GOD IS 'JUST'

"He is the Rock. His work is perfect, for all His ways are law and justice. A God of faithfulness without breach or deviation, just and right is He."
(Deuteronomy 31:4)

According to A.W.Tozer, in the Scriptures Justice and Righteousness are almost synonymous; they can scarcely be distinguished from each other. He is righteous in all His ways; He is Holy and cannot tolerate sin. The just penalty for sin according to Romans 6:23 is 'death'.

God, who is just and righteous, could not spare the sinner; yet in His goodness He can still justify the sinner. This is done through the work of Christ on the Cross. The penalty for sin was paid when Christ became our substitute. Now when a sinner casts himself on Christ for salvation, justice is done and the sinner is made Just by a Just God.

But if one does not accept Christ as His substitute, God's justice still stands against the sinner. He is Just and He has provided a substitute for our death penalty. We dare not ignore this.

His Justice needed to be satisfied, but He took care of it for all who will believe and accept.

Prayer: "We live, O Lord, because thou art just and merciful. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, righteous in all Thy ways and Holy in all thy works. Amen"

1. The Holy Bible (Amplified Version)
2. The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W.Tozer
3. The heart of CC

GOD IS 'IMMUTABLE'

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, the word "Immutable" means 'not capable of or susceptible to change'. However, all of creation is forever changing; it is impossible to escape this fact. The mountains with snowy tops in winter, lose this in summer as rivers melt down their sides, taking with it dirt and causing erosion, thus constantly changing the mountain. The ocean gives up water as the sun draws from it, forming storm clouds in the heavens. Man especially is in change as his body goes from youth to old age in a matter of a few years. Man will move from worse to better, or even better to worse; he can go from immature to mature.

All of creation is in constant change, but God remains the same. He is incapable of change; He is perfect and has always been perfect. He is Holy and has never been any less Holy. God is not a substance as we are, but a spirit--pure, essential, and ethereal Spirit--and therefore He is immutable.

Since God never changes, His Attributes never change. What He was in the beginning, He is just the same now. He is unchanged in His love, in His Faithfulness, in His power, in His Justice. Malachi 3:6 states: "I am the Lord; I change not..."

If there is any change in our relationship with God, it is on our part, not God's. God Himself is outside of mutation and thereby unaffected by any of the changes occurring in our world. Charles Wesley stated:

"And all things as they change proclaim

The Lord eternally the same."

This should bring peace to our hearts, as we know we can come to our God at any time and know He is always receptive to our needs. His attitude toward sin is the same as it was when He drove Adam and Eve from the Garden; and His attitude toward sinful man has never changed as He reaches out to him and says "come unto me..."

1. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
2. Sermons by Charles Spurgeon
3. The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W.Tozer
4. The Heart of CC

GOD IS 'FAITHFUL'

We have been considering God's Attributes these past few weeks as we seek to have a small understanding of 'Who God Is'. As we consider each Attribute separately, we must keep in mind these are not separate qualities of God, but merely facets of His Unitary Whole.

God, being self-existent, is also self-sufficient, and being infinite, He must be ALL of each of His Attributes. Therefore, He is not just part love, part power, or part Faithful, but He is ALL of each one. He is ALL Faithful and He never changes, so therefore He cannot be unfaithful--Ever! It is God's Faithfulness that saves us, and it is His Faithfulness that keeps us. Galatians 2:20 in the King James Version states: "...and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God..." I believe this is the proper translation, and it shows that our salvation is sure because He is Faithful.

It is only by having complete assurance in His Faithfulness that we can have 'peace' when we come to a bend in the road, or the way becomes rocky, or storm clouds blow into our lives. And it is only by having assurance in His Faithfulness that we can look forward to the life to come.

The Old Testament talks about the Faithfulness of God in Deuteronomy 7:9: "Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments." And In Psalm 92:1,2 we read: "It is good to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; to declare Your lovingkindness in the morning, and Your Faithfulness every night."

Our Lord who was Faithful to His Heavenly Father while on earth, is now Faithful to us; so we can press on with assurance in His Faithfulness for years and centuries to come.

Isaac Watts wrote a poem showing that God's Faithfulness will never fail:

"Happy the man whose hopes rely

On Israel's God; He made the sky,

And earth and seas, with all their train;

His truth forever stands secure.

He saves the oppressed; He feeds the poor,

And none shall find His promise vain."

1. The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W.Tozer
2. The Holy Bible
3. The heart of CC

GOD IS 'LOVE'

When we say 'God is Love' this is not giving a definition of God. To say, 'God is Love' means that this is an Attribute of God, a fact about Him just as the facts that He is Good, Holy and Faithful. His love had no beginning and will have no end. He loves as much at one moment as He does another, because as God He does not change. Because He is God and without limits, His love has no limits.

We cannot really define 'Love', but we know about love by how it is revealed to the one that is loved. I Corinthians 13 is a chapter from the Bible given entirely to an attempt to define 'love'. Specifically: Love is patient, love is kind; not envious, not boastful or haughty; love is not self-seeking or resentful. Love never fails. Love is uncaused and undeserved.

