Meditations on God’s Awesomeness.
Geoffrey R. Kirkland | pastor | Christ Fellowship Bible Church
1. THE HOLINESS OF GOD
The holiness of God describes and defines God as different than His creation. Holy is the only attribute and description of God that is mentioned three times for superlative emphasis. He is Holy! Holy! Holy! The holiness of God is not just an attribute (or, a description) of God. It is the very beauty of Who God is. It is the perfect sum total of all that God is and how He deals with all His creation. For God to be holy means that He is set-apart and different. He is holy MAJESTICALLY — because he is different than his creation in his essence, in his being, in his perfections, in his God-hood. He is holy MORALLY — because is he totally set-apart and distinct from everything that is profane, sinful, and corrupt. He is holy DELIGHTFULLY — because God is infinitely happy and perfectly delighted in Himself and in His perfections.
2. THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
The sovereignty of God fills the pages of Scripture from beginning to end. This marvelous & towering doctrine means that God is King. As King, He has perfect decrees, plans, wisdom, protection, provisions and guarantees to ensure all His purposes are accomplished. For God to be sovereign means that God is God. It means that He is in control — of everything. Every single thing. This blows our minds. God is in control of the bird weaving a nest together. God has ordained the laws of nature (all of them). God has created the world with His own effortless spoken Word (instantly without delay). God rules over heaven, over hell, over the righteous, over the unrighteous, over all angels, and over all circumstance in all the universe. God reigns as King sovereignly in a WISE and perfect manner. Everything he does is full of powerful wisdom. God reigns as King sovereignly in a GOOD manner. It would be tragic to have a powerful but corrupt king. It would be a pity to have a merciful but powerless King. But we have a Good King who is infinitely wise and powerful.
3. THE UNCHANGEABLENESS OF GOD
Many call the unchangeableness of God the immutability of God. This means that God cannot and does not change. If God alone is perfect then He cannot change or he would then cease being perfect and become something else. But God everlastingly remains the same — yesterday, today, and forever. He says: “I the LORD do not change” (Malachi 3.6). His being does not change. His essence and character never alters. His attributes never fluctuate. God never has a bad day. God never has a mood-swing. God never is frustrated because things don’t go His way. Men change and rise and fall. Animals are born and then die. All creation changes and shifts and is altered over time. But God, God alone, from the very beginning of time, indeed from all infinite eternities past, has never ever changed even in the slightest. He is the towering Rock, the eternal Lord, the unchanging God, and the mighty fortress. The unchangeableness of God means that everything God has purposed and decreed shall be accomplished. The unchangeableness of God also requires that God fulfill all His promises. Here is a solid footing for you to rest your weary, tired, fatigued, uncertain, and anxious heart. Come to the immutability of your God and gaze on His unchanging love for you. And bow low and worship Him!
4. THE PATIENCE OF GOD.
God is patient and slow to anger. God preached His own character and nature and said to Moses: “the Lord…slow to anger” (Ex 34:6). One of the repeated qualities of God all throughout the Bible is that God is “slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness and truth” (Ps 103:8; Neh. 9:17; Num 14:18). For God to be patient means that He is marvelously long-tempered. He delays His wrath and His judgment. He doesn’t have to and nor does He always choose to do this the same way, but God wonderfully chooses to withhold wrath. History shows and demonstrates God’s profound patience with humanity. The patience of God consists in a deliberate, perfect, gracious forbearance. He can do this because “the LORD is slow to anger and great in power” (Nahum 1.3). All sinners are called and summoned (by God Himself!) to repent and return to this God genuinely with a true heart because God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger (Joel 2.13). It has rightly been called the “the majestic restraint of the Almighty.” In the face of human sin, rebellion, transgression, and great evil, God has marvelously delayed His wrath. God surely has all power to bring judgment on sin but He chooses, according to His wise and perfect designs, to delay and withhold His wrath for a time. Don’t mistake it: God does not overlook sin; rather, He delays His wrath. God is not apathetic toward sin; He simply delays the punishment.
5. THE POWER OF GOD
The power of God proves to be one of God’s most distinctive character qualities. His power is perfect, precise, good and unlimited. Theologians call it the “Omnipotence of God.” This speaks of the all-powerful and unlimited ability of God (and God alone) to do all His holy and perfect will. David affirmed that “in God’s hand are power and might” (1 Chronicles 29:12). Also: it is true that power and might are in God’s hand so that *no one can stand against God* (2 Chronicles 20:6). Nothing is too difficult for the Lord (Jeremiah 32:17). God’s amazing and unrivaled power exists perfectly and has existed perfectly from all eternity as He had no beginning. He has never, ever increased in power or grown in ability. God has never had an energetic burst or a day of limited power. He always and ever exercises unlimited, unrivaled, undiminishing ability to perform and execute all His eternal decrees. God manifested His power in the everlasting decrees within the Triune Godhead when He foreknew and elected and predestined particular individuals to be saved in Christ. Then, in a perfect intra-trinitarian pact, the Father gave to the Son these elect souls for the Son of God to come and redeem forevermore. What amazing power on display in the unified Godhead.
