God is knowable on a personal level, but we will never fully know God because He is infinite and we are finite. “His greatness is unsearchable” (Ps.145:3), “His understandings are beyond measure.” (Ps. 147:5) If we could count His thoughts, they would be greater in number than the sands of the earth. (Ps. 139:17-18) On a personal level we can know God when we seek Him with all of our hearts. He will make His presence known to us as He works in our lives. (Romans 8:28) If we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us. (James 4:8) Knowing God personally is unlike anything I can explain. It is WAY better than just knowing about God. We can know about God by reading His word. We can also know about God by looking around at all that He has created. A couple of ways we can know God by looking around are that God provides for and loves His creation, God is incredibly creative and artistic, also that He is glorious beyond imagine.

 

God is independent, meaning He doesn’t need us or any of His creation for that matter. God is completely content, happy, and fulfilled in His own triune existence. “The God who made the world and everything in it does not live in temples made by man, and He is not served by human hands as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all mankind breath and everything” Acts 17:24-25. Although God is completely independent, He chooses to give us value. He considers us important to Him! This is amazing love. “Everyone who is called by my name, I created for my glory” as He said in Isaiah 43:7. God “will rejoice” over us “with gladness” and “exult” over us “with loud singing” Zephaniah 3:17 What a wonderful creator we have, that He would rejoice over us, (basically just a spec in His hand) with loud singing.   

 

God is unchangeable in His being, attributes, purposes, and promises. He is unified in all of His attributes, meaning that He is light (1 John 1:5) and love (1 John 4:8) all of the time and equally. He is not just light at night, and just love in the day, He is love and light all of the time. Once God has determined that He will bring something about, it will be achieved.(Matthew 25:34 & Ephesians 1:4, 11) God is also unchangeable in His promises. (Numbers 23:19) His unchangeableness doesn’t mean that He will not act or feel differently in response to situations like sin and repentance. God does act and feel emotions. He withholds judgement and says He will not come in wrath Hos 11:8-9 (although it would be perfectly just for Him to do so). His love and compassion for us can either grow, or He can turn His face from us when we are not responsive to Him.

God is eternal, meaning without a beginning or an end. He is the Alpha Omega, who is and who was and who is to come (rev.1:8). Because God is eternal His view of time is very different from ours, 1,000 years in His sight are but as yesterday. (Ps. 90:4) When we think about this, we can see that God views our whole span of history very vividly. God sees and knows all events. We will talk more on that later.   

 

God is spirit and God is also invisible. God is not limited to spatial location, and no one has ever seen God. (John 4:24 & John 1:8) God has chosen to create us, in our spiritual nature, somewhat like Him. He has made us to love, to seek justice, to feel sorrow when bad things happen, and to most importantly worship Him. We are creatures that worship, there is no escaping that. We either worship horizontally (the world) or we worship vertically (God). Some more verses on how God created our spirits are John 4:24, 1 Cor. 6:17, Romans 8:16, and Eccl. 12:7. 

 

God is Omniscient & Omnipotent. Omniscient means that God knows everything. (1 John 3:20) He fully knows Himself and all possible things. (1 Cor. 2:10-11) No creature is hidden from God’s sight, but “all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account”. (Heb. 4:13) God is always aware of all things at all times, but His knowledge never changes or grows. Nothing can surprise Him and nothing is hidden from Him. From eternity God has always known all that would happen and all that He would do. God is omnipotent meaning He is all powerful. Genesis 1:14 says “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” This is a rhetorical question. Jeremiah 32:17 says that nothing is too hard for God. He is able to do all of His will, he is able to do far more than we could ask or think (Eph. 3:20), Christ has told us Himself that with God all things are possible (Matt. 19:26) There are some things, however, that God cannot do, He cannot and will not do anything that goes against His own character. He can’t be tempted by evil (James 1:13), He cannot lie (Titus 1:2), and He can’t deny Himself (2 Tim. 2:13).

 

God is wise. Not only is God omniscient, but He is also wise, meaning He always chooses the best possible goals and the best possible ways to meet those goals. Romans 16:27 says “He is the only wise God” and Job 9:4 says “He is wise in heart” (while our heart is deceitful above all things-Jeremiah 17:9). We also reflect God in the sense that He gives His children wisdom. (James 1:5) But remember, we never fully know God, therefore we will never be as wise as God. Sometimes He will reveal to us why things happen, and sometimes He will not. In those situations we are to exercise trust in our all knowing and all loving Creator God.