Love shows itself by how it takes pleasure in what is loved, and God enjoys and loves us as His own creation. John 3:16 states that God loved us so much that He gave His only begotten Son to die for us. And here is a wonderful thing about God's love: when we become His children, nothing can separate us from that love. Paul states in Romans 8:38 and 39 (from the Amplified Version):

"For I am persuaded beyond doubt (am sure) that neither death nor life,

nor angels, nor principalities, nor things impending or threatening;

nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth,

nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us

from the Love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

There is so much to learn about God's Love; it is so vast and we can never understand it, any more than we can understand God. Ephesians 2:4-5 gives a small view of how God expresses His love to us:

"But God--so rich in His mercy! Because of and in order to

satisfy the great and wonderful and intense love with which He loved us,

Even when we were dead (slain) by (our own) shortcomings

and trespasses, He made us alive together in fellowship and in union

with Christ; [He gave us the very life of Christ Himself, the same

new life with which He quickened Him, for] it is by grace

(His favor and mercy which you did not deserve) that you are saved

(delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ's salvation).

The love of God is measureless, and we cannot be separated from it! Praise God!

1. From the Holy Bible (Amplified)

2. The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W.Tozer

3. The heart of CC

GOD IS GOOD

"For the Lord is good; his mercy and loving-kindness are everlasting; and his faithfulness and truth endure in all generations." (Psalm 100:5 Amplified)
"O Give thanks to the Lord, for His is good; for his mercy and loving-kindness endure forever." (Psalm 107:1 Amplified)

God's Goodness is one of His 'attributes', and because He is God His goodness is self-caused, infinite, perfect and eternal. As an attribute of an unchangeable God, He never varies in His intensity of His goodness. His goodness is what causes Him to be kind, cordial, and full of good toward all man.

God's Goodness is different than human goodness, because God is perfect. A.W. Tozer states that "the Goodness of God is the drive behind all the blessings He daily bestows upon us. God created us because He felt Good in His heart, and He redeemed us for the same reason."

Charles Wesley had this to say of the Goodness of God:

Before my faith's enlightened eyes

Make all Thy gracious goodness pass;

Thy goodness is the sight I prize:

O might I see thy smiling face;

Thy nature in my soul proclaim

Reveal thy love, Thy glorious name.

"O Taste and see that the Lord is Good!" (Psalm 34:8)

1. God's Holy Word

2. Knowledge of the Holy by AW Tozer

3. The Heart of CC

Who is God?

When we think about God, we have a tendency to place Him in a box of our making. We think limited thoughts about Him when in fact He is unlimited.

Our minds simply cannot contain Him as He is infinite; He is endless; He is limitless. In I Kings 8:29 Solomon stated "...Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built."
In Psalm 145:5 the psalmist says: "I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your Majesty, and on Your wondrous works."

We say God is a mystery because we cannot understand His infinity. We must accept the things we do not understand by Faith. God has given us His Word to help us learn about God, and by searching God's Word we can find true facts about God called 'attributes'. An 'attribute' is a characteristic that is true about God and how He reveals Himself to us. Love, for instance is not a quality that may grow or diminish, but it is the way He is, as with all of His attributes. He IS Faithful; He IS Merciful; He IS immutable; He IS Holy.

A.W.Tozer, a noted Christian Author of some 50 or 60 years ago, states in his book "Knowledge of the Holy", that "The God we must learn to know is the Majesty in the heavens, God the Almighty Father, Maker of heaven and earth, the only wise God our Saviour. He it is that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, who stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain and spreadeth them out like a tent to dwell in..."

For the next few weeks I am going to meditate on God's attributes and perhaps by thinking about His attributes we can have a better concept of "Who God is".

1. Knowledge of the Holy by A.W.Tozer
2. God's Holy Word
3. From the heart of CC

Psalm 37

Last week I endeavored to encourage all to get into the Bible and to study God's Word. When Jesus was tempted by Satan in the Wilderness He quoted each time from God's Word: "It is written....It is written...It is written." Knowing God's Word is the quickest way to resist Satan and cause him to 'run'.

Psalm 37 is a wonderful example for getting to know God's Word. In Psalm 37:1 we are told:"Fret Not Thyself..." But by going deeper into the Psalm, we find that when God gives us a command, He will also show how it is to be done.
In verse 3, 4, and 5 we are told to:
1. Trust in God
2. Delight myself in Him
3. Commit my way to Him
4. Then to Rest in Him.

As we study the rest of the Psalm, God reminds us that He will Sustain us (vs. 17) and that He knows each day we have. Verse 23 shows us that our steps are established by Him, and verse 24 tells us that He holds us by the hand. Verse 25 is a reminder that though I have been young and now am old, He has never let me down. Verse 28 states that He 'does not forsake His righteous ones'.

In verses 39 and 40 He tells each one of us that He is our salvation, our strength, and we can take refuge in Him. It is easy to not fret when our God shows us how it can be done.

Oh Lord, I will keep Your law in my heart (vs. 31). Amen

1. Psalm 37
2. From the heart of CC