Ep 6 Who Is The One True God?

Who is the one true God? Is He an old man with a white beard? Or is He one of the great variety of Gods in the many religions out there? Is he even a ‘he’? And what does he, she or it look, think and act like? The Bible gives us a beautiful description of the one true God, our heavenly Father, the God of love.

 

Show notes

 

Today’s Bible verses:

God is love: 1John 4:8

God is holy: Isaiah 6:3

God is good: Psalms 34:8

God is perfect: Matthew 5:48

God is faithful: 1Corinthians 10:13

God is patient: 2Peter 3:9

God is compassionate, gracious and slow to anger: Psalms 103:8

God is merciful: Luke 6:36

God is truthful: Numbers 23:19

God is wise: Romans 11:33

God is just: Deuteronomy 32:4

God never changes: Malachi 3:6

 

What God does for us:

 

He gives us life: Genesis 2:7

He saves us: Acts 2:21

He gives us eternal life: John 3:16

He heals us:
It's my pleasure to have you join me today and I hope you're all doing well.
Today's theme is who is God.
Over the last few episodes,
I've talked a lot about believing in God and why it makes sense to believe in him,

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especially the God of the bible.
I also gave you a few reasons why belief in God is good for us.
Now with all this talk about God and believing in him,
I thought it would be good to describe more in detail exactly who he is.
If you're going to believe in him and have a relationship with him,
then it makes sense that you'd want to learn more about him.

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There are a lot of different concepts of God in the world and in different religions,
Whatever your preconceived image of him is.
Hopefully as I give you the real facts about him as they're presented in the bible,
you'll get a clearer picture of who he is and who he isn't that way from now on.
Whenever we talk about him,
you'll know more clearly who we're talking about.

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You know,
after I finished the previous four episodes about believing in God and then decided that the next episode would be about describing more clearly who the god of the bible is.
I thought that this episode would be much easier to do than the others boy was I wrong.
The more I thought about the content,
the more I was overwhelmed with the task of trying to fit a description of the Almighty Guard into a 10 minute podcast.

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All the books,
podcasts,
web pages and Youtube videos in the world.
Couldn't possibly describe him fully,
but I'll make it easier on myself by letting God speak for himself,
by quoting the bible.
I'll include all the biblical references in the show notes so that you can look them up if you want.

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Now before I go any further,
I do want to point out that some of his attributes are beyond our limited human comprehension will never be able to fully understand God.
This is where faith comes in and where it helps to realize that compared to him were like Children in our understanding,
does a little child understand everything about its parents know little Children don't understand where their parents came from,

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why their parents do certain things,
why they think certain ways and many other things.
They just know that their parents are there for them and love them and the kids are happy and content in that knowledge.
I think that's a good way to approach our limited understanding of God and our relationship with him.
So here goes,

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I think there are two major descriptions of him that come to mind that to me include all the other descriptions.
All his other character traits fall within these two broad traits.
One as I've quoted before 1st John 4 8 says that God is love.
He is the very spirit of love.

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His very essence is love and everything he does is done in love and this is the core of his character and two throughout the bible.
He is often described as our heavenly father.
You've probably heard the famous prayer that jesus taught,
which starts with the words our father who is in heaven.

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So there we have the great and mighty God described in a nutshell,
God is our loving father.
He's not a distant old man with a white beard ready to harshly judge us for our sins.
He's not far off unknowable and nebulous.
He's not some mythical creature or a violent warrior deity.

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He's a loving person that you can know a loving father that you can have a relationship with.
He knows each of us personally and loves each of us unconditionally as if we were an only child,
but he doesn't force himself on us.
He gives us free will and that includes the choice to reject or hate him.

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After all,
Love isn't really love if there's no choice to also hate,
right?
The bible also tells us that God is a spirit,
so he doesn't have a physical body or agenda,
but as I said,
is described as being like a father and so generally acts in a manner that we associate with being male.

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He's all powerful.
He has infinite power that gave rise to and perpetually sustains the whole universe.
He is all knowing there is not a single thing that is not known to him and he is all present,
which means he exists throughout the whole universe at the same time,

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he exists outside time and space.
And so is not limited by time or space.
Therefore,
he is eternal.
He has always existed and has no beginning and no end.
The Bible also tells us that he is one of the three persons of the Holy Trinity.
He is God,
the father,

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and the other members are jesus,
the son,
and the Holy Spirit with whom he works in perfect partnership with.
Of course,
we'll talk more about jesus and the Holy Spirit in the future.
He has chosen to largely remain hidden and behind the scenes,
revealing himself to us through his creation,

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through Godly believers.
We come in contact with through the voice of our conscience through scripture and through the life of jesus.
And speaking of the scriptures,
here is more about how the bible describes his character.
Each of the following descriptors is taken from a specific bible verse for which,
as I said,

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I'll include the references to in the show notes.
God is Holy God is good.
God is perfect.
God is faithful.
God is patient.
God is compassionate,
gracious,
and slow to anger.
God is merciful.

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God is truthful.
God is wise.
God is just God never changes.
And here is what the scriptures say he does for us.
He gives us life,
he saves us.
He gives us eternal life,
he heals us.

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He provides for us,
even for those who don't love him.
He tells us the truth,
He gives us peace.
Hope,
joy,
strength and freedom.
He gives us wisdom.
He blesses us.
He gives us moral laws,
he protects us.
He comforts us.

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He gives us every good and perfect gift he hears and answers our prayers.
He lovingly disciplines us.
He guides us.
He forgives us.
He tells us the future.
He helps and strengthens us.
He rewards those who do good.
He punishes evildoers and he works miracles.

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And that's not even all of what the bible says about God.
There's much,
much more.
But where we really get a great picture of God is by looking at the life of his son,
Jesus Matthew 123 tells us that the arrival of Jesus on Earth was the equivalent of God himself visiting humankind.

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The name given to jesus in this verse is Emmanuel,
which means,
as the verse tells us,
God with us,
Jesus came to earth to show us a living example of what God is like.
So when we read through the gospel account of the life of jesus and we see his mercy and forgiveness,

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when we read of him having compassion on the poor and suffering by feeding and healing them,
when we hear his beautiful teachings urging us to love one another.
When we see him get angry with the oppressors of the people.
And when we see him suffer and sacrifice himself on the cross in order to take the punishment for our sins on our behalf,

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what we're actually reading true life accounts of God in action.
So if you really want to know who God is,
read the gospels,
the bible books of Matthew,
Mark luke and john and you will see God through the life of his son jesus And you'll find that first John 48 is true.

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You'll see that God is love and that whatever jesus did for those in his day,
God wants to do for you today.
Well that's all for this episode.
I hope this has given you a clearer picture of our loving heavenly father.
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Thanks.
See you next time.