6. THE GRACE OF GOD
Scripture speaks of God as the “God of all grace” (1 Peter 5.10). The grace of God is the kind benevolence of God. God’s grace is unearned, undeserved, unmerited. It is the favor, the kind and perfect kindness of God given to the ill-deserving. Amazingly, the grace of God biblically goes beyond this. It even includes the kindness and benevolence of God given toward those who deserve the exact opposite: wrath. The grace of God cannot be earned by a good life or deserved by good actions. It does not come to one in response to his religiosity. Grace flows from God’s sheer and infinite love. Grace pours forth from the kind hand of God to the wrath-deserving. God’s grace is not some passive thing that sort of ‘happens’. It proves to be an active force, a most glorious action from the Almighty God who lavishes undeserved blessings upon hellbent sinners. Grace pardons. Grace forgives. Grace reconciles. Grace saves. Grace empowers. And Grace equips the child of God to serve God in a way that God is well-pleased. The divine grace not only includes pardon from sin but it also brings power to live for His glory.
7. THE LOVE OF GOD
The Bible teaches that God is love (1 John 4.8). Love is not just something that God does or something that God shows but it stems from His very being, His essential nature, His glorious perfections. God cannot not be loving because His very nature proves to be love. The love of God marvels the mind, captivates the soul, has no bounds, and is never passive or impotently reactive. His love is mighty and strong reaching to the heavens (Psalm 36.5). But sadly, this divine love is often misunderstood. The love of God first shows itself in the Inter-Trinitarian Godhead. That means within the Godhead, the Intratrinitarian workings and relations one to another, this One God, eternally existing in three Perfect Persons (Father, Son, and Spirit) has always and ever shown infinite and satisfying and happy love toward each member. God’s love is eternal, natural, unfailing and perfectly good. Additionally, God is love toward His creation. He has a general caring concern for all his creatures. And with that, God has a common grace and general love for all humanity. All whom He has made are objects of His benevolent love.
8. THE WRATH OF GOD
A necessary attribute of God is His wrath. THE WRATH OF GOD is a perfect, holy expression of holy indignation over sin and evil. The Scriptures state that the LORD is avenging and wrathful (Nahum 1.2). For those who sin and break God’s Law, he promises that “I will act with wrathful hostility against you” (Leviticus 26.28). God’s wrath is the stirring of His holy and furious anger toward all sin. Never is God’s wrath something that is emotionally irrational or an unthinking sudden response to something but it always perfectly and purely shows itself in righteous opposition to anything that goes against His perfect character and nature. In fact, the perfect and exceeding love of God demands and necessitates the perfect and holy wrath of God. God loves His own pure holiness so perfectly that anything that is sinful and lawless ignites His Holy wrath. God’s wrath comes out from the beginning to the end of the Scriptures. No one can deny the wrath of God. It proves to be one of the most common, most described, most illustrative, and most sobering attributes of the Almighty. The enemies of God will be destroyed in His wrath (Psalm 59.13). When Jesus returns at His 2nd coming, He will trod down people in His anger and trample them in His wrath (Isa 63.3, 6). God’s future Tribulation “Day of wrath” is soon coming (Zephaniah 1.15). This attribute of God’s wrath comes forth not only in the Old Testament but also in the New. The same God of the Old is the holy God of the New (for He never changes). Jesus warned the self righteous to ‘flee from the wrath to come’ (Luke 3.7). God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness (Romans 1.18). In fact, God sovereignly demonstrates His wrath by enduring with much patience people, vessels, of wrath prepared for destruction (Romans 9.22). For unbelievers, God promises in His wrath, they will never enter His rest (Hebrews 3.11). All unbelievers will be struck down and thrown into the wine-press of the wrath of God, the Almighty (Revelation 19.15).
9. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD
God is righteous and upright (Deuteronomy 32.4). The RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD is an essential quality of God flowing out of His perfect holiness whereby He is morally perfect and always acting in perfect harmony with His character. He cannot deny Himself or go against His own character. God is the standard of what is right and He shall always uphold what is right and cannot deny His own perfect standard. We may say that the righteousness of God is the glorious expression of His perfect holiness. What makes God to be God and what sets God apart as the glorious Almighty shows itself in His righteousness. Because God is infinitely pure and holy, He must be opposed to all sin (Romans 3.25). This character quality of God is so beautiful and glorious that the psalmist extols: “the Lord is righteous and He loves righteousness” (Psalm 11.7). He is righteous in all His ways (Psalm 145.17). Daniel knew that the Lord is righteous with respect to all His deeds (Daniel 9.14). That means that every single thing God does in all of human history is good and right. But here at this glorious point of God’s character is a massive problem for unrighteous humanity. We are sinners and unholy and impure. God’s righteousness is measured by His own perfect character and all mankind falls short (Romans 3.10). And God’s righteousness means that He will and must act in accordance with His own will, His own moral perfections, and His own truthful faithfulness. His character and conduct is always right and must do what is right. The Scripture says: “You are righteous and your judgments are right (Psalm 119.137). Because He is righteous and must uphold His own perfect, inflexible, glorious moral standard, all sinners are in a desperate condition because we fall short of His perfect glory (Romans 3.23).
