I began thinking about how truly great our God is, and I was reminded in this time of the many attributes of the Lord. In this, there are SO many things He promises for us.
We should praise Him for who He is!

The Omniscience of God.
This means that God knows all things.
God is all-knowing. He has perfect knowledge of all that was or is or can be.
He has no need to learn, as He knows it today. For we do not know tomorrow until tomorrow comes.
His knowledge encompasses the past, present, and future.

The Bible teaches that God has never been taught by anyone.
“Who has known the mind of the LORD? Or who has become His counselor?”, Romans 11:34 says.
God has never sat at the feet of a teacher whether the teacher be highest cherub or archangel.
His knowledge is absolutely comprehensive. Proverbs 15:3 speaks of,“The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch upon the evil and the good”,.

This means two things:
First, at once God knows all things.
No one could reveal anything about us to Him that He does not already know.
He knows the smallest details, even the number of hairs on our head, as Luke 12:7 says.
We should take comfort in this – know matter what the situation is in your life God knows all about it and who better than Him to give you counsel since He knows everything about your situation that can be known.
Hebrews 4:13 speaks of,“And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”

And second, God knows all things in and outside of Himself.
His knowing is absolute. His knowledge is an eternal knowledge.
Nothing has been added to God’s knowledge and nothing can be.

His Wisdom.
His wisdom is boundless, but ours is very small.
“God who alone is wise”says 1 Timothy 1:17 and in Jude 25. Nothing that He does can be improved.
God sees all things in their proper perspective and is therefore able to effect flawless ends.

This being true, don’t you think it would be better for us to seek God’s wisdom about whatever we face in life before we seek the wisdom of man?
Job 12:13 speaks of,“With Him are wisdom and strength, he has counsel and understanding.”
Psalm 147:5 declares,“Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; his understanding is infinite.”

God’s Goodness.
God’s goodness disposes Him to deal kindly and bountifully with His creatures. His goodness is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. God is just as good now as He has ever been and ever will be. He makes the sun to shine on both the good and the evil and sends rain on the just and the unjust.

Exodus 34:6 says,“And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abounding in goodness and truth.’”
Psalm 73:1 also says,“Truly God is good to Israel…”

Nobody will be any better to you than God. He only seeks to do you good and not harm.

God’s Love.
Jesus answers forever any question about God’s love. “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation [all-sufficient sacrifice] for our sins” 1 John 4:10 says. Romans 5:8 declares, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us”. To know the love of God is to know Jesus in His saving action toward us.

God’s great love became visible in the sending of His Son and His Son’s self-sacrifice on the cross.
John 3:16 speaks,“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

People may stop loving you but God will never stop loving you. He may not like what you do but He will always love you.

God’s Mercy.
Mercy is God’s love and goodness shown to those in distress and trouble and to those who are guilty. Mercy disposes God to be compassionate toward the miserable, the wretched, and wrongdoers.

Psalm 86:5 says, “For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, and abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.”
Psalm 107:1 proclaims, “Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.”
1 Peter 1:3 speaks, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”

We don’t deserve His compassion but He gives it to us anyway.

God’s Faithfulness.
God is absolutely consistent. He is completely reliable and firmly constant. Never is He given to shams or to fickleness. He is faithful to His people and to His promises.

Psalm 94:14 declares, “For the LORD will not cast off His people, nor will He forsake His inheritance.”

Isaiah 44:21 says as well, “Remember these, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are My servant; I have formed you, you are My servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me!”

God will never let you down; you can depend on Him to do all that He said He would do.

God’s Justice.
God always acts consistent with His own character. His justice demands obedience and punishes transgression. He is impartial in His judgments and renders to each what is his due. The psalmist spoke of God’s justice: “Righteous are You, O LORD, and upright are Your judgments” (Psalm 119:137). God deals with us without showing favoritism. From Him we receive what is just.

Psalm 7:11 says, “God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day.”

Psalm 67:4 speaks of, “Oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy! For You shall judge the people righteously, and govern the nations on earth. Selah”
Romans 2:2 firmly says, “But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth …”

The Omnipotence of God.
This means that God can bring to pass everything which He wills.
Job 42:2 says, “I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.”

Luke 1:37 declares, “For with God nothing will be impossible.”

God is Omnipresence.
He is not limited by space and thus He is present everywhere at once. In Psalm 139 David declared that God is present in all the universe. David inquired, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?” (v. 7). These questions are rhetorical, and so he answers, “If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell [sheol], behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me” (vs. 8-10).

Acts 17:27, 28 says,“He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being”. God sees, hears, and knows everything because He is present everywhere to see, hear, and know everything. Matthew 18:20 says as well, “Where two or three believers are gathered in the Lord’s name, He is present”.

