God's Attributes and Names

By Hallie Gipson

“ . . . even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You . . . ”  John 17:21 (NASB)

It is important how we view God and what we believe about God. It is essential that we have right-thinking about God and that we reserve our highest praise and adoration for Him alone.

As we focus on more of God’s attributes and names, God’s word comes alive as we hear:

• Who Jesus tells us He is
• how the Psalmist describes the Lord
• how the crowds refer to Jesus as He enters Jerusalem before His crucifixion
• what the Apostle John tells us from his eyewitness account and his close relationship with the Lord
• the name Moses calls the Lord after the Lord empowered the Israelites to defeat the Amalekites.

Beginning

Revelation 22:13 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”

John 1:1-2 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word as with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.”

1 John 1:1 “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched --- this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.”

Beauty

Psalm 27:4 “One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.”

Blessed

John 12:12-13 “The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” Blessed is the King of Israel!”

Banner

Exodus 17:15 “Moses built an altar and called it The Lord is my Banner.”

Proverbs 18:10 says: “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; The righteous runs into it and is safe.” 

There is strength attributed to His name and protection. His name is the place where we can rest in the knowledge that God is who He says He is. Who do you say that He is?

Father, Your name alone is great and worthy to be praised! Thank You for the precious gift of Your word that speaks of who You are. Amen.

God's Attributes and Names

By Hallie Gipson

It’s hard to believe that we have passed the mid-point of January 2015 and are well into the New Year! But for some of us who can get a bit behind at times, I’m still thinking about the ‘new-ness’ of the year and what that means in my life.

The New Year is definitely about new starts, new resolutions, and new projects. It can also be about new ways to approach ‘routines’ that have become lifeless and without the same energy and passion we once had for them.

My quiet time is definitely in need of a new start and a fresh approach! I know God is always near, but my problem is approaching Him in a focused and Christ-centered way --- dwelling on who He is in order to prepare myself to approach His throne.

This is not a new problem for me, but one I have struggled with more than once in my journey with the Lord. In the past, I found it helpful to use the alphabet to jump-start my alone time with the Lord. And that’s what I will be doing through the blog in the next several weeks. I will be taking the letters of the alphabet in sequential order and listing some of God’s attributes or names along with Scripture that corresponds.

I hope you will join me in this fresh approach and that God will use it in a powerful way in your life!

My prayer as we approach God in this New Year comes straight from His word:

“Establish your word to your servant, As that which produces reverence for you.”  Psalm 119:38 (NASB)

Alpha

Revelation 21:5, 6  “And He who sits on the throne said . . . “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.” (NIV)

Revelation 22:13  “I am the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”  (NIV)

Awesome

Psalm 47:2  “How awesome is the Lord Most High, the great King over all the earth!” (NIV)

Psalm 66:5  “Come and see what God has done, how awesome His works on man’s behalf.” (NIV)

Psalm 68:35  “You are awesome, O God, in your sanctuary.”  (NIV)

Psalm 111:9  “He provided redemption for his people; he ordained His covenant forever –- holy and awesome is his name.” (NIV)

COME, SEE FOR YOURSELF

By Shirley Wiggins

“…But Philip said, ‘Come, see for yourself.’” John 1:46 (The Message Bible)

Today is the first day of the New Year 2015.   I’ve been blessed to see many of these new years’ days - an ordinary woman, but one who has been extraordinarily blessed by the awesome God, the Giver of all Life.

This day dawns crisp:  clean, smooth, and a bit “stiff” in its newness, it is clear and cold:  33⁰ outside.  In its first light, everything is still, quiet and serene, with no signs of anyone stirring yet.

I love being the first one up at my house!  I sit wrapped in a warm robe, holding a hot cup of coffee, while the fire gently warms the room.  My devotional books wait on the table beside me, two Bibles nearby and pen in hand, I wait once again for the Word that will speak to my heart.  I will write it down, with its Scripture reference recorded in my journal, so I can find it again and receive from it all the richness that I know it will add to my thoughts for today.

What would my life be like if the Living Word was dead to me?  If He did not talk to me, how lonely and dreary my existence here on this earth that is not heaven would be! 

But God does speak to me!  He hears me, too, as I talk with Him throughout my day and sometimes during those odd hours of the night when I wake up for no apparent reason.  His peace-filled Presence comes to me and stays with me because He is always near.

So close:  His Word abides in me, and I remain in Him because I am in Jesus, Jesus is in me, and Jesus is in God because God abides in Jesus.

Beautiful plan!  God is grand!

I read earlier this week in the Bible (which has been preserved for the unfolding of Truth),  about Philip, who when he had discovered the identity of the long awaited One written about by Moses and the Prophets in the Old Testament of The Holy Bible, looked until he found Nathaniel to tell him the good news of his discovery.

As amazing as it sounded, Philip had found out that He was actually “Jesus of Nazareth, the “legal” son of Joseph, the carpenter!”

Nathaniel was skeptical and surprised and replied, “Nazareth!  Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Philip made this reply, and though I had read it before, this time it spoke to my heart:  “Come, see for yourself!”

