How We Can Forgive Past Hurts

We’ve all had someone cause us great hurt, pain, suffering, or injustice. Our knee-jerk reaction may be to make them pay, retaliate, or hope they get what’s coming to them. But Christians are called to forgive. That can be hard even for the smallest offenses, but what about when we have deep, lasting pain, trauma, or scars (mentally, physically, and/or spiritually)? How can we forgive people who have done downright heinous, wicked things against us or someone we love? The Bible gives us some things to consider when it comes to forgiveness.

Forgiving people doesn’t mean what they did was okay.

It is easy to think that if we forgive someone for wronging us, it means we are condoning their actions. The most common response given when someone says they’re sorry is, “It’s okay.” Well, sometimes it’s not okay. And it’s okay to acknowledge that what they did was not okay and still forgive them anyway. You are not giving approval to their actions. You are just acknowledging that you will not hold a grudge, harbor anger against them, or constantly rub the past in their face.

When God forgives us, he removes our sins as far away from us as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12). The prophet Micah tells us that God tramples our iniquities underfoot and throws them to the bottom of the ocean floor (Micah 7:19). If we were going to try to forget something or not bring it up anymore, the bottom of the ocean sounds like a pretty good place to put it! And that’s exactly what the writer of Hebrews says God does with our sins—he promises to remember them no more (Hebrews 8:12, 10:17)! Of course, God is all-knowing so he can’t actually forget anything. But it does mean he will not hold our sins against us anymore or lord them over our heads making us feel guilty. And we are to do the same when we forgive.

Forgiveness is not based on the merit of the person being forgiven; it is based on God’s character.

Sometimes the person we are forgiving did something absolutely horrible to us or someone we love, and we may feel they don’t deserve our forgiveness. And we would be right; they don’t. When we extend forgiveness, however, we must remember we were not forgiven by God because we deserved it or because we were good enough but because of the merit of Jesus and his death on the cross in our place. We should offer the same grace to others—we don’t forgive people because they have earned it or deserve it, but because God is loving, merciful, gracious, and slow to anger (Exodus 34:6).

We must also trust God’s character when we want the wrongs done to us to be righted immediately. We so often want justice to be done on our timetable or in our way, but we must trust that God is good, just, and holy. He is good, so he won’t allow his people to suffer endless hurts and injustices. He is holy, so he won’t allow sin to go unpunished or evil to win. The Bible says he will by no means pardon the guilty (unless they repent and believe in Christ), and that vengeance belongs to God. But his punishment of sin and righting of all wrongs may not happen the moment we think it should. He is patient with people, not wishing that any should perish in their sins but that everyone should get the chance to repent (2 Peter 3:9).

And we should be glad that he is longsuffering, because otherwise we wouldn’t be here today but would have been struck down in our sins a long time ago. It doesn’t always make forgiveness easy, but thinking on these things and how much we did not deserve God’s mercy and grace can really help.

Because we have been forgiven much, we need to forgive much.

In Matthew 18, Jesus answers Peter’s question about how much we should forgive with a parable. He speaks about a servant who owed the king a debt so enormous that he would never be able to repay it, even if he worked for two thousand years! The king had pity on him and forgave his debt. How amazing is that? That same servant turned around and would not forgive a man who owed him a mere hundred days’ worth of wages.

Jesus’ point is that we were like the first servant—the debt we owed God for the sins we committed against him was too great to number or ever be paid in a lifetime; we could exhaust all of eternity and still never reach the end of it. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were deep in our sin debt, forgave us, saved us by his grace, and made us alive in Christ (Ephesians 2:4–5). Therefore, when a fellow human sins against us, it is comparable to the debt of the second servant—it looks miniscule when we hold it up against the size of our debt to God.

That is not to downplay the reality of the wrong done to us, but if God has forgiven us such a tremendous, unimaginable debt, we should forgive others. We would be hypocrites not to. In all things, we must imitate our Savior, who endured such hostility from sinners, yet gave his life so that they could be forgiven:

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:12–13).

Furthermore, Jesus warns us that if we do not forgive others, then our heavenly Father will not forgive us, but if we forgive, then we will be forgiven (Matthew 6:14–15). Our wounds from the wrongs we have suffered may not go away instantaneously, but one promise we can know for sure is that when we offer mercy to our offenders, our own lives will be enriched by mercy (Matthew 5:7).

The previous blog was originally published at Lifeword.org

https://lifeword.org/blog/how-we-can-forgive-past-hurts/

Flashback Friday – Letter to a Titus 2 Woman

What does true discipleship look like? We often read about it, but how does that translate to being lived out in everyday life?

In Paul’s letter to Titus, his child in the faith, he instructs him on the importance of sound doctrine and doing good works and lays out a model for passing down this instruction from one generation to the next—older men to younger men, and older women to younger women: 

“Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.” (Titus 2:2-6)

This is organic discipleship. The fact of the matter is that we are always going to be older than someone, and we are always going to be younger than someone. We have to be pouring into the generations younger than us and we have to be willing to be poured into by those more mature than us. 

I first had this modeled for me when I was a teen and young adult, even though I wouldn’t have been able to point to this passage in the Bible and tell you what was going on. But it forever changed my life. So what did it look like? The answer to that is written in a letter:

To My Mentor in the Faith,

You were the Titus 2 woman in my life before I ever knew what that was or all that it encompasses. You welcomed me into your home, even during the busyness of your life as a young mom, and taught me basic skills I would need to know later on when I myself became a wife and mother. You taught me how to make a meal for a family by cooking alongside you (when my own mom never taught me how to cook). You taught me how to plan ahead and also be prepared for the unexpected when you walked me through what to keep on hand in a pantry and freezer. You showed me how to iron clothes (I don’t even think my mom owned an iron), and allowed me to babysit your children when I had never had any experience (good thing you did, since now I have seven children!). 

