God the Father Part 2

 

    Jesus used parables to help people understand who is God, his father.  The most famous parable may be the lost son.  It tells how God's people reject and hurt Him, but when they return he treats them like nothing happened.  No matter what you do, God the father will not reject your repentance and forget all your past sins on this side of life.

    God loves all people and will pursue.  He makes it personal and will meet you where you are.  He makes the biggest effort.  All you have to do is accept, repent, and follow Jesus.  He is not reckless.  His love is pure.  It doesn't come with strings or a hidden agenda.  It is honest, forthright, and has healthy boundaries.  If there is disconnect between you and God's love, then it comes from you not Him.  

    The son in the lost son parable put his family's future in jeopardy with his selfish nature.  It was insulting to demand his inheritance before his father died, but his father gave him what he wanted.  The son was basically saying his father was already dead to him and he wanted nothing to do with the family anymore.  

    The older brother had every right to feel insulted because the younger son was being insulted.  However, the father's love does not hold grudges.  He doesn't allow pride to keep him from embracing his son back when the son returns.  If it was a true story, then the father would have endured shame and grief.  His neighbors would have held it against him like he was a bad father, but the father did not allow shame to stop him from loving his son.

    Culturally the son would never have been allowed to return home.  The village or community would have made it clear that he was cut off and dead to all of them.  It takes love that gives you strength to break the culture to do what is right and different.  Jesus changed everything with this parable.  God displays true love, grace, and forgiveness that reject shame.  

    God even tried to reconcile the two brothers, but they had their own relationship that had to be worked out and it never tells us if they did.  The brothers represent faith that saves and religion.  They rarely mix well.  God is more interested in faith that turns you into a child that will follow over looking righteous for the world.  However, God loves everyone and gives the world all the opportunities to turn to Him.

    Fundamentally this is who God is.  He is perfect.  He is good.  He is the father that wants the best for His children, but in the right way.  He does not allow His children to run amuck.  He disciplines us and shows us the righteous way to live.  He gentle takes care of you even if it may feel harsh at the time.  

    God is not hatefully wrathful.  His anger is stemmed from righteous love.  He fights for you.  He is not demanding or He would never have given you free will.  He is not a dictator demanding His way.  You have options, but you also have consequences.  God is not absent, abusive, or indifferent.  He does not fail His people.  He is faultless, but endures all the blame people place on Him.  He is not demeaning, imprudent, or opulent.  He loves you enough to always be there to listen to everything and gives you good things freely.

Luke 15

Promise Keeper

 

    God is the promise keeper.  He makes His promises based on who He is in the form of covenants.  A covenant is more than keeping your word.  It is more than just a promise.  It is binding and everlasting.  It is not something that God takes lightly and neither should you.

    God is good at keeping His promises.  He has never broken one and never will.  He is faithful even when you are not.  When you chose things over Him, He still chooses you.  You see the majority of covenants made in the Old Testament, but you see how it mostly comes together in the New Testament.  The New Testament still holds a few promises for your future.

    In God's covenants He is the strength behind the promise.  The people mostly get to receive the good and have the easier portion of the agreement.  For an example the covenant of salvation.  Jesus had to come into this world as a human to die the final and truest sacrificial death.  He rose again defeating death and becoming the door for people to have access to God.  All you have to do is believe and follow Jesus.  Most covenants had to be made in blood for people to realize how important they are.

    God is the promise keeper because He is the initiator, sustainer, and fulfiller.  He does not lie, so you know He will do what He says He will do.  The whole purpose of a covenant or promise is for God to be able to be closer to His people.  His promises offer consequences to choices and redemption.

    Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of God's promises throughout history.  If you know Jesus and follow him, then you live under the new covenant that was formed when he raised from the dead.  You understand what sacrifice is and why it is necessary.  You also know the freedom that comes with following Jesus.  

    Jesus shows you how to live the law and the Holy Spirit empowers you to live your freedom with Jesus.  Together they help remove the chaos to live with wisdom.  If you choose the salvation covenant, then you know that one day you will go home to live eternity with God because He promised it.

Genesis 3:14-19, 9:8-11, 17:1-14. Exodus 19:3-6, Numbers 25:12-14, 2 Samuel 7:12-16, Jeremiah 31:31-34, 2 Corinthians 1:17-20, 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, & Hebrews 4:14-16

The Creator

 

    God does not have a beginning or an end, but He is the beginning and end of our World.  He is the creator of all that we know.  You had a beginning and you have an end as a living human being, but your soul is eternal.  It will reside with God in Heaven or Hell with Satan.  

