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Meditations

Knowing the Triune God Who is Spirit and Can Access Anywhere

Our Triune God, in His nature, is spirit. This means that the triune God isn’t made of physical stuff. Jesus explained this when He spoke to a woman from Samaria. He taught her that God is not limited to a specific place in time and space.

  • Jesus said, “God is spirit, and when we worship Him, we must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24).

When Jesus came back to life after His death, He told His followers that a spirit is different from what they were seeing:

  • He said, “A spirit doesn’t have a body that can be touched!” (Luke 24:39).

Some people may think that God is like a cloud or a ghost from a movie, but those ideas are wrong. When we say that God is spirit, it means that He is not like anything we can imagine. Physical things have limits, but spirit is limitless. Physical things can be hidden from our sight, but spirit doesn’t need to be seen to be there. The Bible tells us the truth:

  • God cannot be seen (1 Timothy 1:17)
  • No one has ever seen God (John 1:18)  
  • God is immortal (Isaiah 31:3)

Don’t jump ahead and think about Jesus becoming a human just yet! Know that because God is spirit, He can be present everywhere, at any time, always. This means that no matter how lonely or hopeless we feel, God sees us (Genesis 16:13). No matter how quiet our voice may be, He hears us (1 Peter 3:12)! No matter where I am, God is there with me (Psalms 139)! These facts should bring us to our knees to worship the greatness of our invisible God.

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Meditations

Knowing that Our Triune God is All Powerful

God, in all three persons, is omnipotent: that means all-powerful. What the Father thinks is spoken by the Son and the Holy Spirit makes it happen. Look at how this works in God’s creation (Gen 1:1-3; Psalm 33:6)

  • God exists by Himself without needing anything else.
  • The Spirit of God moved over the deep waters
  • God said: “Let there be Light”, His word made the heavens and God’s breath made the stars exist
  • And just like that, there was Light! Something that didn’t exist before suddenly appeared out of nowhere!

The Bible says that everything is held together by Christ’s powerful word (Hebrews 1:3). Jesus only used His power when the Father wanted Him to, but He always had those powers because He is divine (Phil 2:4; John 14:31).

But that doesn’t mean God can do absolutely anything. For example, God, with all His power, can’t change who He is (James 1:17). He can’t make Himself lie or make Jesus lie (Hebrews 6:18). He also can’t stop being God (Psalm 90:2). So, God is all-powerful, but He can only do things that make sense with His nature. That means He can’t create rocks that are too heavy for Him to lift or make shapes that don’t exist like square circles.

We worship an all-powerful triune God who is eternally true to Himself!

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Meditations

Knowing that Our Triune God is Wise

It is one thing to know everything. It is quite another to know what to do with knowledge. It is infinitely better to know what the right thing is to do with any given knowledge. This is called being wise. Our God, in all three persons, is wise. This is what Scripture says:

  • God is the only one who is completely and all-encompassing wise (Romans 16:27)

God’s wisdom is seen in all three persons as He rightly acts to save people.

  • God is the only wise god in that he is our savior (Jude 1:25)
  • Christ Himself is the power and wisdom of God in that he died for us(1 Cor 1:24, 30)
  • The Holy Spirit is the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that the church grows to the full stature of Christ the head (Eph 1:17; Col 1:19)

We can only know true wisdom by going to the Lord Himself and therefore equip each other with that wisdom:

  • In Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom (Col 2:3)
  • Teaching one another in all wisdom (Col. 3:16)

Much more can be said than has been said but take comfort in knowing that our God uses his knowledge to do the absolute right thing for His glory and for the good of His people.

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Meditations

Knowing that Our Triune God Knows Everything

The Bible teaches that God, in all three persons, knows everything. Nothing exists outside of his knowledge. Nothing is fuzzy for God. He knows everything that is, was, and will be.

  • God knows everything of old (Isaiah 46:9-10)
  • God is greater than our internal selves; He KNOWS everything! (1 John 3:20)
  • God knows our words BEFORE we speak them (Psalm 139:4)

Indeed, every person of the trinity knows everything.

  • The Father knows us down to our smallest details (Matthew 10:29-30)
  • The Son knows everyone’s hearts (Acts 1:24) and thoughts (Luke 6:8)
  • The Spirit knows everything that God knows! (1 Corinthians 2:10–12)

Our triune God even knows what would have happened if people were in different situations or made different choices!