But even far and above practical life skills (as vital as those things are), you mentored me in spiritual things. You began teaching me the foundations of the faith when I was first converted to Christ. You showed me what a willing heart of selfless service looks like through local mission trips and service projects, and I took great joy in them. You taught me about the heart of worship, why it matters what we sing and how we sing it, because our most holy God deserves the utmost reverence. You encouraged gifts in me as you allowed me to serve in leading worship alongside you. Some of the most special memories of my whole life are of us lifting up our voices together in worship of our King, either in choir or in the praise band.

As I grew older, I remember countless hours spent in your office as you listened to me, prayed for me, offered me godly wisdom, and pointed me in the path of righteousness. I remember all of the hugs that assured me that someone really did love and care about me. I remember the young ladies Bible study you lead that taught us how to be self-disciplined in study and dig deeper into the Word of God, but also offered just a sweet time of fellowship and friendship as we enjoyed each other’s presence and prayed for each other. I remember (with tears of gratitude) how you wouldn’t “let me go” when I wandered off into sin, but instead came charging after me on your “steed,” just as the legend says the aged apostle John sought after his young, wayward disciple on horseback. You modeled the Father’s relentless love and faithfulness to me then, and for that I am (literally) eternally grateful.

By watching you, I’ve seen what it means to love your husband because you are always respectful and submissive to yours. You praise him in front of others instead of bashing him. You speak kindly and encouragingly to him, prioritize uninterrupted time together, and go the extra mile by baking him his favorite treat when he is feeling down. Your children rise up and call you blessed. The solid relationships you have with them as young adults shows the love that you poured into them and still do. Their godly characters are a testament to yours as you were faithful to raise them in the Lord. Your interactions with others are always kind and respectful. You absolutely refuse to engage in any form of gossip, so I know it is safe to tell you anything, even my struggles with sin. 

I praise God almost every day for you! Twenty-two years after you first entered my life, it’s hard to express just how grateful I am for you and how much I treasure your friendship. You have a personality that outshines many, but it is truly your heart underneath it all that I have come to find so dependable and comforting, like that leather glove that fits just right. It has truly been a grace to me to enter this new season of friendship with you, now both grown women, spurring each other on in love and good works, bearing one another’s burdens, and lifting each other up in prayer to the Lord. Your friendship is an encouragement to me, a safe harbor in this storm-tossed world, and one of God’s good gifts to me to make the journey through this earthly soil a little more sweet. I love you, my friend.

Love,

Your True Child in the Faith

The previous blog was originally published at Lifeword.org

Great Commission Discipleship In Action

Flashback Friday – Drowning in the Sea of Hopelessness

Hopeless – “having no expectation of good or success, not susceptible to remedy or cure, and incapable of redemption or improvement” (Merriam-Webster).

We feel it as despair or that dark hole of existence we think we will never be able to climb out of. As of late, it seems to be a common theme for many people. We feel hopeless about politics and pandemics. We feel hopeless that our situation will ever change or that our prayers will be answered. 

The apostle Paul found himself in a hopeless situation. As he was sailing to Rome under soldier-guard, their ship struggled along due to poor weather. It wasn’t long before they were caught in a violent storm. The crew, beginning to fear the worst, threw the cargo and the ship’s gear overboard. As the storm raged on, they gave up all hope of survival if they stayed on the boat. Despite Paul’s assurance that there would be no loss of life, only of the ship, the sailors still sought to sneak away on the life boat, But Paul spoke up to the soldiers in charge: “Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved”. Then immediately, “the soldiers cut away the ropes of the ship’s boat and let it go” (Acts 27:31-32).

The ship’s crew despaired for their very lives. I most often find myself despairing about my own sin. I pray for God to change me, and yet I find myself doing the very sin later that day that I prayed not to do in the morning! My heart resonates with Paul when he says, “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Romans 7:15).

I feel hopeless that God will ever change my family even though I pray for them daily. Sometimes I will even stop my kids in the middle of the day, when all seven of their little sin natures are clashing and causing chaos, and sit them down and pray with them. Then not five minutes later, there is another argument that ensues or more harsh words spoken.

It is in our tempests of sin, when the storm clouds seem so oppressive and thick, that I feel like jumping ship. The torrents never seem to end, the clouds never seem to part, and I give up all hope of fair weather ever coming our way. 

The account of the apostle Paul’s stormy sea voyage is a narrative, not a metaphor. However, by way of personal application, it reminds me that when things look hopeless, I can do one of two things. I can either, like the sailors, choose to believe that things really are hopeless, and in my despair try to jump ship. Or, like Paul, I can resolutely stand on God’s promises found in his Word and choose to trust him even when I cannot see the outcome.

In my particular circumstance with sin, God’s Word promises that because he has called me and justified me in Christ, he will sanctify me and glorify me (Romans 8:29-30). Because God began a good work in me, he will bring it to completion (Philippians 1:6). I may not be able to see the progress of my sanctification day to day, but I can trust that God is changing me. I am not the same person I was before Jesus saved me, and I am not even the person I was a year ago, or three years ago, or ten. And just like Paul, I may not have reached the shore yet, but I can trust that it is as good as done because God keeps his word.

In the case of my family, I can trust that God is sanctifying my redeemed children too. They need as much grace and patience as I do to deepen their relationship with God, learn and apply his truths, and bear fruit. I can trust that Jesus has more than enough mercy, grace, and power to save my unredeemed children, and that he does not desire that any of them should perish. I can trust that the Holy Spirit can use the gospel I have shared with them to cause light to shine into the darkness of their hearts and regenerate them.

Merriam-Webster defines hopeless as having no confidence or expectation for good, being incurable, and unredeemable. But with God, we should always expect good because it is his nature. We can come expectantly and confidently to the throne of grace, knowing that we will receive mercy and grace in our time of need, whatever that need may be. We can with certainty look forward to the day when God will right all the wrongs and remedy the curse of sin in this world. And we can with full assurance know that there is nothing beyond his redemptive ability.

What is it that causes you to feel hopeless and despair? 

