Describe Him: Joy

While I don't think there is a specific declaration in the Bible stating that God is joy, I believe joy is intricately wrapped up in God's character and our relationship with Him: He is the source of any joy.  He is the source of our joy.  In fact, Galatians 5:22 states that part of the fruit of the Spirit (who is God) is producing joy in the believer.

There are several verses that specifically mention the author's desire that the reader would have "full joy": 

John 15, in Christ's incredible teaching about the Vine and the branches and the relationship of the believer abiding in Christ, He says that "these things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full."  (John 15:11)  The joy He gives is directly tied to our abiding in Him and obeying His commandments out of love for Him!  He wants us to do these things because it produces joy--full joy!

1 John 1:4 declares that "these things write we unto you that your joy may be full."  "These things" are what was mentioned in the previous 3 verses:

     1. The Word (Christ) has been revealed,

     2. Eternal life has been manifested,

     3. We can have fellowship with the Father and Jesus Christ!

Once again, the essence of our joy is tied up in our relationship with Christ, and in this case, the very Gospel of Christ!  Without Christ, there can be no true joy.  

In 1 Peter 1:8,  we see another aspect of the reality of joy in the believer's life.  1 Peter 1 is set in context of facing trials and persecution.  In other words, Peter was writing to an audience going through suffering that, for all reasons, should be producing anything but joy.   Yet Peter encourages the believers with facts about their salvation and gives hope to endure their immediate circumstances:

     1. Verse 3 reminds them of the confident hope of the resurrection--there is life beyond right here and now!

     2. Verse 4 promises an "inheritance incorruptible...reserved in heaven for you."

     3. Verse 5 states the security of their salvation.

This all sets the stage for why they should have reason to have hope and perseverance in the trials that "for a season" they were in.

Peter reminds his audience that the testing of their faith produces good things and that their faith is not based in something futile:   Because of their love for Christ and their belief in Him--despite the fact that they could not see Him--they could have joy unspeakable (verse 8.)  Christ produces joy in the believer's heart, no matter what the believer's circumstances may be.

For today's believer, these things are still true: life around us might be difficult, but true joy only comes from abiding in Christ and allowing Him to produce that joy in us!  

 

Describe Him: Immutable

Imagine a God who changes: At one point, He may have shown love to mankind. But not necessarily anymore.  Perhaps He decided to go back on His declaration of love for the world.  He made the promise of a coming Savior and eventually, a ruling King.  But maybe He conceived of a better plan for sin’s problem.  Maybe that solution would be to demolish all of humanity and start over with a perfect race, sparing His only Son from receiving the punishment for the sins of the whole world.  I mean, maybe He’s changed His mind on providing a means of salvation for us.  If God  changes from time to time, His Word is utterly irrelevant to us, for it was written years ago, and anything it tells us about God is probably already out of date.

 

Thankfully though, God is immutable: God doesn’t change.  He has declared Himself to be “the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8.) He is the God “that cannot lie” (Titus 1:2.)
Because God does not, and CANNOT, change, when He says He will do something, He will do it.  When He declares something to be true, it always will be true.  When He makes a promise, He keeps His promise.  His actions perfectly and consistently reflect His character, every single time. And His character will never change. 
So when we read that He loves the world, He loves the world, no doubts about it.  He has said that all you must do to be saved is to believe.  That hasn’t changed since it was first written centuries ago.  He has promised that Christ will return for His Bride.  And we are anxiously awaiting His return even now. 

Because God does not change.   

Describe Him: Holy

I’ve been slow in posting the “H” in the Describe Him series simply because,  honestly, I’ve had a hard time knowing what to say about God’s holiness.  So I’ll keep it short and to the point.

God is holy, there is no doubt about that.  If you’re uncertain about how holy He is, just start reading the Bible: His holiness comes out loud and clear, from Genesis to Revelation.

He has called His children to also be holy as He is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16.)

Sooo, how does being holy as He is holy look like in your life?  

Describe Him: God

When we say that He is God, we declare several presuppositions to be true:
He is Deity. 
He is the only God.
He is the only true God.
As God, He deserves all worship and glory.

Conversely, in saying that God is God, we state that
we are not gods,
there are no other gods,
anyone else who claims to be god is a false god,
and no one else should receive the worship and glory that is given to God. 

Declaring God to be God reminds us that He is over us in power and authority.  In turn, we answer to Him. This demands obedience and consequences when there is a lack of obedience. In other words, man sins and God's holy character demands that sin be punished.

This leads to man's need for the Gospel, which Satan hates with a passion.  If Satan can convince man that there is no God or a different kind of god than the One revealed in the Bible, he drives man away from the Gospel and eternal life.  
But no matter Satan’s lies, no matter what an individual believes, the truth doesn’t change: God is God, the one true God.   And one day all will bow to worship Him.

Describe Him: Father

He is our Father.  But we were His enemies.  For Him to be our Father, we had to be made sons and daughters. 

How did He become our Father?

Romans 5:6-8 calls us without strength, ungodly, sinners, enemies.  Nothing we do can make us His children. 

Rather, it is Christ’s death for us at the time when we were most helpless and estranged from a holy God that has made it possible for us to be His children.

1 John 3:1 declares our adoption as sons being entirely because of God’s love toward us.

What was the incredible demonstration of God’s love that has made our adoption possible? 

Christ’s death and resurrection was the payment that made it possible for us to go from being God’s enemies to being His children.  His blood satisfied the Father’s righteous demands for the punishment of sin. 

How do we become His children?  

John 1:12 says we become the sons of God by believing on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is that simple.  It is in believing the Gospel message we become God's children.

Once a son, always a son. Nothing can change our position as sons and daughters.  The blessings of God being our Father are vast and incredibly great. 