10. THE GOODNESS OF GOD.
The Lord is good. Believe the Bible’s declaration about this essential character quality of your God. The goodness of God is a moral attribute of God whereby He is the source of all benevolence, kindness, care and tenderheartedness. The goodness of God requires that God has no evil, no darkness, no impurities. Think on this: your God is good and his love is everlasting (Ps 100.5). Your God is good so all must sing praise to His name for it is lovely (Ps 135.3). The Lord is good “to all” (Ps 145.9). The Lord is good to all those who wait for (that is to say: ‘eagerly and actively pursue’) Him (Lam 3.25). The Lord is so good that He proves to be a stronghold in the day of trouble (Nahum 1.7). This essential quality flows from the very being and nature of the Almighty God. God’s goodness is not some passive quality. God does not just see what happens and then respond in a good way to the events of life. No! Rather, God’s goodness demonstrates itself in His infinite benevolence in active motion at all times. God is good in amazing ways. He is good in who He is. Also, He is good in what He does. These two points on the essential qualities of God’s goodness must ignite a loving trust and a steady reliance on our God. We can trust Him and lean on Him. He is sturdy and merciful. He is a Stronghold and faithful. For God to be good means that every other attribute flowing from His majestic character must be perfect.
11. THE WISDOM OF GOD
Wisdom and power belong to God (Daniel 2.20). All wisdom and might and counsel and understanding belongs to God (Job 12.13). The WISDOM OF GOD speaks of God’s ability to always produce the best possible results because of His perfect knowledge. The wisdom of God is perfection in action. The wisdom of God defines the very being and essence of who God is. Undoubtedly God knows all things (omniscience) and he also has comprehensive, infinite, exhaustive, perfect, and limitless understanding of everything in all the universe.
With God is wisdom. Blessing and glory and wisdom be to our God forever and ever (Revelation 7.12). Those in heaven sing “worthy is the Lamb to receive power, riches, and wisdom (Revelation 5.12). The wisdom of God is revealed in Holy Scripture. It is the sacred writings that are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 3.15). In Christ we have the perfect embodiment of infinite wisdom (Colossians 2.3). God’s testimonies make wise the simple (Psalm 19.7).
12. THE ETERNITY OF GOD
The ETERNALITY OF GOD means that God has no beginning and no end. From everlasting to everlasting, He is God (Psalm 90.2). How amazing to think that the God, the one and only God, has perfect, timeless, infinite, unfathomable duration — without beginning, without ending, and without succession. God does not grow older today than He was yesterday. He is not learning or growing in knowledge with the passing of years. God remains eternal, both now and ever. Amazingly and unfathomably, God is timeless and unchangeable and therefore always perfect. He cannot grow or improve or become better. He never needs improvement or revising or editing. He never needs to change with the times and become more relevant to His creatures. God proclaimed about Himself: “Even from eternity, I am He” (Isaiah 43.13). Therefore, this eternity of God means that He is the sure and steadfast dwelling place for all His creatures (Deuteronomy 33.27). He is Lord over time, existing both above time and within time for His own glory and purposes. He is totally free from the passing of time and never hindered or limited by the demands of time and urgency of the moment. God is never frustrated or stressed out!
13. THE PRAISEWORTHINESS OF GOD
I will call upon the LORD who is “worthy to be praised” (1 Samuel 22.4)! God is worthy, infinitely worthy of all honor and praise! The praiseworthiness of God speaks of the full honor and deserved worship given to our exclusive and preeminent God. God is to be praised! In heaven, the saints sing worthy is the Lamb to take the book for He was slain and purchased men for God with His blood (Revelation 5.9). They continue singing: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing” (Revelation 5.12). This kind of thinking should saturate the thoughts of God’s people. Our hearts should well up with bubbling praise and honor to our God who gives innumerable reasons to bless Him. All day, every day, throughout the day, whatever happens each day should not alter our praises of the Lord for He remains the same, unchanging, perfect, good and sovereign. Perhaps this is why the common refrain thunders forth so often in the Bible: “Hallelujah" - Praise the LORD (see, e.g., Psalm 117:1-2; 135.1, 3, 21). God is exceedingly praiseworthy because of His character, His actions, His creation, and His salvation. Contemplate your God and praise Him for His infinite beauties of His character. His being, His attributes, His personhood, His glories, and His excellencies deserve the highest praises from His creatures. Let your study of God lead to doxology and worship of your God.