Is it a health condition, a job, a broken marriage, or the brokenness of this world? 

The salvation of a loved one who refuses to come to Christ? 

Perhaps it is another unanswered prayer? 

Or maybe, like me, it is an uphill battle with a sin you cannot seem to beat? 

Whatever it is, there is only one true hope for it all, Jesus Christ.

The Lord is the one who forgives all our iniquities, heals all our diseases, redeems our life from the pit, and satisfies us with good (Psalm 103:3-5). Jesus is the only one who can redeem broken relationships, and the only one who will ultimately fix the awful effects of sin in this world. He is the only way to the Father by the way he opened heaven through the payment of his blood for our sins. He is the only one who has defeated sin’s power over us, eradicated our conformity to the old sinful nature, and made us more like himself.

He can do all this because God is all-powerful and because Jesus came to bear the curse of sin and is making all things new. 

All other lifeboats are a false hope. 

Unless we stay in the ship of Christ, we cannot be saved and our lives and the lives of our loved ones cannot be changed. We must cut away all other hopes we cling to, and cling to Christ alone. Are you clinging to God, the Savior of the world, as your hope?

I want to leave you with one final meditation on hopelessness from God’s Word. When you feel like things will never get better, meditate on God’s faithfulness, remember all he has done in the past, and be assured by the perfections of his character.

“Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable? 

“Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time?

“Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?” Selah

“Then I said, ‘I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High.’

“I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your wonders of old.

“I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds.

“Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God?

“You are the God who works wonders; you have made known your might among the peoples.

“You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph. Selah” (Psalm 77:7-15).

The previous blog was originally published at Lifeword.org

When You’re Clinging to the Lifeboat of Hopelessness

The Attributes of God (Part 7): Love

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, . . . that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:14, 17–19

To write about something that Scripture declares “surpasses knowledge” is a daunting task—perhaps even more so than writing about any other attribute of God. The love of God is an infinite diamond. To thoroughly examine every facet and beam of light that refracts off those facets would be impossible for finite humans. So rather than try to hold it at every angle, we will focus on just a few.

If we were to ask the question “Who is God?” (which is essentially what we’re doing when we study his attributes), we could answer it with this statement: “God is love” (1 John 4:16b).

Or to put it another way, love is essential to God’s being. In his book Deeper, Dane Ortlund says, “Love, for the God of the Bible, is not one activity among others. Love defines who he is most deeply. Ultimate reality is not cold, blank, endless space. Ultimate reality is an eternal fountain of endless, unquenchable love.”

And God’s love is precisely that—endless. It is eternal. Since God himself is eternal, and God is love, it naturally follows that his love is also eternal. He cannot cease to be a part of himself. Psalm 100:5 says, “For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.” Similarly, Psalm 103:17 echoes, “But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him.”

And because God’s love is essential and eternal, it is also self-initiated. He did not wait until there was another object to set his love upon (humans) before he loved; his love necessarily always existed within himself before the foundation of the world and flowed between the persons of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus speaks of this love in John 17:24:

“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

God did not wait for us to love him first before he loved us—we did not initiate his love. God does not pour his love out on us because we said I love you, and God thought, Wow, that’s so nice. I guess I’ll love them back. The Bible says that we are able to love God because God first loved us (1 John 4:19). God loves us because it is his nature to love, not because of anything we did or anything he saw in us.

The love of God crushes the notion that love is something we can earn.

There is a country love song with the lyric, “I don’t know what I did to earn a love like this, but baby, I must be doing something right.”

This is our human notion of love. We tend to think of it more as earning a paycheck from a job or interest on a deposit—if we can just be good enough or do enough of the right things, we can win someone’s love; if we make enough investments over time, it will eventually pay out. If we can show God, or society, or whoever that we are a genuinely kind and decent human being, we will be rewarded in the end. We have a hard time believing that we can get something for nothing. That’s not the way our society works. But it is how God’s love works.

The Bible says that while we were unlovable, even while we were God’s enemies, he still loved us:

“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. . . . For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Romans 5:8, 10).

The Bible is clear there is nothing we contribute to the equation of God’s love for us; while we were dead in our sins, unable to love God, he set his love upon us:

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved . . . And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:4–5, 8).

And similarly, the apostle John says, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

We have nothing to boast about, no credit to take, and no ounce of deservedness in us. This should not only cause us to live in ceaseless praise of the merciful and gracious love of God, but also to extend that love to others. John’s whole appeal and argument in his first letter is for us to love one another based on the fact that we have been loved by God.

There are many ways the people around us can be unlovable—we may disagree with our spouse’s decision or behavior, our children may disobey us, someone may cut us off on the road, or even worse, may legitimately harm or abuse us. But God calls us to love as we have been loved, not by the world but by him. He calls us to love when it is hard; he calls us to love when there seems to be absolutely nothing lovable in the person at that moment. He even calls us to love our enemies—to love when we will most likely get nothing in return. When this seems too tall of an order to fill, remember that God is not asking us to do something he did not first do himself, but rather, he personified love and showed us its sacrificial nature by dying for those who hated him. And there is no greater love than that.

The previous blog was originally published at Lifeword.org:

https://lifeword.org/blog/attributes-of-god-part-7/

Flashback Friday – Fountains of Grace

I remember coming in from recess on a hot spring day, sweaty neck and dirty knees, standing in line with a bunch of other matted-haired children for the drinking fountain. Hinging down and titling my neck at my turn, I couldn’t wait for that cool stream of relief to roll down my throat. To my dismay, all that escaped from the fountain was a paltry trickle. I could barely absorb enough to dampen my spongey tongue, so I walked away, unquenched and unsatisfied. 

There is another story about a water fountain, found in the Bible. The prophet Moses had just led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. As they journeyed through the wilderness, God’s chosen people naturally became thirsty, but there was no water to be found. They griped and grumbled and grit their teeth at God. Then God spoke to Moses and provided a solution. He commanded Moses to strike a rock with his staff, promising that water would come out. Moses obeyed and the people were no longer parched. 