As our Father, He still demonstrates His love toward us in many ways.  Yet these ways aren’t always happy, warm, fuzzy feelings: God also shows His love to us by correcting us.  Hebrews 12:5-8 affirms the chastening of the Lord as a sure sign of  His love towards His children.  If the Lord does not punish and correct us when we go astray, the Bible says we are illegitimate and not His children.  Thus, there are no exceptions: If He is our Father, He will chasten us.

Why does He, in love, correct His children?  Verses 10-11 give the hope and comfort needed when in the midst of chastening: “…that we might be partakers of his holiness”  and to yield “the peaceable fruit of righteousness…” He wants us to become more like Him. Wow.

Once we were God’s enemies.  Christ sacrificed His life so we, through His blood, are now reconciled with God and call Him “Abba, Father.”   Now we are His children and fellow-heirs with Christ.

What greater love than this could there ever be?

Describe Him: Example

A while back, I started a series of posts called “Describe Him A-Z”—a post for each letter of the alphabet focusing on aspects of the character of God, Christ, and the Spirit.  I only got as far as D.  Here are the previous posts on A through D: Advocate, Beginning, Comfort, Doctor.  I’ve decided to work on completing this series, so here goes! 

As the title already shows, the Bible presents Christ as our example. 

 In Philippians 2:5 we find Christ’s mind as the model for where our mind should be: thinking and being like Christ are requirements for every believer.  As the passage in Philippians 2 goes on to show, Christ humbled Himself, became a man, and gave His life for the world.  How does this aspect of Christ’s life give us an example to follow?  

Dr. Courtney, a pastor in Oklahoma and one of my teachers from Cornerstone, made several important points about this passage:

- Christ did not think it robbery to be equal with God (Phil. 2:6.)  In not thinking it robbery, He did not have the need to defend anything about Himself.  His life was not about protecting His reputation as God the Son.  Instead, He humbled Himself because He had nothing to lose. 
This freedom from self-interest and self-preservation produced a freedom to serve and give His life for us. 

- As Christians, we are positioned in Christ.  There is nothing we can do, or nothing others can do to us, to change this position. Christ is the one who has made us “In Him.”  Why then, should we worry about defending and protecting our reputation before others?  Our position in Christ gives us freedom from the need to defend ourselves.  In turn, it grants us the freedom to serve others.

- By having this mindset as Christ did, we are able to be likeminded with other believers, to have the same love, to be of one accord and of one mind.  We can act without strife and pride, and in humility see others as more important than ourselves. 

Christ is our example to follow.  And as Philippians 2:13 reminds us, “…it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”

Describe Him: Doctor

If you doubt whether such description should be given, take a look at the Gospel of Mark.  The very first chapter produces at least three accounts in which Christ exercises His power over physical illnesses. During His ministry, Christ healed countless people with infirmities ranging from leprosy, to fevers, to blindness and lameness.  It is in the story of Lazarus, where Christ raised him from the dead that we see a glimpse of why Christ many times healed those who were sick, or had already died: “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.” (John 11:4)

Mark 2:1-12 declares the event of the crippled man with his friends who let him down through the roof of the house.  While this story is often told with the culmination of Christ telling the man to “Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house” (Mark 2:11), in reality, that is only a side-note.  The verse immediately preceding Christ’s command to get up and walk reveals a greater reason for why He would heal the crippled man: “But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins…” Christ proved that He does indeed have power to forgive sins—that He is God!--by the very visible act of making to walk he who could not walk.

Today, God does not necessarily heal physical illnesses in the same way that Christ did during His ministry on earth.  However, we can be certain that He still acts in such a way that it is His best for that person…even if sometimes we do not understand His ways.  Keep trusting in His goodness!

Describe Him: Beginning

Perhaps one of the unique characteristic of the Godhead is that He always WAS.  At the beginning of time, He existed.  At the end of time, He will exist.  Today, He exists.  God had no beginning and He will have no end. 

Genesis 1:1—”In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”  When time, history, creation began, God was there.  He is the One who created it all.

John 1:1-2—”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  The same was in the beginning with God."  Again…the beginning.   Verse 14 interprets “The Word” for us: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." Christ, the Word, was at the beginning, with God.” Just think: where would we be if Christ had not been made flesh and dwelt among man?

1 John 1:1-2—”That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested unto us.)  This verse ties together Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, with John 1:1-2 "God made flesh, walking among mankind, who is now the One declared to be the bearer of eternal life, with such truths being declared to result in fellowship and joy for the believer: “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.” (1 John 1:3-4)

Rejoice, for “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8)

Describe Him: Advocate

1 John 2:1 declares “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

As I read this verse this morning, I knew I had to write on Jesus Christ, our Advocate. I am not a deep theological thinker, so simply put, Christ is the One who stands before the Father on our behalf.  We are the ones who have sinned, and He is our "substitutionary, intercessory advocate.”   Christ has not only finished the work necessary for the believing sinner to be called righteous before the Father, but He now pleads our cause after we become righteous.  While Christ has conquered the penalty of sin, the presence of sin in the believer’s life is never completely gone while we are alive here on earth. Such a state of sinlessness will only take place when the believer is in heaven.

Because of the continual presence of sin, the believer still sins. The believer still needs One to stand before the Father to declare that He has paid the price of His blood to make this poor sinner righteous in the sight of God.  This is a marvelous truth.  Praise God for a salvation that remains secure, despite sin in the believer’s life.  Praise God for a Savior “that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” (Romans 8:34)  He does not condemn the sinner who believes on Him.  Rather, He “ever liveth to make intercession for them.” (Hebrews 7:25)

The holiness of God demands justice be paid for sin.  The blood of Christ paid the one-time price of redemption and righteousness.  The advocacy of the Son before the Father pleads the positional righteousness of the believer.  Praise God.