What Do You Believe About God?
What Do You Believe About God?
R.L. Wilson
A.W. Tozer once said, “What we believe about God is the most important thing about us.” If he is correct, then it is very important that we learn accurate information about him. It is also important that we base our idea of what God is like on that accurate information. As Dr. Paul Little has said,
If God is, his existence and what he is like do not really depend on what anyone thinks about him. To conceive of God as a stone idol or a mystical idea does not make him either…. If we are interested in reality, we will want to know what God is really like. When we explore God through his general and special revelation, we build our own personal foundation and information bank. Then… we can confidently judge as true or false the ideas and images of God that exist today. [Paul Little, Know What You Believe(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008), p. 35, first emphasis added.]
God has given us several sources of information so we can learn what he is really like. First, God has revealed himself to us through nature:
Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”
Psalm 50:6, “And the heavens proclaim his righteousness, for he is a God of justice.
Romans 1:19-20, “…since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made…”
Second, God has revealed himself to us in the Bible. Throughout the Old Testament in particular, God reveals many things about Himself through how He dealt with His chosen people, Israel, and through how He responded to those nations that threaten Israel’s physical and spiritual safety.
It’s important to remember that God never acts out of wrong motives. His purpose in everything He does is to draw His people back to Himself, to restore the relationship that was broken when Adam and Eve sinned. Remember also that although the Bible accurately records what the people did, nowhere are we told that God approved of everything that happened, even when people said they were acting on his behalf. In fact, sometimes God severely punished people for doing things He did not want them to do.
And finally, God has revealed himself to us through his son, Jesus Christ.
Heb. 1:1-2, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son,…”
John 14:8-9, “Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.’ Jesus answered, ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”