I have read or heard this story dozens of times, but I always imagined it more like my grade school water fountain. Moses strikes the rock and a tiny trickle travels down. But the Psalms paint a more realistic picture.

“[God] split rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep. He made streams come out of the rock and caused waters to flow down like rivers.” (Psalm 78:15-16)

I don’t know why I thought a measly dribble would be enough for roughly a million people to drink and be satisfied in the desert. It would have taken days upon days for all of them to fill their vessels for a simple sip, much less to water all their animals and cook and clean. 

Yet how often is this picture analogous to how we view God’s grace? Instead of water gushing forth into a river for a million, we see it more as a wimpy water fountain. It’s not really enough to satisfy us or take care of our needs, or so we think. 

Even when I have seen the abundant streams of grace he has provided for me in the past, I still wonder if he can spread a table for me in the wilderness or even provide my basic necessities (Psalm 78:19-20).

“Yet he commanded the skies above and opened the doors of heaven, and he rained down on them manna to eat and gave them the grain of heaven. Man ate of the bread of angels; he sent them food in abundance.” (Psalm 78:23-25)

God rains down on us more grace than we could ever scoop up in our arms. It would be like trying to bend down and gather the entire ocean. This never-ending ocean of God’s grace is available to us, and yet we show up with a flimsy paper cup expecting that to satiate us for an entire day, week, or months. If we want blessing, change, help in our time of need, and victory over sin, we need to show up with a bucket! And God is very clear what vessels, or means, we should use to receive his grace, the main three being the hearing and reading of his Word (the Bible), prayer, and worship.

God is ready and waiting to give us what we need, if we will simply take it. He says, “Open your mouth wide and I will fill it” (Psalm 81:10b). 

We’ve probably all seen a baby being spoon-fed. For their first few bites, you have to press the spoon against their lips and push your way past the gums until a little bit of food touches their tongue. But once they’ve tasted how good it is (unless, of course it’s peas), they begin to pop their little lips open eagerly and as wide as possible as soon as they see the spoon coming. They are expecting something good. We should be like the latter with God’s grace. God longs to fill us with good things. His grace is good and nourishing to our souls, but we don’t open our mouths wide to receive his bounteous blessing.

Too often we are more like stubborn toddlers. The spoon is raised and immediately the lips are pursed and the head is shaken. They do not trust that the parent knows best or that what is held on the spoon is actually good for them. Sometimes they are being flat out rebellious, in their own cute little way. Similarly, if God’s people would stop being stubborn and insisting they know best, but instead trust him and walk in his ways, he says he would feed them with the finest wheat and satisfy them with honey from the rock (Psalm 81:11-16).

The true fountain of grace, however, is not found in the craggy side of a mountain, but in the true Rock, Jesus Christ. Streams of grace flowed from his hands, feet, and side as he was pierced for our transgressions. Rivers of grace flowed out of him and onto the heavenly altar as he sacrificed himself as the payment for our sins. In the apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he writes of the immeasurable riches of God’s grace that are lavished upon us, but it is bestowed in no other way than through redemption and forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. If you are to receive God’s grace, you must repent (or turn) from your sins and trust in Christ.

Paul writes of his life before encountering Christ, “Formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life” (1 Timothy 1:13-16, emphasis added).

God’s grace doesn’t just trickle down; it fills to the brim and overflows! And it is available to all who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So how thirsty are you? Will you show up with a cup or a bucket, or will you even show up at all? There is an endless ocean available. Pick up a bucket and drink abundantly at the fountain of Christ!

This piece won Honorable Mention in the 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition.

Do You Do Well to be Angry?

So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. Jonah 3:3a, 4–6, 10, 4:1

After unsuccessfully running from God, and then being thrown overboard a ship, swallowed by a giant fish, and vomited up on the shore, Jonah finally decided to obey God’s order to go to the city of Nineveh and preach a warning of destruction.

After the entire city, including the king, repented of their evil ways, Jonah was angry. Even though he eventually obeyed God and had personally been shown miraculous amounts of mercy, he was still upset at the result of his obedience—that the Ninevites were spared.

Jonah obeyed, but he wasn’t happy about it.

In fact, a literal translation of “it displeased Jonah exceedingly” reads “it was exceedingly evil to Jonah.”

Sometimes our hearts are just the same when it comes to obeying God. God may want us to go somewhere, do something, or stop a particular sin. Outwardly we obey, but our hearts are far from being glad about it. Inside we grumble against God, get angry about conforming to his will, or feel sorry for ourselves. Our flesh even finds what he is asking us to do downright evil because it goes against our own desires. There is no joy in our obedience, only a begrudging spirit.

When this happens, it is usually because we think we know better than God what is good for us. We find his ways restrictive. We feel he is withholding happiness from us. We think our plans and our ways should be higher than his, and if he would just bend his will to ours, then things would be picture perfect. We cannot, like the psalmist, say, “I find my delight in your commandments, which I love” (Psalms 119:47).

But do we do well to be angry? In other words, are we justified in being mad at God for how he chooses to act and how he commands his people to act?

God always acts in accordance with his character, and his commandments are perfect (Psalm 19:7); there is no error in him. “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he” (Deuteronomy 32:4).

So when obedience causes us to grumble, we are actually angry with God for being God. We don’t want him to be in charge; we want to be our own god. Even though we may publicly testify that God’s law should be followed, deep down we don’t believe his commandments are right and good. Like the rich young man in Matthew 19, we walk away sorrowful at the price of obedience.

But like God asks Jonah, is it right for us to feel this way?

Are we right to be angry at God for not having xyz thing in our lives because we gave it up in obedience to his commands? Are we justified to find his commandments burdensome when his Word says they are not (1 John 5:3)? Does it benefit us to feel embittered, “pricked in heart,” or that our obedience is in vain when we see people who don’t follow God getting the things we want or think we deserve (Psalm 73)?

