Fully Devoted: An Introductionنموونە

Who Is God?

The beginning of the Bible tells us that God created human beings in His image. But we’ve been tempted to reimagine God in our own image. The result? Believing that God is much less than who He really is. These misconceptions can make God seem more like a cartoon villain instead of the loving and gracious Creator that He is. 

So how can we truly see and understand the character of God? We look at the life of Jesus in the New Testament.

The New Testament authors share how the God of Israel entered history. God revealed Himself most clearly when hanging on a Roman cross, where He willingly sacrificed Himself for the sake of the world.

It’s through that sacrificial death that we are presented with the truth of who God is and what He’s like: the suffering Servant and our crucified King. 

When we understand God through the life of Jesus, we discover:

• God is not distant or detached. He’s close and compassionate. 
• God is full of grace and full of truth. Not one or the other, not sometimes this one and sometimes that one, but all grace and all truth—all the time.
• God cares, God knows, God sees, and God loves. 
• God doesn’t demand our worship for His own good, but compassionately stepped into history for our good. 

And all of this is beautifully consistent with the way God presents Himself in Exodus 34:

… The Lord—the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation. Exodus 34:6-7 CSB

Did you catch the contrast between those two numbers? God tells us that He maintains love and offers forgiveness to a thousand generations, but He only punishes the sins to the third and fourth generation. 

We might be so shocked to read that God punishes sins to the third and fourth generation that we miss what God is truly saying. God will deal justly with sin and evil, but it will never be at odds with His love.

Did you see the ratio between God’s love and punishment? It wasn’t 50/50, or 80/20, or even 90/10. God shows His love to the thousandth generation and only punishes sins to the third and fourth generation. 

Do you see that? Do you feel it? The ration is 1,000 to four! That’s who God is—perfectly loving, and absolutely just. And His justice is, and always will be, an outworking of His love. 

Journaling Questions 

• Write down one of the verses from today’s reading. What changes your perception of God knowing He is most clearly seen through the person of Jesus? 
• In what ways have you imagined God that does not match the character of Jesus? 
• Why is it important to have a true understanding of what God is really like?

Memory Verse

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31 NIV