Think Like Jesus:
Make the Right Decision Every Time
Part 2: Developing a Biblical Worldview
Chapter 5: Questions 2: What is the Character and Nature of God?
The image of a newborn wholly dependent upon its parents is similar to the bond between God and us. Discovering more about the nature of our Creator will help us understand more of the complexities of life in this world and the next. One of the pivotal verses in Scripture addresses the personal interest God has in our lives. In the Genesis account of creation we discover that God intentionally designed us in His likeness—which means intellectually, morally, and spiritually, not physically—to facilitate the kind of existence and interactivity that would result in a mutually satisfying eternal relationship….Because His primary desire was for us to be in a healthy relationship with Hi, God imbued us with characteristics that He did not give to any other elements in His creation. This has some pretty significant implications for who we are, why we exist and how we ought to live. (pps. 73-74)
What do you think of Barna’s analogy and assessment of what happens when we discover more about the nature of our Creator?
THE ESSENCE OF GOD
There are two critical dimensions to God’s essence. First, realize that He is spiritual in nature. He is real, but in ways we struggle to understand because His being is so distinct from ours….God is alive. That’s the second crucial factor of His essence. The God of Scripture has been, is and always will be. (Pg. 74)
What do the two critical dimensions of God’s essence tell us about Him?
Why God’s Essence Matters
How you choose to respond to God’s existence also directs the nature of your life. And make no mistake about it: You do respond to God’s existence, one way or another—conscious or unconscious intended or unintended. Every choice you make is impacted by your perception of who God is. (Pg. 75)
Do you agree or disagree with Barna’s contentions about why God’s essence matters? Why?
Barna states, “…we must retrain ourselves to treat someone we cannot see, hear, or touch just as purposefully as we would respond to someone standing next to us. (This is one reason for instance, why we have a division in the Christian Church between those who are “charismatic” and those who are not. Both groups believe in God but have different ways of experiencing, understanding, and responding to a living God who becomes present to us through different means than we are use to.) Barna uses an analogy of an adult who loses both sight and hearing due to an auto accident. That person must live in the same world but discover new ways of gathering, interpreting and acting upon information. In like manner, we must learn to filter our life decisions through the lens of God’s invisible but real existence. (Pg. 76)
How do you respond to Barna’s assessment of differences and his analogy?
THE GREATNESS OF GOD
Barna points out that when we think of greatness, we think of amazing human feats. Then he writes, “But even the most phenomenal human accomplishments and capabilities pale in comparison to the greatness of God. Even a cursory examination of the qualities that reflect His greatness shows that we have nothing that is even remotely comparable to His standing…He literally seems like a comic book hero-a being with qualities so pure and exaggerated it is difficult for us to relate with Him. (Pps. 76-77)
How do you respond to Barna’s assessment? What are it’s implications for our daily lives?
Aspects of His Greatness
He knows everything that ever has been or will be. The Bible tells us there is nothing that happens that He does not know about, nothing that He cannot see or understand, and nothing that He is unaware of historically, presently or in the future….God’s complete knowledge is not simply a vast storehouse of information. His knowledge is affected by total wisdom—the intelligence and discernment required to interpret and apply that information in the perfect way….God’s wisdom is described in Scripture as life-giving, insightful, just, right, eternal, unmatched, and fully possessed only by Him. (Pps. 77-78)
Thinking back to Experiencing God, what does God’s ability to know everything have to do with our ability to trust Him and His word, and to believe that He knows what’s best for us?
He has unmatched power and authority. God has unfathomable power and authority over all created things. What we call miracles are demonstrations of God’s ability to change the laws of reality. He can control the weather, or the nature and destiny of a person’s life, with equal ease. Interestingly, God’s power and authority are not unlimited. For instance, He does not have the power to do things that contradict His nature—say, to sin, since that would contradict His holiness, or to lie, since that would undermine His integrity. Although He is the Lord of history, He cannot change what has already happened. As an eternal being who always was, is, and will be, He cannot die. He cannot cease to be God. But these “limitations” are not disabilities or weaknesses. They merely emphasize the perfection, consistency, reliability and unity of His character and capabilities. (Pg. 78)
What can we conclude from the reality that God has unmatched power and authority?
He is anywhere He wants or needs to be, whenever He so chooses. As creatures limited by time and space, we struggle with the notion that God can be anywhere or even everywhere simultaneously and effortlessly. Yet that is one of the mind-boggling aspects of His nature….He existed before He created time, thus He transcends time. He was before there was anything else and thus transcends the tangible universe. Yet, wherever He is present, He does not take up space because He is spiritual, not physical (Pg. 78)
What are the implications of God’s ability to be anywhere or everywhere whenever He wants to be?
He is personal—in fact, He is “tri-personal.” The Bible describes God as one Being represented in three unique but in divisible persons. This concept, commonly known as the Trinity, or among theologians as the triune or tri-personal God, again points to the spiritual nature of God: No physical being could be three separate but united entities simultaneously…. This triune Being exhibits personality traits we can identify and relate to. For instance, we can see throughout the Bible that God uses a name He chose for Himself, providing a carefully chosen identity. We read the Scriptures about God interacting directly with people…We discover that He has emotions related to His interaction with people, such as anger, jealousy, love, compassion, grief and hatred….The Trinity is one of those facets of the spiritual world that remains a perplexing mystery for us. (Pg. 79)
What does God being “personal” mean for our relationship with Him?