    God is the source of all power that exist.  What power He has given He can take away.  He is infinite in who He is and what He can do.  He is the source of all that is good, pure, holy, and faithful.  Anything that doesn't fit into those categories do not come from Him.  The power that He has allowed in the evil one will be removed one day.  That means if you chose not to follow Jesus, then you are following the one that will lose everything in the end.

    God is all-powerful and all knowing.  He is transcendent in His infinite love.  That is why He creates.  He loves you and He loves all living things.  He is the original artist.  It is His art that inspires all artist to create.  His creation inspires science.  His designated roles in life inspire law and order.  People are inspired because we are His most loved and cherished creations.

    God's power is displayed in creation, His reign, order, Jesus, and sovereignty.  His creation tells you that He is powerful, true, and still working.  What we can see and beyond tells you He is faithful and will not forget about you.  He can handle everything including what you need in life.  Look around you and you can see His fingerprint on life.  

    God never needed you or anyone else.  He chose to create you.  He chose to love you.  He did not make you and left you to fend for yourself.  He never left you.  He created you giving you purpose and passion that should inspire you to draw near to Him, but He also gave you free will.  If you chose to turn your back on Him He will not force the relationship.  However, He will enforce the consequences of your choices.  You know what they are, so you can't blame Him for how things turn out.

    God's love for you leads back to His glory.  He gives you purpose, so your life has meaning and can be expressed in worship, love, and joy in Him.  He provided variety in skin color, languages, cultures, laughter, climate, seasons, emotional depth, intellect, and so many other ways.  It all brought Him pleasure.  It is your choice to continue bringing Him pleasure or cut yourself off from Him.  He created you personally and it is your personal choice.

Genesis 1, Psalm 19:1-4, 90:1-9, Isaiah 43:5-7, John 1:1-5, Acts 17:24-29, Hebrew 11:1-3, & Revelations 4:9-11

Who is God?

 

    God is above all things.  He is the creator of all life.  He is Holy, righteous, pure, good, and perfect.  His holiness is an accumulation of his perfection and supremacy.  He does not lie.  He is consistent.  His love is the purest form of love.  God's nature is essentially holy.  It is revealed in how He is separate and different from the world.  He is opposite of everything Satan corrupted.

    God's holiness is revealed in how His glory fills the world.  You see it in His grandness, grace, and personalized calling.  God is all powerful, but He pursues a personal relationship with you.  He inspires awe and worship.  He upholds His promises to those that follow Jesus in obedience and faith.  

    God fights for and with His people.  He punishes evil, but not in the same way people do. He will never do anything outside of His nature.  The more you become like Him the holier your nature will become.  You have to step into holiness to understand.  His holiness comes with direct, so that you can be holy too.

    You can't surprise God.  He knows everything about everything.  This should give you comfort because it means He knows what will happen with what you are struggling with today.  Nothing is too big for Him.  Trust Him enough to follow Him faithfully.  Faith without love is dead.  Love without obedience or submission is not love.  Obedience and submission reveal trust.

Leviticus 11:41-45, Isaiah 1:1, 6:1-4, 55:6-9, Romans 3:21-26, 1 Peter 1:13-16, & Revelations 4

Theology of God

 

    One of the hardest concept for people is that God was never created.  He has always been.  Another is that God is three parts, but only one God.  The churchy word for this is triune.  This is where He is a complete mystery.  People have a start and a finish.  We are only one person, but complex all the same.  We are not able to really comprehend something without a beginning or end or even more complex than what you are.

    The Trinity is God in three separate identities: the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit.  Who He is vast and complex, but He makes Himself known to people.  He seeks a real relationship with you.  He simplifies it to the point of making it personal.  The trinity is the foundation of faith and truth.

    God is real which automatically separates Him from the world religions.  It does set the people of faith apart from the world by uniting us through creation, salvation, and sanctification.  God is supreme in His unity and uniqueness from all the false gods.  

    God holds power over life.  He is the only one that knows the day and hour of your death.  He is sovereign over all living things including the galaxy and far beyond.  He has all that power, but He is still faithful to you as an individual.  You may not even be able to get a conversation with your pastor or boss because of the number of people in the church or company, but God makes time for you whenever you want it.

