God's Character and Nature

This is the second parameter we will be considering in knowing who God is.

What has scriptures said about the character and nature of God?

1. Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1John vs 6-7

We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. IJohn4 vs 16-17

2. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, *for our "God is a consuming fire. Heb12 vs 29

3. Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, LORD, preserve both people and animals. How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. Ps36 vs 6-7

They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. Continue your love to those who know you, your righteousness to the upright in heart. Ps38 vs 8-10

4. This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light; there's not a trace of darkness in him. If we claim that we experience a shared life with him and continue to stumble around in the dark, we're obviously lying through our teeth--we're not [living] what we claim. But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God's Son, purges all our sin. 1John1 vs 5-7

5. But you, O Lord, are a God of compassion and mercy, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. Look down and have mercy on me. Give your strength to your servant; save me, the son of your servant. Ps86 vs 15-16

6. For no one on earth—from east or west, or even from the wilderness— can raise another person up. 

It is God alone who judges; he decides who will rise and who will fall. 

For the LORD holds a cup in his hand; it is full of foaming wine mixed with spices. He pours the wine out in judgment, and all the wicked must drink it, draining it to the dregs. But as for me, I will always proclaim what God has done;... For God says, "I will cut off the strength of the wicked, but I will increase the power of the godly." Ps75 vs 6-10

7. "You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him. Matt7 vs 9-11

Who Is God? 1

This is the first and perhaps most important topic to consider because God is at the center of it all for in him we live, move and have our being. 

How do you know who a person truly is? I believe there are four parameters to consider in answering this The four parameters are :

1. Who he says he is

2. His character and nature

3. His actions and works

4. Who people say he is.

This week, we will be considering who God says he is. 

Let us hear who God says he is from his own mouth. Let God introduce himself. 

Who God Say He Is 

1. The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out, "Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness  I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But I do not excuse the guilty. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren; the entire family is affected— even children in the third and fourth generations." *Exo 34, verses 6- 7* 

2. And Moses said to God, Behold, when I come to the Israelites and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, What is His name? What shall I say to them? And God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM and WHAT I AM, and I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE; and He said, You shall say this to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you! Exo 13, verses 13 - 14.

3. GOD's Message: "Don't let the wise brag of their wisdom. Don't let heroes brag of their exploits. Don't let the rich brag of their riches. If you brag, brag of this and this only: That you understand and know me. I'm GOD, and I act in loyal love. I do what's right and set things right and fair, and delight in those who do the same things. These are my trademarks." GOD's Decree. *Jere 9, verses 23 - 25*

4. I am GOD--yes, I AM. I haven't changed. And because I haven't changed, you, the descendants of Jacob, haven't been destroyed. *Mal 3 verse 6*

5. "I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end," says the Lord God. "I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come—the Almighty One." Rev 22 verse 13

6. I and the Father are one. *John 10.30*

7Jesus replied, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don't know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me. *John 14 verses 9 - 10*

False Testimonies!

Gen 27:20 And Isaac said unto his son, How is it that thou hast found it so quickly, my son? And he said, Because the LORD thy God brought it to me.

You know it's easy to make the statement Jacob made before his father Isaac when things turn out fine for us. Everybody likes it and it's already a cliche, "na God o!" But Jacob was in the real sense lying. He and his mother had worked out a plan to steal the blessing of Esau his brother from their aged father. All their plans before now had worked out well, but Isaac was surprised that his "Esau" returned early that day, so he needed to ask and be sure.

Anyone who came in just when Jacob made that statement would see nothing bad in what he said. In fact, some would see him as a pious person. So let me ask you, have you seen someone whom you know very well that acquired something wrongly either by stealing or by a false means come out boldly to the public and testify how God brought that gift to them? The way you feel is exactly how I am feeling reading about what Jacob did here.

A lot of people go all out and do all sort to make wealth, not minding the negative effect of their actions on others then to appear nice before people, they say God did it for them. And it's not that God can't do such things, but don't use God to cover up your evil deeds. Don't be quick to raise your hands to share testimony in church that God blessed your family with a new car when you defrauded your company to buy it.

