Embracing God For All That He Is
How to describe God?
I mean, Who Is He exactly?
Ask a thousand individuals, then be prepared for a thousand different descriptions. We all have our notions about Him. Surely, some may respond with short, sweet sentiments like “God is love”. Whereas, others might go on for hours, sharing in great detail, just how they perceive God to be. Of course, most of what should define God in our hearts and minds is everything revealed directly to us by His Holy Spirit; and then, of course, those traits divulged through His Word and actions. But before we even get into addressing the Lord’s ways, I’d like to start with the basic basics in identifying our One True God. I mean, in the very simplest of terms. Like if The Lord had a short bio on social media, what would it convey? (Silly question?)
Well, the reason I’m asking is simply for the sake of clarity. (This might actually get kinda deep before we’re done, but ~ ~ ~ no regrets). You see, although we’ve delved into subjects like what it means to love God, most believers never really address exactly Whom it is that we claim to love.
That is, we Christians usually assume that whenever we may mention “God” to anyone, they’ll automatically acknowledge our God as The One we’re speaking of. And this can hold just as true in any secular conversation as it does in church. I mean, we are talking “GOD” with a capital “G” here, right?!? As in ‘Creator of The Heavens and The Earth’? Plus, Creator of all mankind? And alpacas as well, amen? If you stop n’ think about it, even non-believers refer to Him as “The Man Upstairs”, or at times, “The Big Kahuna”. Though their vision of God {and our own, for that matter} may be fairly hazy, I believe most folks are referring to The God of The Bible when they say, “Thank God for that!” or “God bless you!” (Or at least, most Americans do.) I realize that some of you reading this at this very moment probably feel it silly to discuss what should be obvious to everyone. . . but then again. . .
Some people believe that if some sort of supreme being or higher power actually exists out there, that it may just be “The Universe” itself. Or possibly, some nameless form of energy that runs through everything and everyone.
Well, just to clarify, that’s not our ONE TRUE GOD.
Of course, others subscribe to the casual stance that any time someone speaks of “God”, that person may just be referring to Vishnu ~ or Zeus ~ or any number of so-called deities that we Christians know to be false. And it probably should be noted, these are typically the people that would challenge our claim to our ONE TRUE GOD . . . as they often suggest how ‘shallow’ or ‘conceited’ we Christians must be to dismiss other so-called gods. But hey ~
We know the truth, unapologetically.
Neither Vishnu, nor Zeus, nor Thor, nor Horus, nor Ganesh the elephant “god” are comparable to our ONE TRUE GOD. And neither are any other fake gods. Suffice it to say though, people have always been twisted enough to worship just about anything from the stars, to mythical beasts, to hand-crafted action figures. Some even try to pollute our faith by distorting biblical facts, or tainting True Christianity with their own bogus beliefs. It’s almost as though they’re attempting to be creative in re-creating some fusion recipe for a new version of Christianity, contrived to their own liking. Christian Science does this. Jehovah’s Witness too. Lots of so-called religions may claim to follow the same God that we do, but it just ain’t so.
For instance ~ have you ever watched some news report regarding the faith of Muslims, where the name of ‘Allah’ is translated and simply subtitled as ‘God’ at the bottom of the screen?!? Well, that’s not right. That’s nothing more than lazy, false reporting. Though this ‘Allah’ may be a god to many, the ‘Allah’ of Islam isn’t even a reasonable imposter of our ONE TRUE GOD. For even if ninety percent of the similarities between their so- called god and Our God line up, it doesn’t hold true. And just for the record: The Islamic faith is just a fraudulent construct, and their so-called Prophet Muhammad was simply full of crap. There. I said it. Sorry, not sorry if anyone is offended by The Truth. We should actually be those offended by the suggestion that their “allah” is promoted to be the same as God.
Although certain cults and/or false religions may try to share in a few similarities to our faith. . . the differences quickly divulge the truth, and vice-versa. {Yet another great reason to really get to know The Lord and His Word, by the way: that we’re able to detect falsehoods in others, and stay strong in our faith of God.} Corny as it may sound, it’s like a movie where the good guy determines who the imposter is, just by asking a few key questions to trip-up the phony. Think about it. We’ve already been blessed with certain truths regarding our Heavenly Father, Jesus, and The Holy Spirit. So, any faith that we discover straying from these truths in the slightest can instantly be denounced and discarded. {Go ahead~ Just ask a nice Muslim who exactly Jesus IS, and if He’s living today. Betcha they get both parts wrong. . . Aaaand thanks for playing.} Good thing God has made it just that simple for our benefit, eh? And whether we recognize it or not, dear reader, The Lord helps us out with things like that all the time.