    God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.  Those are just big educational words for God being all knowing, all powerful, and present everywhere.  The trinity together make the perfect union.  In marriage, friendship, or business you can use them as the example of how to make it work.  Separately they each have their own roles, but together they work perfectly in action and focus without hierarchy or a power struggle.

    God is true and pure love.  His love comes with direction, discipline, and consistency.  True love does not let you walk into danger without trying to stop you.  True love has consequences if you ignore caution.  True love stays with you even when you don't deserve it, but it also enforces boundaries.  If you chose to follow Jesus in faith, then you are sealed as part of God's family with the Holy Spirit living in you to provide unconditional love and direction until you go home.

    God is a mystery, but He is not nearly as mysterious as some people make Him out to be.  He has laid it all out for you in the Bible.  He wants you to know Him because He already knows and loves you.  He is not to be ignored.  If you ignore Him now, then you will lose out on the comfort in eternal life with Him.  The choice to accept or reject God is always yours.

Genesis 1:1-2, Deuteronomy 6:4-19, Matthew 3:16-17, John 1:1-5, 2 Corinthians 13:11-14, Ephesians 1:3-14, & 1 Peter 1:1-2

Bible's Reliability

 

    You can rely on the validity of the Bible.  It began hundreds of years before the written word, but the people were careful to not change it.  That is part of the reason why there is not a lot of detail in Genesis.  By Exodus there was the written word.  

    The Bible is the first book, but it was kept in manuscripts in the beginning.  There are more identical copies of the Bible's manuscripts than any other book in history.  There are more than 5,700 manuscripts of the new testament in Greek alone.  That means with all the languages there are about 25,000 manuscripts of the new testament in the ancient languages.    

    There are many translations of the Bible, but throughout history it was God's people who copied it word by word, line by line to make sure it was not altered.  Today, some dialects have strayed from the exact truth, but NASB has stayed very close grammatically to the Hebrew and Greek.  To copy the thought process into English the NLT is one of the best translated Bibles to understand the meaning and concepts of the ancient languages.  Bible Gateway and YouVersion are good apps of the Bible to use.  

    The chapters and verses were added to make it easier to find context.  It began to be used in 1557 when the English Bible was being printed.  None of this takes or adds to God's truth.  It is about making your personal Bible Study easier.  

Psalm 12, 19:7-11, Isaiah 40:6-8, John 17:13-19, 2 Timothy 3:14-17, & 2 Peter 1:19-21

Reading Scripture

 

        Reading Scripture does not come naturally.  You can go to church your whole life and not really understand how to read the Bible.  There are many ways and no set correct way other than to do so often.  The more you invest into reading and praying scripture the more you get out of it.  It is not a book to be read once from beginning to end.  You jump around and you reread.  It will have different impact over time.

    Reading the context is important.  You need to understand what is going on to see that it still applies today even though a few things will be different.  Try to keep the big picture in mind while personalizing it for your life at the same time.  

    Creation was when God spoke and life began.  He took nothing or the void and spoke existence to create life.  It was good.  It was holy.  It was perfection that lead to the simplest form of peace.  When humans allowed sin into the world perfection was tainted.  The consequences were eventual and possible eternal death.  It also meant that everyone has to deal with the consequences of their inherited sinful nature.

    Redemption was paid by Jesus to put to death sin.  If you have faith, then the bondage of sin no longer has possession of you.  You have soul freedom to be able to spend eternity with God.  Jesus provides restoration of the soul.  

    When you read the Bible you need to study the scriptures through observation, interpretation, and application.  Ask yourself what the scripture is actually saying.  Then what does this text mean.  Lastly ask yourself how you can apply it to your life today.  It will build holy habits over time if you focus on today.  

    Memorization is a wonderful way of meditating on scripture.  I will admit that I am horrible remembering the exact verse or book.  I typically don't get it verbatim either, but I know enough where I can use scripture in context in a conversation without preaching.  I also focus more on the context than one verse that can be manipulated according to some people's perspective.

    You find the way to memorize verses, sections, or even books of the Bible.  Use the method that works for you to memorize: write, say it, repeat it over and over, find ways to use it on a daily basis until you don't have to look it up, journal, sing it, or use a prayer partner to go back and forth repeating it (holding each other accountable).  You can't go wrong if you try.

Joshua 1:6-9, Psalm 5:1-3, Proverbs 3:5-6, Matthew 4:1-11, & 2 Timothy 3:14-17