  • God knew people would betray David if David decided to stay where he was—so David left! (1 Sam 23:11-13)
  • Jesus knew that the people of Sodom would have repented if they saw the miracles Jesus had done (Matthew 11:21)

Rejoice! God is never taken by surprise! Not at our world, our situations, our in-actions, our emotions, or our choices if things were different. Our Triune God knows it all!

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godhead Meditations

Knowing That We Approach God His Way

God, as a loving God, established a pattern for how he is to be approached. God isn’t some angry tyrant who doesn’t want visitors! But God is God, and He is the one who establishes the way in.  

  • Exodus 20:3 There are no other gods before God. It’s not like we get to choose the approach.
  • Exodus 32:4 When Aaron, in his pastoral care, provides gods/or god (Elohim) then Exodus 32:5 A feast to the Lord (Yahweh)—he makes a dangerous error.
  • Exodus 25:40; Hebrews 8:5 We are to follow the pattern set up by God—not by Man

Coming to God by the Father’s Will

God’s pattern is in accord with the entire triune Godhead. The Father sends the Son for a specific mission: to speak His words and then to die as a savior of the world to bring people in.

  • 1 John 4:14 God the Father sent the Son into the world to be the world’s savior
  • John 17:18 Jesus knows that the Father sent Him into the world
  • John 3:16 God loved the world and sent the Son
  • John 5:19-20 The Son is therefore to do only the things the Father would have him do.

Approaching God through the Son’s Work

In so doing, the Father establishes that anyone has access to Him only by the work of the Son. He joyfully sends the Son to happily bring people into His presence, by the willing work of the Son.

  • Matthew 11:27 Only the Son truly knows the Father—no one else does
  • John 14:9 But seeing the Son helps us understand the Father. The Son loves therefore we know the Father loves. The Son is sacrificing for people therefore the Father’s love is sacrificial.
  • John 14:6 No one comes to the Father except through Jesus.
  • 1 Tim 2:5 There are not multiple mediators between God and Man. Just one. That’s Jesus.
  • Heb 10:19-22 That mediation was accomplished by Christ’s death
  • John 20:17 Jesus extends God’s Father-ship and His Sonship to his disciples at His resurrection

We Approach God by the Spirit’s Power

The Son, in doing the work of the Father, sends the Holy Spirit by petitioning the Father. This one is another advocate—like Him—who is to come alongside God’s people. It’s a joyful thing the Spirit is doing because it is by His coming and application that anyone is able to come to the Father. Yet, the Holy Spirit only can come because of what the Son has done.

  • Eph 2:18 We can only come to the Father through the Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done
  • John 14:16 Jesus specifically asked the Father for the other Advocate like Him who will never leave like how Jesus had to leave
  • Gal 4:4-6 It is by that one Spirit that we receive the adoption of Sons and cry Abba Father
  • Romans 8:14-17 The Spirit confirms we are God’s children and we cry Abba Father through Him

We Approach The Triune God in Prayer

Whenever we pray as Christians—not as other religions—we are praying only because of the involvement of all three persons of the triune Godhead. The Father’s successful mission, the Son’s successful work, the Spirits successful application and we enter in calling God “Abba, Father”.

  • In prayer, we ask by the authority of, and relationship with, Jesus the Son of God—we’re free to ask Jesus (John 14:14)
  • In prayer, we ask the Father and He will give (John 16:23-24)
  • In prayer, the Holy Spirit works the prayer (Rom 8:26) since He, as God, knows the mind of God (1 Cor 2:11)

When we read our Lord’s lesson on prayer, yes read it in context and yes, learn some lessons for the future millennium—but apply the riches of God’s established pattern to the prayer. Read this as a prayer that only a Christian, a worshipper of the only true God—not a Jew or a Muslim or a Mormon—can pray

  • Praying: because we have access by the triune God’s work and because all three persons are involved in the creation of our faith
  • “Our Father” because of what Christ has done, and because the Spirit applies that we are God’s children forever
  • “Forgive us..” because we have our debts forgiven by Christ’s death, applied by the Holy Spirit, as planned by the Father
  • “Give us..” because even in our very mundane needs, we are in utter reliance on the triune God

“Abba, Father,” we approach thee In our Savior’s precious name! We, thy children, here assembled, now thy promised blessing claim. From our sins His blood hath washed us, it is through Him our souls draw nigh. And thy Spirit, too, hath taught us, “Abba, Father,” thus to cry.