Now, you may be wondering why I’ve been referring to Him as our “ONE TRUE GOD” throughout this chapter, (as opposed to any other name, that is). Well~ being that we may not be able to provide an adequate physical description to distinguish God, (or even Jesus, for that matter), it just seemed a worthy descriptive to me. I mean, to distinguish Him alone as THE ONE TRUE GOD not only sets Our God truly apart, but at the same time exalts Him as Sovereign. Does it not?
Now you can call Him Father, Lord, God, or Lord God, The Alpha And The Omega, The Great ‘I Am’ . . . Yahweh, El Shaddai, The Almighty, or whatever name The Holy Spirit leads you to, dear reader. But again, you may still want to clarify Whom you’re speaking of, just for the sake of clarity with others.
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Thus, just for the record, as we speak of God, we are hereby referring to:
The God of The Bible. . . Creator of Heavens and Earth . . . The Holy Trinity {Father, Son, and The Holy Spirit}. . . The God of Adam, of Noah, of Abraham and Isaac, of King David, of Samuel, of Solomon, of Jonah, of Daniel, and all of those True Prophets of the Old Testament.
Yes, The True and Living God, ‘King of Kings’ and ‘Lord of Lords’ who reigns Sovereign over all, and forever presides as Ruler over all things. He who gave His Son, Jesus, over to death on the cross, providing us The Way to save us from the eternal punishment of Hell. Then, raised Jesus back to life on the third day. This is the God of both Peter and Paul, and of all those apostles and disciples of the early Christian Church . . .
Now this is the very same God that continues to love us all much more than we deserve, and much more than anyone else could. This is our God, that forever looks out for our best interest. Plus, this is the same God that we Christians have given our hearts to. . .
THE ONE TRUE GOD
we’ve dedicated our lives to follow.
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So tell me, dear reader, do all of these insights and qualifiers bring perfect clarity to the matter of Who God Is? I mean, I realize we’ve shed a bit of light on the subject, but does it really suffice? ( I didn’t think so 🙂 Granted, it may be a fine starting point. But even if we’ve risen above all of those fake, lower-case gods to declare our God as Sovereign, well, there’s still a bit more to it. Allow me to expound?
Dear reader, if each of us were to close our eyes and simply whisper the name of GOD, where would our souls take us? Go ahead. Take a few moments and try.
Most people, (yes, especially we Christian believers), have their own pre-conceived notions about God. We vaguely visualize what He might look like. And, although we have His Word to guide us, we often have our own ideas of what his character must entail. That is, lots of us feel as though we know His personality well enough to know His stances, and sentiments, and all of those things He would probably say or do in various situations.
Question is~ Is the mental ‘depiction’ each of us have of God an accurate one? Or is it some sorta customized image drawn not only from The Bible, but from our own creativity? You see, I think we all have this unfettered habit, to an extent, of presuming that we fully know God. But I also fear whatever ‘version’ of The Lord that we feel so comfortable with, must be at least slightly contrived. Now I’m not suggesting for a heartbeat that God Himself isn’t altogether real! Just the opposite! What I mean to convey is that not only is God completely genuine. . . but that Who God Is, in word and in deed, Is One.
Or in other words, God simply Is Who He Is. We can take nothing from His character, nor can we add anything. God Is God. And He Is precisely Who He Is, regardless of how any of us may like to envision Him. I mean, it’s not as though He’s some work of fiction, flexible to a bit of interpretation, like James Bond or Batman (or even The Joker, for that matter). With such characters, we can just go, “Well, I think Sean Connery’s version of Bond is the best, and I really liked what Heath Ledger did with The Joker!” Those are merely one’s own opinions of some flexible fictional personalities, as they’ve been interpreted by actors. But God. . .