The answer, of course, is a resounding no.

But how do we take our obedience from disgruntled to desirous?

The remedy for our lackluster, lukewarm obedience is to meditate on the mercies of God.

Jonah didn’t like the results his obedience brought about. Jonah’s actions displayed he wasn’t grateful for the mercy God had given him, or at least not grateful enough. God mercifully chased down Jonah by sovereignly ordaining a violent storm and a casting of lots so that Jonah would be thrown into the sea. That might not sound merciful to us, but God did so because his relentless love pursues his errant children rather than letting them persist in their sin. God gave Jonah a wake-up call because he loved Jonah, knowing all along he had a plan to rescue him and give him a second chance. If Jonah had truly let the marvelous amounts of undeserved mercy and kindness he had been shown sink in, his thankfulness would have overflowed into joyful obedience instead of angst (Jonah 4:3, 9).

The apostle Paul says that after all God has done for us, this kind of obedience just makes sense: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your [rational service]” (Romans 12:1).

Meditating on all the times God has given us mercy when we deserved anything but should cause us to erupt in thankful praise. That gratefulness should also create in us a cheerful and humble willingness to do all that he commands.

Like Jonah, we can choose to be sorrowful or angry about what obedience costs us (in Jonah’s case, the city of evil people he despised was spared). Or we can choose to be grateful for God’s mercy and the blessings that obedience to him will bring (even if they are not the “blessings” we think we want at the time). We can find the results of our obedience “exceedingly evil,” or we can humbly acknowledge that the best results always come by following the will of the Lord.

The previous blog was first published at Lifeword.org

Do We Do Well to be Angry?

Flashback Friday – The Attributes of God (Part One): Is God Truly Knowable?

Who is God? What is he like? Is he even knowable? And if so, why should we want to know him?

These are all important questions to ask and each deserves a fair consideration. In this series of articles we will look at these questions and more, but for now we will only deal with one:

Is God truly knowable? 

Some have argued that it is not possible to know God, if he exists at all. Many who do acknowledge there is a higher power say it would be impossible to know a being who is so lofty and far off from us. Others espouse that even if we can know some things about this deity, it is not possible to know him personally. 

The problem with this agnostic view is that God has willed to make himself known. It may be difficult, improbable, or even impossible to know a God who did not desire to be known. But God does desire to be known and he decrees to make it so. How do we know this? Because he reveals himself to us.

Contrary to the deistic view of God, he did not set up the world, send it off spinning on its own, and then remove himself from it. He did not leave its inhabitants wandering around wondering how things came to be or who put them into existence. Although he is far above us, he chooses to be near and actively involved in his creation. He delights to reveal himself to us, and he reveals himself to us in two ways: generally and specifically.

The first way God reveals himself to us is through his creation. We call this general revelation.

When God created the world and the whole host of heaven, he left his mark. His signature is in every brushstroke of sunset, every crevice of canyon, every rapid of river. Every star, cloud, planet, nebula, and galaxy is a preacher in the pulpit of the sky. As the psalmist exclaims, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge” (Psalm 19:1-2). All of creation speaks of its Creator and tells us things about his essence.

Similarly, Romans 1:18-20 says that all mankind can know God exists because he has made it obvious to us. His “invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.” So none of us have an excuse not to know God exists. Even some of his attributes (or characteristics) can be plainly seen in nature. It doesn’t take a doctorate in theology to see the Creator’s majesty in the mighty mountains, his divinity in the sparkling night sky, his eternality and power in the immense oceans, or his complexity and intelligence in the design of the human eye. 

Another part of God’s creation that attests to his knowability is the existence of people. We can observe ourselves and those around us and make some generalizations. People can think and reason, they can learn, they can love, they can display creativity, they can show kindness. The Bible says that God created humans in his image (Genesis 1:26-27). Even people who do not know God’s Word can see a picture of a very specific Creator in their fellow human beings. 

Furthermore, we can generally know God exists through our consciences. The apostle Paul writes to first century Roman Christians that even those people who do not have the written Word of God know something of his law. God’s law is “written on their hearts,” shown by the fact that they have a moral compass, or a basic understanding of right and wrong (Romans 2:14-16). If there were no God, then there would be no standard by which we could know good and bad. Without the presence of good, there can be no bad. 

God has also chosen to reveal himself to us by another means, his written Word. We call this special revelation.

Compiled in sixty-six books by over forty human authors who were divinely inspired by God to write down his exact words over a timespan of about 1500 years, God has revealed everything we need to know him—not everything there is to know about him, but everything we need to know who he is, what he is like, and how we can have a personal relationship with him.

The entire Bible tells us information about God, but he has only ordained one specific way to know him fully and personally—through his Son, Jesus Christ. Although God chose many human authors to be his spokesmen, he most fully spoke through his Son. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” (Hebrews 1:1-2). In fact, the Bible says that Jesus is literally the Word of God come to earth in human flesh (John 1;1, 14). 

The apostle John goes on to say that Christ is the one who makes the Father known to us, or literally in the original Greek, exegetes him to us (John 1:18). To exegete means to interpret, expound, or draw out the meaning of something to make it plain. Jesus makes the Father plain to us. 

Seeing Jesus means seeing God. Jesus answers his doubting disciple, “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him” (John 14:7). And when Philip asks him to show them the Father, Jesus replies, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).

Jesus is the image of the invisible God and the exact imprint of his nature (Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3). He came to earth “so that we may know him who is true” (1 John 5:20a). Through knowing Christ, we can experience what God the Father is like and truly know him.

God is very knowable. In fact, everyone will know him someday. If you do not know him now as Savior and Lord, you will know him after your last breath as Judge. The Bible says that at the end of every person’s life, they will stand before God and give an account for every deed they have done, every careless word spoken, and every secret thought. If you did not acknowledge God in this life, you will acknowledge him then “for it is written, ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God’” (Romans 14:11).

