What Makes God...God

Who is God?

This is a question that has been asked for thousands of years. Generations of people have struggled with understanding the identity and nature of God - the One Who created them. Is He like us? Are we like Him? Why did He create us? What does He want from us?

But God didn’t intend to leave us in the dark about Himself. He gave us a complete revelation - answers to all of our questions about Him. The only reason mankind has fumbled around in darkness is because they’ve closed their eyes to the light. His Word is the light we need! Psalm 119:130 declares, “The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.”

We gain understanding when we come to God’s Word with a simple mind. This is what I mean; we must simply trust what the Bible says. When we begin to elevate our own ideas above His word, we make things far more complicated than they need to be. God can simply be understood by the light of His Word alone!

So let’s choose to look at what God says about Himself.

What Separates God From Man

There are four major qualities that God alone has. No matter how much we try, we cannot attain to these four things. We can rely on them as part of God’s nature, we can see them in action in all of God’s works, and we can even have access to them by faith. But we will never have them as part of our nature. Because of this, they are called His Divine Attributes. In other words, these things are what makes God God.

He Always Everywhere

Psalm 139:7-10 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.

The first Divine Attribute is Omnipresence - God is everywhere!

You can’t go anywhere that God is not. He is in the darkest jungle, the most barren desert, and in the middle of the most crowded city. He is at the bottom of the deepest ocean and in the darkest depths of every unexplored cavern. He is both on board and all around the highest-flying airplane. He fills all of the empty space between here and the Sun. No matter how far you travel - even to the very edges of the universe itself - He has always been there!

You are never separated from the presence of God. Even in the deepest depths of your sin and shame, God was right there with you. He saw every wrong action, He heard every cruel word, and He knows every life that you carelessly hurt. He was right there watching that thing you did...that thing you hope no one ever finds out about. Jeremiah 23:23-24 warns about thinking we can do something in secret, without God’s knowledge. “Am I a God near at hand,” says the Lord, “and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him?” says the Lord; “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” says the Lord.

But for His kids, God’s omnipresence is a comfort. You can rest assured that God is always with you! No matter what hardship you go through, God is still there. In Isaiah 43:2, God promises us, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you.” Even in the fire of trouble and disaster, God is still with you!

Hebrews 13:5 repeats this promise in no uncertain terms: “For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” I love this passage in the amplified Bible - because it leaves no room for doubt! - “...for He has said, “I will never [under any circumstances] desert you [nor give you up nor leave you without support, nor will I in any degree leave you helpless], nor will I forsake or let you down or relax My hold on you [assuredly not]!”

This should produce a confidence in His people. No matter what I face, no matter who turns their back on me, no matter what mistakes I make; God is always with me!

Romans 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God (the One Who is everywhere, all the time) is for us, who can be against us?

He Knows Everything About Everything

Psalm 147:5 Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; his understanding is infinite.

The second divine attribute is called omniscience - or “all knowledge.”

Job 21:22 asks a rhetorical question, “Can anyone teach God knowledge…?” This is a rhetorical question. The answer is "of course not!" God cannot learn for two reasons:
Number One - He already knows everything. There is nothing left to add to what He knows!
Number Two - There is no one who knows more than He does, so no one can “give” Him knowledge.

Romans 11:34 is clear that God doesn't need anyone to advise Him. “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became his counselor?” No human is smart enough to give God advice about anything.

Sadly, many Christians think they need to counsel God about what He should do. They act as if their prayers provide God with instructions about what to do. No, my friends! God knew what was coming your way before it happened. He knows exactly why it happened. He knows what is the best way to fix it. And He knows whether you’ll accept His plan or not. He knows everything!

What we should be doing in prayer is accessing His knowledge that He makes available to us! Instead of telling God what happened and how we think it should be fixed, why not ask Him what His plan is to get through it? Which is greater; What YOU know or what HE knows? Because the one who knows less should speak least.

God knows everything... That's easy enough to say flippantly, without recognizing how incredible of a statement that is!

Matthew 10:30 “But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” Think about this: not only does God know how many hairs you have on your head, but He also knows how many hairs you’ve ever had...in your lifetime! He's tracked them coming in and going out for as long as you've been alive. AND...as if that weren’t enough, He has had a unique number for every hair! And that has been true of every single human being that has ever lived.

God knows every single blade of grass. He also knows the “family line” of every single blade of grass, all the way back to the first generation of grass that He put on the earth. He can trace each and every creature on earth all the way back to the first week of creation! He knows each and every molecule in those living creatures as they have been produced and lost along the way!

He knows everything about you, every minute detail. Look at what Psalm 139:16 says: "Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them."

We can see a couple incredible things from this verse:
1 - God saw the substance that makes up your body (what we call "matter") before you were even formed! The first law of thermodynamics makes this statement powerful! This natural law says that matter can’t be created or destroyed, only changed. Every atom in the universe was created at the very beginning, and there isn't any more or less of them. These atoms have changed over the millennia, but have never been added to or lost. Combine this scientific law with David’s words, and we see that God was tracking every single atom in your body from the very beginning of time! All the way back to creation, God knew what substance was going to be used in your body. And then He tracked those atoms through every change, every location, every form...and brought them all together to make YOU.

(And again...this has been true for every person that has ever lived!)

2 - Every action that you were ever going to take was already recorded from the beginning of time! He already knows what each day is going to bring. And even though He has a plan for you, and He desires you to follow that plan; He also knows all the times when you would reject His plan and follow your own. And here’s the amazing part - He’s already planned for the times when you weren't going to follow His plan! It’s all written out in His book about your life...the book that was written before creation!