Well, God Is God, Just As He Is. We can’t make any casual assumptions in order to fill in any ‘blanks’ that we may have. And we’re not to overlook or deny any certain aspects of God that we’re not naturally fond of either. Nor can we embrace some hazy conception we may have of The Lord, neglecting to really get to know Him to the best of our abilities. That’s one of the reasons God encourages us to seek Him and embrace His Word. Now even though these writings are hardly Gospel by any means, let’s take just a moment to consider the title of this chapter again:
~ Embracing God For All That He Is ~
I’ve gotta tell you, dear reader, I love this concept. As the entire sentiment is so vital to us.
As Christians, it simply means loving God completely, for all that He Is. . . nothing more and nothing less. Our God is so much greater than all of those so-called gods, contrived from the minds of depraved men. And yes, Our God is so much greater than any of those contrived ‘versions’ of God we sometimes design for ourselves. Though it may be inadvertent, we believers sometimes glaze over those occasions where we may not fully appreciate God’s actions, even in the midst of Scripture. Or we may choose to throw certain aspects of God’s character on our mental back-burner, if you will. Much like that song on the album that we always skip because we’d rather not deal with it, you know? However, this is The Lord Our God we’re talking about, not some annoying song track to be dismissed. I’ve heard Christians say things like, “I way prefer The God of The New Testament, don’t you?” (Guessing they don’t care much for the “wrathful side” of God that He seemed to display more in O.T. days:) I’ve also heard people downplay some of His actions, as if to say, “Oh yeah, but that’s really not the way God is most of the time.” As if any of God’s actions ever needed defending. Still, some seem to almost subliminally build-a-God as they go. . . one agreeable to their so-called senses. Picking certain selected “positive” traits of His from The Word while foregoing others, they practically substitute non-existent details into God’s supposed personality. Sometimes these same individuals actually believe that they’re looking out for God’s best interest by making some sort of updated improvements to His character. . . you know, in order to make Him more desirable or user-friendly for themselves or others. This behavior may be fine in selling a blind date off to some acquaintance, but not when we’re referring to The Almighty! ((We can sigh here at the absurd. And dangerous.))
Mind you, as I utilize the term ‘dangerous’ here, I’m not just talking about the probability of stepping on God’s toes, or angering Him. . . though that alone is worth taking caution over. { Amen? } But consider that even a semi-contrived version of God could conceivably qualify as a false god, or, an idol of sorts. And that could prove very damaging. Wouldn’t you agree? What’s more, any inaccurate image of God that we might lazily embrace would also be a lesser, and therefore demeaning version of Him. Am I right?
In fact, with the very best of intentions, we often times find ourselves attempting to defend The Lord with words, {as Peter did with the sword}, when we’re actually doing more harm than good. For by engaging others in debates of the non- constructive variety, we inadvertently convey an image of God that somehow needs our defending. . . even to the point of trying to “prove” God to others on the playing field of their choice. But guess what?!? Our Lord Almighty doesn’t need defending per se’, and certainly not to those so far beneath Him (Okay. Not to anyone:) And whether we spar via so- called historical evidences or scientific arguments or points of ‘logic’, it matters not.
Because it’s all beneath Him, dear reader. Whether Our One True SOVEREIGN GOD aligns with the rules of logic or not. . . whether His existence makes common sense or not. . . or satisfies inferior thought processes of fools is entirely inconsequential! The Lord abides regardless, and completely Sovereign at that! So— Although I’m sure God appreciates our loyalties and fearlessness at declaring His Name, He has nothing to prove to anyone, dear reader, and neither do we. Once again, He’s simply above all that. Only a lesser deity would ever be in need of “proving” Himself for His own well being, and (in a weird manner) that version would even become a lower- case g, and a false idol of sorts.
~ Yet another reason for truly getting to know Our One True God to the best of our ability, dear reader. Wouldn’t you agree? ~
To which, one might inquire, exactly how accurate does our portrait of God’s character have to be?!? Seventy percent? Ninety?!? Would that be close enough? Hardly. That’s honestly not the way we should be approaching our relationship with God anyway. (In my opinion, to even make speculation is not only being lazy, but heartless, and foolish, as though The Lord would only rate the very least of our time.) Now obviously, we’re not going to know God completely from the giddyap. That’s just a given. And knowing The Good Father as I do, I think He’s okay with that. Though we can only get to know God better with the passing of time and the sheer willingness to spend time. The point is, we should genuinely want to invest the time and effort in getting to know God the very best we can. It’s a personal thing. . . personal, as in, a matter of the heart. And the motivation for all of this should easily flow from the love and admiration we have for Him. For He Is Worthy, Amen? What’s more, The Lord knows our hearts. So why even offer God anything second-rate? It’s just insulting. And, a waste of time. To only put a minimum of ourselves into our relationship with God is taking Him for granted. That’s no way to treat someone we truly care about.
