak to us anymore because they fear getting it wrong. When we accept the belief that God no longer has anything to say to us anymore than the enemy has already scored a victory in our lives. I would also like to point out that the enemy used scripture against Jesus. Even our reading and understanding of scripture can be hijacked by the enemy. Just look at how many divisions we have in the church resulting from disagreements on interpreting scripture or someone developing heretical doctrines. Scripture points us to Christ and so even our reading of it must be done with Gods nature in mind.

Godliness

We also need to know His nature so that we know how to act. In the beginning God made man in His image. After the fall He sent His Son to show us the Way and to give us access to the Truth, while the Holy Spirit works within us to purify us. As Romans 8:28 points out we are to be conformed into the image of Christ. This is godliness, to be like God. Understanding Gods nature is necessary for us to recognize whether we are walking as Christ did or being misled. Many in the church suffer from self-righteousness and judgmentalism because they think themselves godly when they are in fact acting in a manner that is opposed to God. This is because they accept there own ideas of what is right as truth instead of what God has said is truth. Christ is the Truth, therefore He is the standard by which our ideas, words, and actions are to be measured. By knowing Gods character we can then have a better idea of how to act in our everyday life.

How can we walk with God if we cant recognize whether it is Him we are walking with? His nature should be the foundation of our entire understanding. There is no better role model for ourselves then Christ.