God is Immutable.
The God of the Bible is One who does not change. This means that God is consistently good, He is constantly faithful to His promises, and He is absolutely dependable. God will never be any better than He is now, because He is the perfection of goodness. He will never be any holier than He is now, because He is the essence of holiness. God’s attitude toward sin is the same as the day He drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. As God has always been, He is receptive to faith and love.

All other things change, but God is “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning”, written in James 1:17. Likewise Jesus is declared to be “the same yesterday, today, and forever” in Hebrews 13:8.

This is the man upstairs, This truly is our God!
Hallelujah!

of people and don’t even know it, and then you do that awkward dance in the grocery aisle because you think they’re going to the left, so you go right, but then they go right and you almost hit each other…and I’m not going to say anything of course cause I’m a guy, and if were in the grocery store – we’re on a mission! Women will just laugh about it and quickly apologize, maybe comment about something in the cart in passing to ease the confusion, but men…we will not make eye contact or say anything, cause its not like we live to be there. I’m in there cause I’m out of deodorant or something. It’s an in-and-out as quick as you possibly can find-the-shortest-line contest for us.

anyway, its humorous, but… I get in the way…

of what I should say,

of my own thinking,

communicating my own thoughts,

I even think I get in the way of God sometimes. Not in this ‘super self-loathing’ way, but truly I wonder if I sometimes get in the way of what God wants to do in or through me. In any given situation or place I find myself, God has a clear purpose for every encounter. In those times, I must ask, do I hinder or advance God’s work through me? Its kind of a big, self-reflective question to ask, even almost a little to large to think about sometimes. I just wonder if what I do, what I say, how I respond, how others view me, my body language when listening…

Am I promoting and advancing God by my actions? I think this is a really healthy question to ask on a frequent basis. Its good to think about how we are advancing or the opposite, hindering, the Gospel going forth. Paul talks about this very thing in Romans;

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness…” (Romans 1:18). We know that we are all sinners, and therefore all sin is essentially the same, that is, in the eyes of God. Even though we may not think we are ‘wicked’ and completely ‘godless’, we are still sinners. We struggle with varying degrees of sin because we live in a society that attributes values and consequences to every action. Although this is true, in the spiritual sense, we all have fallen short of the righteousness of God. I read this verse and immediately thought are there ways I suppress the truth of God?

Its kind of a humbling thought isn’t it?

I am SO grateful that God is not on a ‘three strikes your out’ rule. He is not on His heavenly throne with His holy-clipboard making check marks next to our name. When we fall short, when we do hinder His hand through our life; He not only still works around us for His good pleasure, but regarding our mistake, He doesn’t see it. His love and grace is deeper, wider, and greater than we can ever fathom! I am learning so much lately about His grace in our lives amidst our shortcomings and lack of faith.

Where is the justice in all this?? That is the questions left…

But here is what I know…

I know that I know that God is in all this! I believe it with all that I am. This is the essence of faith. Amidst a time with so much turmoil, so much hurt, and so much negative news, I know that the Lord sees all this. Joshua knew this well. The Lord spoke to him and said, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9). I don’t see it sometimes, but before it all, I am declaring that I believe He has a perfect plan for all this. This is all I can do. I am human and truly cannot do anything about it other than pray. Its especially times like these that force me to realize I cant do this on my own, and the only resolve I have is to rely on the Lord for strength.

“As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the Lord is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in Him. For who is God besides the Lord? And who is the Rock except our God? It is God who arms me with strength, and makes my way perfect” (2 Samuel 22:31-33).

I read this in my devotions last week, and it has been mulling through my head ever since. God is perfect and His word is flawless. Wow! Thank you Lord that we have something that is constant and true through and through. I love the word used here to describe the grace and love of God extended towards us. He is a mighty shield for all who are under it. I think of so many pictures in my head of God and His infinite love protecting the ones He loves. God is the one who arms us with strength because by our strength alone, we can literally do nothing. I love that the Lord even desires to make our ways perfect, and has a plan that big and great for our lives. His love is so great and so vast that what better of a posture can we take than to praise Him for who He is and what He is going to do in our lives! Thank you Lord!

For me, writing things down is top priority. I forget a lot if it is not written down. The good Lord did not give me the best memory capacity like many, and if I could just run down to Best Buy and pick up an upgrade, you know I would have been there already. I love reading my Bible and then writing the things the Lord is speaking to me down. I love scribbling on the very narrow edges little notes to remember. I love going back a week and reading in my journal what God was saying last week. Writing down things is powerful. Many say knowledge is power, and they are correct, but for me having thoughts, revelations, and His promises down for me to reflect and re-read later is extremely powerful.

My girlfriend, Lindsey, has a successful blog site. Usually once a week or so, she will write something meaningful for her personally or pertaining to the news or something she has been learning at school, and many friends and people will read and respond to it. I want to share these many thoughts, abstract or collected, with you through this site. Hopefully as we traverse through this, we learn something powerful together.