Why God’s Greatness Matters
Being created in the image of God gives us significant clues as to how we may live. Even more than that, the fact that God has give us characteristics that He has adopted for Himself ought to be a point of encouragement to us. We must matter to Him if He chose to grant us a measure of His core characteristics. Possessing those attributes also implies that we have a great innate potential. The realization that God has power, authority, knowledge, wisdom, presence and personality in greater measure than we can comprehend may also be viewed from the perspective of self-interest. For instance, all of these attributes and their effects are available to us! (Pps 79-80.)
What are the implications of this reality both from a standpoint of blessings and responsibilities?
THE GOODNESS OF GOD
How fortunate we are to have a God who did not create us to be His personal toys or puppets. We can understand this better by exploring his moral attributes—the things that portray His goodness.
Aspects of His Goodness
God is holy. God alone is morally pure—completely devoid of sin and wrong motives. Because behavior springs forth from one’s moral essence, His choices and actions are always right, appropriate, and perfect…… We mustn’t minimize the significance and the genuineness of Satan’s temptations. They also prove God’s holiness: Without temptations, one cannot sin or be impure. Only through His perfect choices did Jesus demonstrate that God, who is consistent, is always holy…..Technically, the word holy means to be “set apart.” God is profoundly set apart, different, holy. Indeed God called us to “be holy because I am holy.” (pps 81-82)
In what way can we be “holy as God is holy”?
God always exhibits love. Because His very nature is love, it is only natural that the Bible so often notes how God loves us: What other impulse would supersede this one, without just cause?...In practical term we experience God’s love first in five distinct ways: through His affection, benevolence, forgiveness and acceptance, patience and gentleness.” (Pps. 81-82)
What is the most amazing aspect of God’s love to you? Why?
God is faithful. The fact that He proves to be honest, loyal, and unequivocally reliable is truly a marvel…God’s faithfulness is unfailing in its consistency and availability; it is not contingent on our behavior or emotions because it is a stable and inherent quality of God’s. (Pg. 83)
What does it mean in your life that God is always faithful?
God always is right and does what is right. The Bible indicates that God is righteous. In our culture, the term “righteous” has various connotations—a common negative one makes us think of people who are self-righteous. In truth, the only being to ever exist who could justify self-righteousness is God. That is because He is the only being whose nature is characterized by unerringly knowing, desiring and doing what is absolutely consistent with the laws of the universe. Righteousness is not just knowing what is proper, but acting on that knowledge. (Pg. 83)
Why does God’s righteousness matter in our daily living?
God is completely reliable. In the best sense possible, God is predictable in His ways. He reveals Himself sufficiently so that we know who He is and the core of His essence, and He is unchanging in His moral convictions, standards and responses. Once we discern what He thinks, expects and does, we can count on that to remain unchanged for the duration of our lives. He is, in other words, perfectly dependable. (Pg. 84)
How does God’s reliability compare to the world’s standards of reliability?
Why God’s Goodness Matters
The simple fact that He, alone, is holy should dramatically affect how we enter into and sustain a relationship with Him. What a privilege it is to know and be known by such a Being! What reverence, fear and gratitude we ought to have in our interactions with Him….My observation is that few among us recognize the significance of His holiness. Indeed, His love cannot be fully experienced without the presence of Jesus Christ in our life. To receive love, we must be lovable. To a holy, true, and just God, we have not grounds for being lovable—until Jesus protects us from god’s justice and punishment and provides a means for us to gain God’s acceptance and love. (Pps. 84-85)
What are the implications of God’s holiness for our need for Jesus?
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE
Our discussion here is not just an academic enumeration of God’s nature or how we can benefit from Him. God is the role model. We must therefore examine ourselves to determine how we measure up to the One in whose likeness we were created for the purpose of reflecting that image. Do we allow God to work within us to become more and more pure in our thoughts, words, and actions? Are we increasing in and sharing the same brand of multifaceted love that God showers upon us? Do we behave in ways that reflect truth, justice and reliability?...As I strive to be a reflection of these godly traits, I must remember that He set the standards. Doing better than others is irrelevant. (Pg. 85)
How do you respond to each of these questions, and observations?
THE BIG PICTURE
When you are sizing up someone you’ve met, do you approach your conclusions about the person by collecting data, organizing the facts, analyzing them, and then arriving at a series of interpretations? Probably not as conspicuously as we do when we consider the nature of God! Yet our finite minds buckle at the effort of trying to capture an accurate profile of the Creator. (In fact, we have not exhausted all the attributes of God in this chapter; the Bible identifies many others, but those included here are sufficient to make the point.)
A true portrait of God would simultaneously present the robustness of absolute power and authority, unlimited knowledge, an inescapable but invisible and spaceless presence, pure motives and behavior, endless love, complete integrity, inexhaustible reliability, and unmatched faithfulness. Each of these qualities is interlocked with and organic to the other. Just thinking about it overloads and blows out our mental circuits. Before passing out form the exertion of trying to imagine all of the qualities wrapped up in one unfathomable but indescribably perfect package, we simply conclude, “He’s too good to be true.” And that’s the point really. He is to good to be true—if we were making Him up. But such a God—your God—does indeed exist. And you are an important element in His existence. (Pps. 86-87)
What does the “Big Picture” of God do for your understanding of yourself?