Some will bow in loving adoration of his awesomeness and in gratitude for the grace he lavished on them in saving them from their sins. Others will bow in fear and dread at his awesome wrath relinquished on them for their unrepentant and unpaid sins. But before that final moment arrives, it is not too late to heed the words of the prophet:

“Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” Isaiah 55:6-7

Since God is knowable, seek him now before it is too late. His Word implores you to draw near to him and promises he will draw near to you in return (James 4:8).

The previous blog was originally published at Lifeword.org

Who is God and Can We Really Know Him? – Part One

Flashback Friday – The Attributes of God (Part 2): Why Should We Study the Attributes of God?

“All the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us together and at once, would be nothing compared with the overwhelming problem of God: That He is; what He is like; and what we as moral beings must do about Him.” —A. W. Tozer

Everyone knows there is a God. This is true because he reveals himself to us in nature, in our fellow human beings, and in the fact that we have a conscience. So the question is not “Is there a God?” but “Who is God and what is he like?”

But why should we want to know what he is like? 

Why should we study the attributes of God?

There are several reasons we will briefly explore.

God exists. 

We cannot simply ignore the metaphorical God-shaped elephant in the room, or at least not forever. The fact that there is a God means we need to know who he is and what he is like in order to make a decision about how we will respond to his existence. And how we respond shapes and affects how and why we do everything else in our lives. As Dr. Steve Lawson says, paraphrasing Dr. R. C. Sproul, “What you believe about God is the most important thing about you.”

We must know about him in order to know what we believe about him. When you want to know more about a person you study them. You learn what makes them tick, what makes them angry, what they love, what makes them laugh. You dig deeper to understand why they do the things they do. You spend time with them and the more time you spend with them the more you get to know their character. You discover if they are kind, loving, loyal, forgiving, begrudging, rude, selfish, etc. And if they wrote a book about themselves, that would make it even easier!

God wrote us a message about himself.

God chose to use words, not drawings or clouds in the sky, to reveal himself to us. Although nature reveals God generally, it is easily misinterpreted. The Bible reveals God specifically. It is God’s story about himself. In it we find statements about who he is such as “God is love” (1 John 4:8), “God is spirit” (John 4:24), and “God is light” (1 John 1:5). He also uses his Word to tell us what he is like. He is righteous (Psalm 11:7), he is merciful and gracious (Exodus 34:6), he is majestic in holiness (Exodus 15:11), he is immortal (1 Timothy 1:17). And when the author makes explicit truth statements about himself, we should not ignore them.

We need to be able to distinguish between the one true God and false ones.

Everyone is a theologian. What I mean is that everyone believes something about God.  Everyone theorizes about who they think he is. Everyone makes assertions about what they think he is like. Since we all have our own views about God, it is important to see if we have formulated our beliefs on accurate information. Failure to do so can lead us into dangerous territory.

It leads to a right view of ourselves. 

All people are created in the image of God. Have you ever heard the expression, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?” If you want to better understand someone, you look at where they came from—their parents. They will have similar traits, tendencies, and talk. God is our Creator or Father. He made our characteristics to resemble him in many ways. Human beings are but a copy of the true Being. And as we will discuss in more detail in this series, there are ways we are like him, ways we have marred his image in us, and ways he is unlike any of us. Understanding God will help us better understand ourselves. 

Knowing God can give us comfort, hope, and assurance in this world. 

The news is nightly filled with negativity—natural disasters, violent crimes, disease, and political ploy from every side. With all the pain, uncertainty, and overwhelming amount of evil in the world, knowing that God is sovereign, good, just, and all-powerful (to name a few examples) can save us from a multitude of worry, fear, and despair. 

It makes our churches stronger, healthier, and of more benefit to the Christian mission.

Churches border on the line of irrelevance and irreverence when they do not rightly understand who God is and what he is like. They have nothing of distinction to offer people when their God looks no different than the gods of this world. Their services become nothing more than idolatry when they worship a God of their own imagining, made after their own image. Conversely, churches see some of their healthiest years and growth when they hold firm to biblical truths about God. Individual believers will grow stronger in their faith as they grow in their understanding of God and will grow in personal holiness as they are “renewed in knowledge after the image of [their] creator” (Colossians 3:10). Evangelism efforts will be fortified as Christ-followers deepen in their awe of the God they serve. 

It leads to right and reasonable worship.

Learning about God is not about fact consumption. Knowing information about God is not the end goal; it is a means to a higher end. Our theology should lead to doxology, or our knowledge should lead to praise. But you cannot worship what you do not know. 

In our lack of God knowledge we are prone to two extremes: either an ignorance that leads to absence of praise, or an ignorance that leads to emotionalism bordering on fanaticism (worshipping something without solid reasons). Knowing God gives substance, reason, and purpose to our worship. Once we know him, it makes perfect sense to worship him. The apostle Paul, after considering the mercies of God, concluded that offering everything we have to him in return was our reasonable worship. As Dr. Joel Beeke states, “The attributes of God give specificity to the praises of his name. God’s people do not worship a nebulous, unknown mystery that inspires emotion without understanding; they worship the God whom they know in his attributes.”

Knowing God is the only way to eternal life.

All other reasons to study the attributes of God flow into this tributary. All people were made to know the one who created them. Jesus Christ came to make him known to us, but he came to make him known in a very specific way—the way that leads to life. “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). The most important reason we should find out who God is and what he is like is not just so we can know about him but so we can know him personally. We can only know him in this way when he reveals himself to us in his grace through his Son, Jesus Christ. When we look to Christ for the forgiveness of our sins, we will truly know him and the eternal life that is in him. Knowing him is the beginning of all knowledge (Proverbs 1:7).

Seek to know him more today. 