God is not interested in such honour. God wants to take all the glory in our lives but not this type. He loves to be exalted but not when we know this didn't come from him. He loves sincere worship and praise not just from the big things that happen in our lives, but also from seemingly insignificant events in our lives. Therefore next time you are tempted to share a "testimony", or say, "it's by the grace of God" be sure the Lord is the one that did it, and not yourself. 

Lead with Compassion

Rom 12:1 CPDV And so, I beg you, brothers, by the mercy of God, that you offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, with the subservience of your mind.

In Paul's style of introducing Christian believers to how they should conduct themselves in their daily living, he starts by begging them to offer their bodies as a living sacrifice to God. Doesn't it appear odd to you? I must confess, it took me a while after reading this verse over and over again to see this truth. I also understand that because of our different biblical leanings, we might see it differently, so I will explain. 

I will start by asking you when last you heard a sermon in church begging you to live up to your status as a believer or a message about eternity that admonished you to keep standing in Christ and the preacher was practically begging you to make it your top priority. I am almost certain that if Paul the Apostle were to be preaching this verse as a sermon in the church in Rome, he would most likely be on his knees urging them while also showing them the importance. 

How would you feel seeing your Pastor on his knees begging you to do God's will, not his personal standard or obligations, but to live indeed as Christians during his sermon? I am so sure even if you forget the topic that day, the graphics of the message won't be lost. Instead what is common is using the fear of hell to make believers live right. 

I also personally believe there is a leadership principle we can learn here. It's not all the time commanding and ordering people because they are "under" us and we are their leaders or superiors so we dole out commandments for them. Many times this doesn't work because people have a mind of their own and what is in their heart to do is really what they will eventually do, it doesn't matter what you say. Maybe you have not realised, the reason why anyone will follow you headlong is most likely because of their paycheck or favour they have received or will receive from you.

The whole essence of my story today is to make you realize there is another way to get people do what you want them to do without forcing or raising your voice. Maybe it's time you considered urging them instead as an alternative to shouting that has not proved to be effective. Whenever I try to correct someone and this person still goes ahead to do the wrong thing the next time, I like to believe I probably didn't pass my message well to this person and try to be better next time.

I know it's not culturally a norm for a senior to plead with their juniors to get a task done, the usual mentality is to use the age difference as a point to get them to work, but you will soon realise with your own relationship with your seniors that it doesn't always work well. Next time you want to reach out to someone to get something done, instead of going through the bossy route, try a more compassionate way and make them see reasons with you.

Faithful Men

2King 12:15 Moreover they reckoned not with the men, into whose hand they delivered the money to be bestowed on workmen: for they dealt faithfully.

One of the definitions of being faithful I like a lot is: “reliable; worthy of trust". This means that you can be relied upon, trusted to do something or given privileged access without a second thought. This is one of the most sought virtues today. 

In the Bible passage above, money was needed for the repairs of the Temple so, the high priest created a means for people who visited the temple to contribute towards it. As soon as enough money was raised, it was handed over to work supervisors who in turn payed the workers their wages.

Giving that the most sacred place to work then was in the temple, the supervisors must have had a reputation for their expertise and faithfulness, even with respect to money, for them to have been chosen to oversee the repair. They, in turn, made sure the money was used for what it was meant for. 

Money matters has caused a lot of fight and bitterness among people, close relatives and even believers. But it doesn't matter how corrupt the world might be, there will always be people who stand out at what they do because they are trustworthy like these supervisors.

Many times, faithfulness is all that is needed to open doors that have been shut to more skillful people. They will keep getting referrals from those who were pleased working with them in the past that they will not easily run out of new businesses.

I am sure those supervisors weren't the only ones who could perform such duties excellently in the whole nation of Israel at the time, but they were the ones chosen and called. In some instances, you find people who are gifted or skilled and believe that is all there is. So, they don't mind lying, cutting corners, stealing or cheating others just to find a way for themselves. This has made faithful people to be held in high esteem because they possess valuable virtues above the skills they have. 