That is my desire for each individual:  the opportunity to discover Jesus.  That we would stop forming our opinions of Jesus Christ based on what others are saying about Him, but that each of us would personally discover the truth about Him.

He is real, literally alive.  He actually came to the earth born as a Baby, lived for 33 years and died as a Man, on a cross, and was buried.  Astoundingly, He did not remain dead in the grave.  Because His father was not Joseph – His Father was the God of the Bible, Who raised Him from the dead in great resurrection power.

 Not everything written and orally declared about Jesus is actually true; but everything written about Him in The Holy Bible is real; it is Truth: absolute Truth.

 Come!  See for yourself!

Let this be the year of the Bible:  The year when each one of us will explore Truth.  The year when millions of us will come into its pages in the multitudes of its languages and its translations; in spite of the fact that Newsweek magazine has an article coming out in the January 2, 2015 issue that implies, among other things, that no one can read the “real” Bible, because it has been so changed. 

 Come!  See for yourself!

Discover what countless others have found:  Truth!

Truth, like priceless treasure hidden deeply, yet clearly available in The Holy Bible.

  What a paradox!  What an open secret, just waiting for us to find it and be:

·       As astounded as Nathaniel,

·       As delighted as Philip,

·       As convinced as Peter,

·       As willingly obedient as Mary, mother of Jesus,

·       As eager to know it in its details as Apollos,

·       As dedicated to teaching it as Aquila and Priscilla,

·       As hungry for it as Cornelius and his family,

·       As determined to tell it as Paul, and

·       As ready and willing to die for it as Stephen.

God’s truth, once embraced, ensures that we will never be the same again.  Because the Truth of God is Jesus Christ and God has hidden all of Truth’s knowledge and Wisdom in Him. 

Oh, that we might be willing today to know the Truth!   That all would be willing to truly come to know Jesus Christ this year that no one would die without Him!

Oh, that no one would doubt His existence when He has so willingly proven Himself for each of us.  Oh, that we would no longer deny His love since He died to prove it by demonstrating God’s love publicly on the cross of shame.

Oh, that not one of us would deny ourselves a lifetime of joy and peace on this earth, and afterwards an eternity of alive “time” in  His glorious Presence forever in the new Heaven – Zion, that Holy City which has been prepared for those who love Him.

Every person (man, woman, boy, and girl) who desires to know the truth may know the Truth.  Would you open the Bible and discover truth for yourself and your loved ones?  You truly can read the Bible and understand it with the help of the Holy Spirit of God Himself.

 “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but the things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”  Deuteronomy 29:29 Amp. Bible.

“But it is from Him (God) that you have your life in Christ Jesus, Whom God made our Wisdom from God – revealed to us a knowledge of the divine salvation previously hidden, manifesting itself as our Righteousness – thus making us upright and putting us in right  standing with God, and our Consecration making us pure and holy, and our Redemption providing our ransom from eternal penalty for sin.”  1 Corinthians 1:30 Amp.

The Apostle Paul wrote these words: 

“As for myself, brethren, when I came to you, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony and evidence or mystery and secret of God [concerning what He has done through Christ for the salvation of people] in lofty words of eloquence or human philosophy and wisdom; For I resolved to know nothing (to be acquainted with nothing, to make a display of the knowledge of nothing, and to be conscious of nothing) among you except Jesus Christ (the Messiah) and Him crucified. …. So that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men (human philosophy) but in the power of God. … Yet… it is indeed not a wisdom of this present age or of this world nor of the leaders and rulers of this age, who are being brought to nothing and are doomed to pass away..  but rather what we are setting forth is a wisdom of God once hidden from the human understanding and now revealed to us by God – that wisdom which God devised and decreed before the ages…. To lift us into the glory of His Presence.

None of the rulers of this age or world perceived and recognized and understood this, for if they had, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. 

But on the contrary, as the Scripture says, What eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has not entered into the heart of man, all that God has prepared (made and keeps ready) for those who love Him – who hold Him in affectionate reverence, promptly obeying Him and gratefully recognizing the benefits He has bestowed,

Yet to us God has unveiled and revealed them by and through His Spirit, for the Holy Spirit searches diligently, exploring and examining everything, even sounding the profound and bottomless things of God (the divine counsels and things hidden and beyond man’s scrutiny). …  Now we have not received the spirit that belongs to the world, but the Holy Spirit Who is from God, given to us that we might realize and comprehend and appreciate the gifts of divine favor and blessing so freely and lavishly bestowed on us by God, … …For who has known or understood the mind (the counsels and purposes) of the Lord so as to guide and instruct Him and give Him knowledge?  But we have the mind of Christ (the Messiah) and do hold the thoughts (feelings and purposes) of His heart.” 

How awesome is this Gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of truth!? 

 In the interest of space, I  have left out much of what Paul has written between First Corinthians 1:1 and 2:16  (in The Amplified Bible), so I urge you, open up the preciously preserved Word of God (The Holy Bible) and explore it to discover the life-saving Truth of God Himself for yourself!

Happy New Year!