If you do not know God today, seek after him like you would a fortune in riches. Knowing him is the most valuable treasure in this world and the easiest one to find. God placed you exactly in your time and place so that you would seek him and find him, and he is actually not far from you (Acts 17:26-27). If you already know God personally through faith in Christ, seek to know him deeper and closer than ever before. “To know God is more enlightening than an advanced degree from a prestigious school, more strengthening than a great army, and more enriching than a vault of gold” (Dr. Joel Beeke). You could spend your life pursuing no greater thing.

The previous blog was originally published at Lifeword.org

Are the Attributes of God Important? Part Two

Flashback Friday – The Attributes of God (Part 3): Holiness

There is none holy like the LORD: for there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God. 1 Samuel 2:2

What do you think of when you hear the word holy? Perhaps you think of a special place like the Holy Land in Israel. Maybe it’s a special time of year like Holy Week, the days between Palm Sunday and Easter when Christians reflect on the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Or maybe you think of a person who lived an exceptionally pure life spent serving the needs of others, like Mother Teresa. 

But what does the word holy actually mean?

Holy means to be set apart, or separate from something. It can involve being removed from evil and sin, but there is more to it than just moral purity. Holiness is not an abstract or subjective idea but is founded in a source. True holiness is found in God and God alone, and all holiness derives its origins from him. God is holy and everything he does is holy.

God’s holiness means he is set apart in his being and in his moral purity: in his being because his existence is quantitatively and qualitatively different from anything else in creation; in his moral purity because of his complete separateness from sin and corruption. 

1. God is holy in his being.

God is completely other than us. He is unique. He is like no other being and there is nothing we could compare him to. We might say that God is alien or that he has a complete other-worldliness about him. God is not simply set apart from us because he is the best in every category but because he is in a separate category all to himself. Moses sings in Exodus 15:11, “Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?” Similarly, the prophet Isaiah writes, “To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?” (Isaiah 40:18). The answer to these questions is no one.

God is set apart from us because of his transcendent majesty. He is high and lifted up, exalted above everything else in his creation. Isaiah frequently refers to him as the Holy One of Israel. As Dr. R. C. Sproul writes, God’s holiness “signifies everything about God that sets him apart from us and makes him an object of awe, adoration, and dread to us.”

God’s holiness is the only one of his attributes repeated in Scripture three consecutive times. The Hebrew language does this to emphasize something to the superlative degree. In Isaiah’s vision of God’s throne room, the seraphim cry out to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:3). And in John’s revelation on the island of Patmos, he sees the four living creatures surrounding God’s throne constantly worshipping, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” (Revelation 4:8). The angels do not shout love, love, love or wisdom, wisdom, wisdom, although God is certainly loving and wise. They only declare holy, holy, holy, thereby exponentially emphasizing this attribute of God as his supreme essence. 

2. God is holy in his moral purity. 

God is completely morally pure. He is perfect. There is no stain of sin or ounce of uncleanness in him. Scripture says that evil may not dwell in his presence and darkness has no part in him. “There is not the slightest taint of evil desire, impure motive, or unholy inclination about him” (Robert Reymond). Greg Nichols describes God’s holiness as “unalloyed moral purity,” bringing to mind an image of a metal in its purest form, not mixed with anything else. 

God is so holy that he cannot look upon evil. “Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One?. . . You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong” (Habakkuk 1:12-13a). In Old Testament times, the place where God chose to manifest his presence in the tabernacle was called the Most Holy Place, or the holy of holies. No one was allowed to enter it except the high priest, and he only once a year and only after he had performed all the purification rituals and sin-atoning sacrifices to make him acceptable in God’s sight. 

When Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, went to the cross and took all our sins upon himself, the Bible says he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and there was complete darkness over the land for three hours (Matthew 27:45-46). When he became sin who knew no sin, the Father had to turn his back on his beloved Son because his moral holiness demands complete rejection and utter hatred of wickedness. 

Implications

So what does God’s holiness mean for us? 

First, we can trust that since there is nothing bad in God, all of his ways are good and his works perfect. He will never do anything evil, malicious, or wrong. “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he” (Deuteronomy 32:4). We never have to fear that God will act like a cruel tyrant.

Second, because God is holy and we are his creation, he has the right to demand absolute holiness from his people in order to be in his presence. In the Old Testament law, God commanded his chosen people, “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). He then gave them moral and ceremonial laws to follow to keep them set apart from the surrounding nations and to atone for any guilt they would inevitably accrue. 

In the Psalms, the writer asks who is allowed into God’s presence. The answer is, “He who has clean hands and a pure heart,” capturing the idea of unstained moral purity (Psalm 24:4a). The exact same idea is repeated to New Testament followers of Christ as the apostle Peter admonishes, “but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:15-16).

This has further implications for us than seen at surface level. God’s personal holiness and his exaction of holiness from his created moral beings is meant to show us something. When we truly examine God’s holiness and the requirements of his moral law, we see that we fall woefully short. The apostle Paul writes, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and “no one does good, not even one” (Romans 3:12b). God’s holiness is meant to leave us feeling morally bankrupt. None of us will ever be able to have clean enough hands or a pure enough heart to dwell with the thrice-holy God of the universe. 

However, the final implication is that even though we can never be the source of our own holiness, or approach the One who dwells in unapproachable light, we need not despair. God comes to us instead. “For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite’” (Isaiah 57:15). 

God knew that we wouldn’t be able to keep his perfect law or have fellowship with him in our sinful state, so he sent his Son to dwell among us and become one of us. Jesus Christ perfectly kept all of God’s commands while he lived on earth as a man. He also made a way for us to come boldly into God’s presence by sprinkling our impure hearts clean with his righteous blood when he died on the cross. He was able to pay the penalty for our sins because he had no sins of his own; he was the “Holy and Righteous One” in the flesh (Acts 3:14). 

When we are humble and admit that we need someone else to be our holiness for us, God gives us just that. He unites us with Christ by faith in him, and his holiness becomes our holiness. We can be holy because he is holy! Praise be to God that he provides the holiness he demands!