We can all be born again but God will only entrust things of immense value into the hands of his children who have shown themselves reliable. You know not everyone is allowed to count money in church even when they are all saved. You might be believing God for something great not knowing God is waiting to see how reliable you are. If you do a self-appraisal and no one can vouch for you, then it means it's time for you to pay attention to this virtue and make it bud in you.

We Are The Children Of God

We all have a name at least and you are either lucky to have been given a name you really like or blessed to have been purposely given a meaningful name. However, as we grow and journey in life, events happen that give us other names such as graduate for finishing school or survivor for beating a crisis or parent for having children or CEO for leading a business.

It is not so much about the names as it is about situations that try to label us which is not always positive as in being labeled a rebel, a failure, an orphan, a dropout and others like that. If we would go by the many significant situations and circumstance that have happened to us, how many names would each of us bear, one too many. 

But of what importance are these circumstantial highly-conditional descriptions of who we are? Which of them really matter? While you are thinking of a response, you should remember the only description that matter; we are sons and daughters of the living God. Romans 8 verse 14 declares that as many of us as are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.

As believers, our greatest, most constant identity has to be seeing ourselves as God sees us – His children, who regardless of fleeting life happenings are irrevocably blessed and have been made right by the sacrifices of Jesus which we have partaken of by our faith in him.

When life comes knocking and throwing all sorts at us, whether good or bad, we should never forget that those things do not define us. They do not determine who we are because we are of God and it is only through the lens of God’s word that we see ourselves and our greatest identity is that of being the children of the Most High.

Whether You Are Called Unto The Pulpit or Not

1Pe 2:9b KJV ..that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.

When many believers hear the word 'Calling' or 'Called', the person that comes to mind is their Pastor. So, some of us tend to believe that only Pastors or Preachers are called. You will soon find out when next there is a program or service for ministers and you find people who have been serving in one capacity or the other draw back from such, believing they have to be holding the microphone at every service to be 'called'.

Interestingly, if all were shepherds, then who will be the sheep? We all can't be in the 5-fold ministry, but it doesn't disqualify us from being ministers. We may not have that physical angelic visitation heralding us at our new birth in Christ the way Jesus' birth was but we need to realize that we have been called of God. Our opening scripture that says that "God has called us out of darkness...",  is enough to tell us we are all called by God from the pulpit to the pews.

What many don't realise is that the calling of God is not limited to the pulpit. The pulpit is primarily a channel through which God touches the life of men, but not the only. When we come to know this, we begin to appreciate the work, however insignificant it might appear we do in God's house. This will also help a great deal in calming alot of ambitions to grab the microphone from the Pastor.

I didn't always see the work I did in Church as anything important until I left the Church for a while and my Pastor told me, since I left, no one had been recording his messages. Throughout the period I was there, nobody I can remember came asking for the recorded messages, but I continued. Although it looked like nothing to simply setup the laptop and connect cables, but it was a great help to the Pastor. Imagine the number of lives that will have access to those messages later on and be blessed by them, simply because I was doing something so insignificant.

The work you do for God might not put you in the limelight but nonetheless, it is adding value to people. Instead of looking for opportunities to be recognized for the work we do, we should rather be occupied with being a blessing to others. Being called of God is not for showmanship, neither should we neglect whatever present assignment or task we are carrying out in God's Kingdom. 

As humans we tend to see only the immediate results of our service, but in reality they are usually have far reaching effect that we don't know about. Therefore, whether you have a calling to the pulpit or not, you have no excuse not to be found serving and not see yourself as a minister because whether through preaching or through service, we are all ministering to one another in different capacities. 

If you have not given your life to Jesus, now is the opportunity to do so. Please, say, "Lord Jesus, I come to you today, I'm happy that you died for me to take all my sins away. I believe in you today. Please, be my guide. I receive your Holy Spirit as my seal forever, in Jesus name. Amen." Welcome to God's family! Please, write us at lothshine@gmail.com