Category: godhead

Categories
godhead Meditations the father

Knowing that Our Triune God Doesn’t Change

Think about last year. You may have had ups, downs, failures, successes, and learnings. Some things made you stronger. Some things made you weaker. Today, you’re not the same person you were in the beginning of last year. Much less twenty years ago. Why? Because we grow. We learn. We change.

God does not change.

Read Psalm 102. It is filled with a slice of our lives. Withering hearts, distressed groaning, sleepless nights, days filled with fear, horrendous news of war and shaking earth: but all of these things will pass away. “But you remain the same, and your years will never end.”

Read Hebrews 13: 8: Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

What comfort: God, in all three persons, is always the same. He doesn’t change who he is. He does not change his plans. He does not change his promises.  He doesn’t learn something that He doesn’t know. Nothing surprises him. He’s completely and forever perfect. He is the anchor of our soul! (Heb 6:19)

Categories
godhead Meditations

Knowing That We Approach God His Way

human standing beside crucifix statue on mountain
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

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.

Categories
godhead Meditations

Knowing that Our Triune God Is Good

Parents have bad days. I might say “My dad had his rough spots, but he was a good dad.” Our God, on the other hand, wants us to know that only He is perfectly good. The Son says:

  • No one is good except God alone (Luke 18:19)

Jesus makes a connection that most of us haven’t thought about. Goodness is more than not evil. An unhelpful person is not evil. He might not kill the poor but the person who gives for the poor does better. He might be unhelpful because he lost his job. We don’t know how we’ll act in future situations. For someone to be top-of-the-line good, he or she can’t ever stop being perfectly good. If we manage to do good every single moment, we still die and there ends goodness!

These verses show that our trinitarian God is perfectly and unchanging good:

  • God is perfectly light absent darkness and our fellowship with the Father and Son (1 John 1:3,5)
  • Every good gift comes from the Father of lights who has no variation or shifting shadow and he gave the Son and another comforter like the Son (the Spirit: who convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment) (James 1:17; John 3:16; 16:7-11)

Be happy and be in awe Christian! We are in a relationship with the God of no rough spots, who alone is good, and his love endures forever!

Categories
godhead Meditations

Knowing the Triune God in Relationship

When God wanted to be clearly known, He describes Himself in a relationship. These four passages stand out.

  • Hebrews 1:1-2 Though God spoke in many ways…in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son
  • Matt 11:27 No one knows the Father except the Son…
  • John 5:20 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand
  • John 17:24 Father…you loved Me before the foundation of the world

God is, within Himself, in an eternal relationship of Loving Father to Given Son with the Living they they  of Life between them. Careful: don’t start making lessons of God from your relationship with your dad. That’s taking your situation and creating a picture of God: The Bible called this making an idol!

Rather, know that God in all of His fullness and creativity, decided to speak like how we speak to babies who don’t understand. Sometimes you say “goo-goo-gaga” and sometimes you draw a stick drawing. God created the human relationship of Father to children so that it reflected something, not perfectly, of the greater eternal relationship in the Godhead.  One where Jesus is considered “only begotten of the Father” ( John 1:14) yet uncreated (John 1:1-3).

Now , consider these three passages:

  • John 20:17 I (the Son Jesus)  go to my Father and your Father, my God, and your God.
  • Romans 8:14-17 We cry Abba Father through the Holy Spirit
  • 1 John 3:1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God

Be happy! Consider that in this relationship with the triune God, we know “Our Father” by the Spirit and the Son calls us brothers as Our Father calls us His children!

Categories
godhead Meditations

Knowing that The Triune God Needs Nothing

If we understand that God, in all three persons, is also perfect in all his attributes, then we would also understand that he doesn’t need anything. God describes Himself this way:

  • Acts 17:24-25 He doesn’t need temples. He doesn’t need to be served by human hands. He doesn’t need anything. He is the one who gives life to everything.

This means that God, in all three persons, is in Himself and of Himself. He has no moment of needing anything or anyone outside of Himself. God didn’t need companions or relationships or complexity to ponder since He has all of that in Himself in all three persons. In fact, what this tells us is that when God decided to create or give life or give gifts, He did it only because He wanted to.

  • Rev 4:11 You are worthy, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power because you created all things and because of your will they were created
  • Col 1:16 For in Christ, all things were created: all things have been created through Him and for Him
  • Job 26:13 By His breath, or by His Spirit, God adorned the heavens

Be thankful and joyful! We don’t have a weak God who needed toys to keep him busy but rather an all-powerful God who decided, out of His grace and giving, to create others to enjoy Him forever!