God knows it all...and He still stays with you and loves you anyway!

Romans 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God (the One Who knew everything in our past and knows everything that will be in the future) is for us, who can be against us?

He Has All Power

Luke 1:37 For with God nothing will be impossible.

God is omnipotent, that is to say He possesses all power. No earthly force even comes close to Him. He can do anything that He chooses to do.

2 Chronicles 20:6 says, “O Lord God of our fathers, are You not God in heaven, and do You not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations, and in Your hand is there not power and might, so that no one is able to withstand You?”

It's strange that this concept seems to be the easiest divine attributes to understand. Maybe it’s because we grew up understanding that our parents were stronger than we were. Whatever the reason, understanding the fact that God has the power to do anything isn’t usually hard for most of us.

So when we see people dying of sickness, or nations fighting wars against other nations, or natural disasters devastating entire regions - we often ask “Why doesn’t God do something to stop this?” If He has all power, doesn’t that mean He can stop the evil in the world if He wanted to? Would it surprise you if I told you God doesn’t always get what He wants? How is it possible that an all-powerful God would not get His way?

We know that He can help, but why are there so many times when He won’t? To understand this dilemma, we must first realize that there are some limits that God set on Himself that He will never break.
- God cannot lie.
- God will not violate His own Word.
- God will never violate a person’s free-will.

Even though God is all-powerful - and even though He wants everybody saved, healed and prosperous - there are some people who will not accept it.
1 Timothy 2:3-4 tells us that God desires all men to be saved...and yet, we know that not all men will be.
3rd John 2 tells us that God desires each of us to prosper and be healthy...and yet we’ve all had times when this was not the case.
God's power comes in connection to His Lordship. If people will not submit to His will for their lives, then He will allow them to experience the consequences of doing things their own way. This applies to individuals as well as nations and organizations.

God’s unlimited power created this world. Jeremiah 32:17 shows us this; “Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You.” We also see from Hebrews 1:3 that God is sustaining this creation by the “Word of His power.” But we can also see from scripture that this world isn’t what it once was.

When God put the first man on this earth, He gave the authority and dominion of this planet to humanity. Psalm 115:16 says “The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s; but the earth He has given to the children of men.” And since God cannot violate His own Word (if He did, how would we trust Him?), mankind can allow any evil they want in this world. All of the brokenness, sorrow, and hatred we see around us are not a result of God’s lack of power or a lack of concern. It comes from mankind’s lack of obedience.

But still, because God cannot stop loving us, He makes His unlimited power available to those who turn to Him. Look at what Psalm 106:8 says; “Nevertheless He saved them for His name’s sake, that He might make His mighty power known.” Salvation is a miraculous work of God’s power! Why? Because salvation is unlimited and unstoppable! It shatters the hold of sin on our life, completely recreates your spirit, provides healing for every sickness, and makes deliverance available for every trouble. God’s omnipotence is on full display in your salvation!

This is why the Gospel - the message of the cross and resurrection of Christ - is so powerful. When we hear and accept it, it brings every bit of God’s unlimited power into our lives. When we read these next verses, remember that we’re talking about all of God’s power:
Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
1 Corinthians 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

But wait, there’s even more! Those of us who have been saved by this powerful gospel now have this unlimited power of the most high God living on the inside of us! The Bible tells us very clearly that the omnipotent One is now in us. Colossians 1:27 says, “To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

God is in you! His power is now residing inside of you, working through you when you work with Him. It will still heal your body (and those around you). It will still deliver you from trouble (even when you were the one that caused it). It will still do miracles. The All-powerful God lives inside of you now!

Romans 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God (the One Who has unlimited power) is for us, who can be against us?

He Is Always The Same

Malachi 3:6 “For I am the LORD, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.”

God has never changed. This divine attribute is known as His immutability.

He was exactly the same when He dealt with Adam as He was when He dealt with the apostle John. When we come before him today, we are still approaching the same God as Noah, David, and Paul. He hasn’t discarded any of His characteristics or added any new ones. Not one single part of His nature (revealed to us in His Word) has “passed away.”

Culture changes. Governments change. We change. Even the earth itself is changing. But the God who holds it all together has never changed - not even a tiny bit!

What He thinks about sin in the Old Testament is what He still thinks about sin now. How He dealt with nations in the books of Kings and Chronicles is still how He deals with them today. How He blessed His saints of old is still how he wants to bless you and I. The mercy and righteousness that was plainly revealed in the New Testament was also available by faith to God’s people in the Old Testament (just ask Abraham and David!).

Numbers 23:19 “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent (that is, change His mind). Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”

God is the unchanging One - eternally the same. And this is most clearly seen in the person of Jesus Christ. As God incarnate, Jesus displayed all of God’s disdain for sin, all of His mercy to those who came to Him, and all of His love and kindness to the world. Jesus is the perfect manifestation of the God of Genesis and the God of Revelation.

Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

This is the exact reason that we can put our faith in Him. We can trust what He says in the Bible, because He is still the same God! The miracles that He did for the prophets, the way he blessed the Patriarchs, and how He worked with the early church...He is still doing these things today! You can trust the God Who raised Lazarus from the dead to heal your body! You can trust the God Who saved Shadrach from the fire to deliver you out of your troubles! You can trust the Jesus Who healed the multitudes to heal people through you.

God has never changed!

Romans 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God (the One Who has never - and will never - change) is for us, who can be against us?

This is the God we serve:
Always There!
Always Knowing!
Always Powerful!
Always the Same!