{Furthermore, (and I only mention this as a foot note), in depriving The Lord of our hearts, we also short ourselves of all the benefits of being genuinely close to Him. Sharing in a true love. Gaining a true wisdom that only God may provide. Receiving any further blessings He may provide, if He were genuinely pleased with us. Sure, I realize this may seem like we’re angling for something, or having ulterior motives for getting close to God. But there’s really nothing wrong with acknowledging the by-products of a good rapport with God. . . provided our love for Him is real, as well as our primary motivation.} But, we went over all of this last chapter, yes? ~
Back to the subject of following false versions of God. There are other pitfalls.
Consider the fallout of envisioning God to be a certain way, only to be let down by (that version of) God somewhere down the road. Think anger. Frustration. Possibly a certain despair with the idea that He may not care so much for you after all. (Mind you, dear reader, I’m still speaking of that false and faulty version of God here.) Think about a possible disillusionment with The God someone thought they knew. . . and trusted. (Though it was only an imposter of God all along.) Such a circumstance could really, seriously rattle someone’s faith. In fact, it’s happened, even to the point of believers becoming non-believers, and altogether misled to atheism.
So much better to embrace The Lord For All That He Truly Is from the start. Because the truth is this ~ though we may not always be happy with everything God does, and we may not understand why He says or does certain things, we don’t have to. We should simply love and trust The Lord in every instance, and appreciate that He keeps things real. I know. I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. God created us for His good pleasure, and not the other way around. To try to impose our notions on Him is beyond ridiculous. Though people do just that, all the time.
Now, in discussing God in church, or over at the local coffee house, people can get easily offended. This is especially true if you (or I) were to honestly say something about God that doesn’t match-up with their own notions about God. A lot of people will get downright defensive, or even combative, about those things said. Understandably, they do so because they’re passionate about their faith in God. . . or should I say, in their ‘version’ of God. Sometimes they’ll even use possessives in making their case, as in, “Well, my God would never do a thing like that!” They feel as though God is being attacked or belittled somehow. . . when it’s actually just their second-rate ‘version’ of God that’s being compromised, and rightfully so. Quick example? Okay.
Supposing we were to suggest that The Lord Almighty may want somebody killed? I know. It’s a big deal for someone to be killed, and an extreme example for me to offer up. Yet, here I am, proposing it: Taking a sip of my hot apple cider, I say, “Well, supposing God wanted (and maybe even arranged) for Ambassador Pelosi to be killed?” To which, Anne, a seemingly sweet, though naive girl replies, “Why would you SAY that?!? God would never do that! God is good!” Well, Anne would definitely be correct in affirming God’s goodness, though totally amiss when it comes to comprehending God’s true character. For somewhere in her mind, she may have understood certain traits of God, but failed to appreciate and embrace God overall. What’s more, in Anne’s mentality, she mistakenly held the belief that if God were to arrange someone’s demise, that would somehow make Him “bad”, thereby blowing her entire mindset of God away, if such a detail were true. But nnnope! Not so. Now obviously, if Anne had read her Bible more, or possibly spent more quality time with God, she would have known better, but ~
In an attempt to defend the honor of her (fantasy version of) God, she actually protests who God truly IS, thereby belittling Him from her stance. Now whether this can be blamed on ignorance, or dubbed as inadvertent, the girl is still accountable, and still amiss in her perception of God. So, in case you didn’t catch the irony in this practical example, let me say this. Whenever a believer neglects or denies certain aspects of God’s true character, they’re actually attempting to belittle God by attempting to put false restrictions on Him. Whereas, that person that they felt was putting God down was actually exalting God to His rightful place. {That is, unto His Sovereign throne.] Of course, I’m speaking of The Lord’s rightful place in our hearts and minds and conversations here ~~~ for who could ever truly compromise the actual Sovereignty of God?
He rests comfortably above judgment, above reproach, and above any hooey that people may promote. Therefore, to worship any lesser/ second-rate version of our One True God is foolishly flirting with idolatry. . . a foolish endeavor indeed.