God is good and no one is good but God alone. (Luke 18:19) That means that God is the final standard of good. He is also truthful, all of His words and knowledge are true and the final standard of truth. (Jer. 10:10) Because He is the ultimate standard of goodness and truthfulness, He is the ultimate source of truth and goodness. (James 1:17 & Matt. 7:11) This means that all of the goodness and truth that we seek are ultimately found in God. The Psalmist realized this truth when he said “There is nothing on earth that I desire besides you” (Ps. 73:25). Goodness can be seen through God’s mercy and grace, and recipients of God’s goodness through His mercy and grace are called to show this to others. (Gal. 6:10)

 

God is love and God is beautiful. God is love because of the fact that He eternally gives of Himself for the good of others. Jesus says that God’s self giving attribute of love was active before the world was created in John 17:24. The eternal love that God has for us is found in the way He loves His children. Some verses on this are 1 John 4:10, and Romans 5:8. Because God always has and always will freely love us for all of eternity, we can freely give this love to others. God is incredibly beautiful. Words cannot describe this beauty. psalm 27:4 says that David’s great longing is to dwell in God’s house forever. To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.God is every single desirable quality all rolled up into one. As David discovered, all of our longings and desires will only be fulfilled when we find God.

 

God is righteous and just therefore He is wrathful towards sin. God is righteous and just because of the fact that He is the ultimate standard for what is right. He is the Judge of the world. Because of these attributes He must treat us how we deserve to be treated. He rewards those who accept Christ into their hearts and He punishes those who reject Him. Sometimes God does not punish sin, well one would ask, “How could He do that if He is just?” God forgives people because Jesus Christ lived a perfect life with no sin, died on the cross receiving God’s wrath, and rose again conquering death for those who believe in Him. This is known as the Atonement. In doing so, Jesus also passed over former sins. (romans 3:25-26) God is wrathful towards sin because He hates all sin. And rightfully so, sin in in direct contradiction with God’s character. We are God’s image bearers, and we are called to be holy. Without God’s wrath towards sin, He would hardly be just. We should thank God for this wrath but at the same time pray for and love the sinners themselves in hopes of them turning from sin and restoring or beginning a relationship with God. God is not wrathful towards believer because a true believer will repent. His wrath is satisfied for those who trust in Christ for forgiveness. (John 3:36, Rom. 1:18; 3:25; 5:8-9, Heb. 1:9, 1 Thess. 1:10, John 3:36)

God is jealous (Ex. 20:5). This means that He seeks to protect His honor, and He wants us to worship Him, and Him alone. Again, rightfully so. God is the only true good, He deserves all of the glory, honor, and praise forever. He will not give His glory to another (Isa. 48:11) because no one and nothing is worthy.

 

God wills what He wills, He works all things according to the counsel of His will (Eph. 1:11) God’s will is the reason for everything that happens, and is how God chooses what He will do and won’t do. Everything in our lives is subject to God’s will (James 4:15) Christs work on the cross were according to God’s will, every aspect of it. (Acts 4:27-28) Although this can sound as if God is to be blamed for evil, this isn’t so. Sinful angels and human beings are always blamed for evil. We are personally responsible for our actions. (Acts 2:23) The exact fine tuning of this has not been fully revealed to us so we must trust that the secret things belong to the Lord. (Duet. 29:29) Here are more verses on the subject of God’s will- Rev. 4:11, Rom. 13:1, 1 Peter 3:17, Matt. 6:10

God has freedom, as we see in Psalm 115:3 “Our God is in the heavens; He does all that He pleases”. Since God is the ultimate authority, the Alpha Omega, He is free to do whatever He wants. He doesn’t have anyone restricting Him. Even though we can imitate God’s freedom, by making decisions and choices, we are subject to God’s will. Proverbs 16:9 tells us “The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps”. In Proverbs 21:1 we see that “the king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He will”.

 

God is blessed, meaning He fully delights in Himself and everything that reflects His character. We also find delight and happiness in what pleases God, like in works of others, creation, relationships, and by delighting in these things we show how God has blessed us. But our greatest blessing of course, is God Himself. We can bless God by rejoicing in Him and striving to reflect Him more accurately.