Author: rey

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Knowing that Our Triune God is Patient

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Love is patient (1 Cor 13:4). We also know that God is love. God, therefore, won’t immediately jump to anger in the face of rebellion. But God goes wants us to know the connection: He is patient.

  • The Lord is slow to anger (Exodus 34:6) and abundant in love (Num 14:18)
  • God wants to forgive (Jeremiah 9:17) which is why he is slow in anger (Ps 86:16)
  • The Holy Spirit’s fruit includes patience (Gal 5:22)
  • The Lord doesn’t want any to perish (2 Peter 3:9) so He takes his time with judgment.
  • God has great patience (Rom 2:4) enduring rebellion from sinners (Rom 9:22)
  • Paul, said that Christ Jesus saved Paul to display his perfect patience (1 Tim 1:15-16)

We should be so thankful! It is only because of His great patience, in all three divine persons, that we haven’t been wiped out and condemned! It is only because of this long-suffering love that God hasn’t poured out His wrath on us! It is because of His great patience, that the Lord Jesus waits before returning in judgment! Praise the Lord for his compassion and mercy: God is patient with us!

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Knowing that Our Triune God is Just

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One of the earliest questions in the bible is if the Judge of the Earth is just? This is in the context of bad things possibly about to happen to good people. The answer is repeated throughout all of Scripture. God, in all three persons, is just.

  • God is impartial (Acts 10:34) and not unjust (Heb 6:10) never showing favoritism (Col 3:25)
  • The Son is just (righteous) giving himself for the unjust (1 Pet 3:18)
  • The Holy Spirit convicts the world of judgment (John 16:8, 11)

Christ wonderfully points out the extent of God’s justice. The Father is just in that he renders the authority to judge men to a man: the Son who came as a man! (John 5:22). Therefore, says the Holy Spirit through Paul, no one can bring a charge against God’s people because God is the one who declares who is just. And no one can condemn Christ’s people because Christ is the one who justly intercedes for his people.

This gives us hope that God will rightly deal with all the injustices of the past. Praise the Lord: God is just!

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Knowing that Our Triune God is Faithful

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To be faithful is to be trusted. It is to have the character and the commitment to do what one say they would do. Since God is truth, He also commits to finish what He said He will do. This is nowhere clearer than in the Triune God at work in history to bring about what he says.

  • Jesus says “Don’t you know that I could ask my Father and He would immediately send twelve legions of angels? How then would Scripture be fulfilled if my mission happened some other way?” (Matt 26:53-54)
  • Men decided not to bother breaking the bones of Jesus’ corpse so that Scripture would be fulfilled “Not one of His bones will be broken” without them knowing it (John 19:36)

The Father makes the plans (Eph 1:3-4), the Spirit is breathed out in conveying those plans (2 Peter 1:21), and the Word brings about exactly what the Triune God wanted to happen (Is 55:11). That means that when God makes promises, those commitments are from His very being: He follows through exactly as he commits to do! God is always unchangingly faithful.

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Knowing that Our Triune God is Truth

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Many things can be true. It is true that the sky is blue. Grass is green. NY Pizza is better than CT pizza. Okay, that last might not be objectively true. The point is that many (not all) things have the quality of containing some truth.

God doesn’t contain some truth. Nor does God merely tell the truth. God is, in his nature, in all three persons, truth.

  • Let God be true, and all men be liars (Rom 3:4)
  • Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. (John 14:6)
  • The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth (John 14:17; 15:26; 6:13)  

Scripture is so strong on this point that it says it is impossible for God to lie (Heb 6:18-19) and describes Him as the God who Never Lies (Titus 1:2 or the Un-lying God)! We can always absolutely trust Him.

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Knowing That Our Triune God Feels Yet Doesn’t Change

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When considering that God, in all three persons, doesn’t change, the Bible shares two tremendous facts:

  • He feels infinitely more than we can understand: He can weep overflowing tears without ceasing (Jer 14:17) as he shares in the affliction of his people (Isaiah 63:9)
  • His feelings and nature are not lessened or enhanced by any circumstance (1 Samuel 15:29) because he does not change (Malachi 3:6) or shift (James 1:17)

What a mystery! On the one hand, He is never emotionally out of control (Num 23:19); on the other, He can empathize with our weaknesses (Heb 4:15). He can rejoice with those who rejoice, as we are told to do (Rom 12:15); on the other hand, he is never swept away by any external situation.

Like a fireman who can enter the burning building when your children are still inside, God can infinitely feel your sorrow and simultaneously not be moved to change his rescue plans, no matter the situation. This fact shows that God, in his nature, is truly our unshifting anchor (Psa 18:2).