13 Dec It is What It Is (Discovering the true character of God…because He is not a car-wrecking, cancer causing Creator, but a loving, life giving Lord!) part 19
The Bible tells us in Hebrews 11:6, “For without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”
Let’s review our three very important takeaways from this series:
- Notice the word “cometh”. The Greek tense for the word “cometh” is in the continual tense, meaning it is discussing those who continually come to God. It could read “those that cometh and cometh and cometh to God”. It describes a continual, communicative relationship.
- When we continually come to God, we must believe that “He IS”…not He was or He will be. That describes a vast majority of the Body of Christ. “God did a miracle in Biblical days” or “One day when we all get to Heaven, He will heal then.” God is not the Great I was or the Great I will be…He IS the Great I AM!
- He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Now we’ve left behind three quarters of the Body of Christ. Most don’t believe He is a rewarder…most believe He is a taker!
Then we gave you 4 View Verifications:
- How you view Him will determine how much you come to Him.
- How you view Him is how you will treat others. In other words, if you think He’s mad at you, it will be very difficult for you to treat others kindly.
- How you view Him will determine your outlook on life.
- How you view Him will determine your destiny.
Then we began to discuss 11 Characteristics concerning the Character of God:
- You can’t create God in your own image (Rom. 1:25).
- Heaven yes…Hell no! Hell was not originally created for man (Matt. 25:41). God will respect your will all the way to Hell (Matt. 25:34,41). It’s not sins that send one to Hell, it is a sin that sends one to hell (John 16:7-9).
- Sin ruins the view: “Three Sinless Scenarios”: The Garden of Eden before sin, The life of Jesus – while certainly sin surrounded Him in His earthly ministry, there was no sin in His life (see Heb. 4:15), and Heaven.
- Will the real God please stand up? (John 10:10)
Then we began to look at Six Nice Nature Necessities:
1.) In the Old Covenant, sin had not yet been dealt with
2.) In the Old Covenant, God only acted harshly in judgment.
3.) Remember the causative verse the permissive tense in the Hebrew language.
We looked at these two scriptures:
Amos 3:6 “Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?”
Isaiah 45:7 “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil; I the Lord do all these things.”
At first glance, it looks like our loving Heavenly Father is an abusive dad! Until you understand that in the Hebrew language (the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew) there are both causative and permissive tenses in their language. In both of these verses it looks like God is causing the evil but other verses have the permissive tense in the verbs. In other words, God is not directly causing evil…He is permitting or allowing it. God will still allow evil to this day.
The Bible tells us “neither give place to the devil” (see Ephesians 4:27). The Greek word translated “place” is the word “topos” (we get our word “topography” from it). The word “topos” means “ground”. Therefore the Bible tells us it’s our responsibility to give the devil no ground in our lives.
If I am bound and determined to rob a bank, God may send you to try to talk me out of it. However, God created me with a free will. He will permit or allow me to rob that bank! That doesn’t mean it’s His will or that He caused it. God created us in His image and likeness (see Genesis 1:28) and God will not erode at His creation’s free will!
4.) In the Old Covenant there was very little understanding of the devil.
In the Old Covenant, there are really only five references to the devil. In Job, Chronicles and Kings (which is the same story), and Ezekiel and Isaiah (which is also the same story). The reason God chose to reveal so little about the devil was that people of that dispensation had the same nature as the devil (see John 8:44). Had God revealed a lot about him, they would have readily followed him. Therefore to the people of the Old Covenant it was quite unclear as to who was doing what. You can see that in the Book of Job. It was clearly the devil who was the culprit, yet Job and his friends confused the work of the devil with the work of God.
Now let’s us continue with…
5.) Jesus the transition (Heb. 1:3)
Here the Bible tells us, “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.”
Jesus was the express image of God. In other words, one of the reasons God sent Jesus to this earth was to clearly reveal the character and nature of the Father (see John 14:9). That’s why when Jesus cast out devils it was a total anomaly to the people of that time period. It had never been seen or done before!
So if we want to understand the true nature and character of God, we should look at how Jesus handled various situations. Often times we refer to storms as “acts of God”. This is common in the insurance industry. However, to look at how God views storms, look at the life of Jesus in Mark 4:38-41:
“And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith? And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Here you can clearly see the true nature and character of God. It was not God that caused the storm, it was Jesus who calmed the storm!
Join us next week as we continue our series…