The previous blog was originally published at Lifeword.org

The Attributes of God Part Three: Holy

Flashback Friday – The Attributes of God (Part 4): Independence

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. (Acts 17:24-25)

From the time we can crawl, we are trying to gain our independence. We walk, we run, we climb the highest tower of the jungle gym. From there, we cannot wait to gain our first proof of the world acknowledging our independence, a plastic card that makes it legal for us to peel out of the driveway alone in gloriously gleaming metal on wheels. The next step to independence is getting a job so we can make enough money to leave our parents’ house for the autonomy of adulthood. 

But in all this, we are never truly independent. We neither made ourselves nor can we make it by ourselves. We have needs—lots of them. However, there is one being who needs nothing at all and is truly independent from the rest of creation. That person is God. 

God’s independence means:

God is not dependent on anything for his existence but has necessarily always existed, nor does he have any needs but has all sufficiency of every perfect thing in himself, lacking in nothing. 

We will break God’s independence down into two categories: his self-existence and his self-sufficiency. 

1) God’s self-existence 

God was not created by anyone or anything but has always existed. Psalm 90:2 declares:

“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”

We humans have a hard time wrapping our brains around this truth because we all have a starting point. We may (kind of) understand how something could go on forever into the future when we contemplate things like eternal life, but it is beyond us to comprehend how something could have no beginning. Everything we know has one. Everything, that is, except God.

God necessarily exists by virtue of his nature. He is the great “I AM,” his self-proclaimed name to Moses at the burning bush. This state-of-being verb – which means to be or to exist – used as a title, denotes the essentialness of his being. We would typically use this phrase to describe ourselves to someone, as in “I am Bob” or “I am a father.” When God uses this phrase, he describes himself by repeating the state-of being-verb, “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14, emphasis added), thereby solidifying that he simply is and has always been in a perpetual state of existence. Similarly, Jesus says in John 8:58, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am,” proclaiming that, just like the Father, there was no point in time that he came into existence; he has just always been. 

Although God was not created, he is the creator of all things. If you were to put everything that exists into two categories, things that were not created and things that were created, the first category would list God, and the second category would contain everything else in existence. In the apostle John’s vision of heaven, the twenty-four elders continually fall down before the throne of God and worship him, saying, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Revelation 4:11). Without God, not a thing that was made would have been made (John 1:3).

God gets his life from no one, but he himself gives life and breath to everything (Acts 17:24-25). He is the source of life for every living thing past, present, and future, for he has all life in himself (John 1:4, 5:26) and “for from him and through him and to him are all things” (Romans 11:36).  

2) God’s self-sufficiency 

Not only does God not need us for his existence, he has no needs at all. God has everything he would ever “need” within himself. God is “a self-contained source of perpetual and perfect sustenance . . . Because he created everything, nothing he has created could possibly be needful to him for his existence. If it were, then like him, it would have always existed” (Jen Wilkin).

God is spirit (John 4:24), without a physical body, so he has no physical needs like food, water, or sleep. But he also has no relational needs. Some people mistakenly think that God created humankind because he was lonely and needed fellowship. The Bible, however, is clear that within the persons of the Trinity, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit enjoyed a perfect sharing of love, communion, and glory before the foundation of the world. As Jesus is reassuring his disciples before his departure, he prays, “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed,” and, “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:5, 24). If God had never created anything, he would still be perfectly satisfied within his own being. 

Implications

There are several practical things we can learn from God’s independence. First, because he has no needs, God cannot be tempted. God created everything and therefore owns it all. There is nothing that anyone could give him that isn’t already his and nothing with which we could lure or entice him. King David writes, “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers” (Psalm 24:1-2). Asaph also acknowledges of God, “For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine” (Psalm 50:10-12). Because of God’s complete independence and self-sufficiency, we can trust that he will never be controlled by something outside of himself or have his hand swayed. And that is a good thing for his created beings.

Similarly, a need shows a weakness. As humans, we have needs. If we do not get food, water, air, or sleep we will eventually die of starvation, suffocation, or exhaustion. But with no needs, God has no weaknesses. Our almighty God will never grow tired or faint, he will never need to take a break to reload his carbs or rehydrate, nor does he depend on anything to keep his existence going. We, on the other hand, cannot survive one second of a day without being dependent on our Creator. He gave us life and he is the only one who sustains our life (Hebrews 1:3). We literally need him for the air we breathe, for pumping blood and oxygen through our veins, for sustaining our body systems while we sleep, for rain and sunshine to grow the food we eat, and for the strength and skill it takes to work each day. 

You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth . . . The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God . . . These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground. (Psalm 104:14, 21, 27-30)

Furthermore, since God has all-sufficiency in himself, we can trust that he possesses everything we need. He is able to keep every promise he has ever made because the substance of those promises lies within himself. When God says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9), we can truly believe that his grace and power are enough for us because he is sufficient. When “he who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” says he will “also with him graciously give us all things” (Romans 8:32), we can have genuine hope that God is able to provide all those things from the storehouse of his own sufficiency.

Conversely, even though God does not need us, he did choose to create us for his own good pleasure and he delights in us. As a human father is not dependent on his small child to provide for any of his own needs, parents still take great joy in their children, love them, and enjoy spending time with them. If we have become his children by faith in Christ, he rejoices in us as much as he rejoices in his only Son. “For the LORD takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation” (Psalm 149:4). God does not need us, but he chooses to walk with us and call us his friends, if we fear him and obey his commandments (Psalm 25:14; John 15:14). He chose to show us the greatest love of all by meeting our greatest need, a sacrifice for our sin, by laying his life down for his friends (John 15:13). 

Lastly, even though God does not need us to bring him glory, because all glory and honor are already his, we can still participate in ascribing to him the glory due his name. We were created for that purpose, so let us join with the rest of creation in magnifying our independent, all-sufficient Lord with all that we have. “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!” (Psalm 150:6).

The previous blog was originally published at Lifeword.org

The Attributes of God Part Four: Independent