To set the stage for this section, please read the following texts: Hebrews 10:30, 31, 1 Timothy 6:17, 1 Timothy 4:10, Romans 9:26, Acts 14:15, Matthew 16:16, Daniel 6:26, Psalm 42:1-3, Psalm 84:2, Joshua 3:10.
An attribute is some characteristic that is permanent and distinguishes a thing or person from other things or persons. A rose has the attribute of a certain fragrance. I have some very distinct and permanent attributes which make me Mark Derickson. I may also have a certain fragrance, but that does not make me a rose.
In the case of God we find a large number of attributes which distinguish Him from all other things, persons and gods.
Personality: What is personality? It is the most important fact of the world in which we live and yet hard to identify. It is the name given to a group of functions or characteristics belonging to one person. Some characteristics of personality: life, intelligence, purpose, activity, freedom, self-consciousness, emotion, spirit.
Another aspect of the personality of God might well be lost in the discussion in a theology book. God is personable — He is a personal God. He is a God that we can get to know on a one to one basis. We both, God and ourselves, have personality, thus we should have a number of things in common.
It boggles my mind to think of God as a personal God, when I relate the creation to Him. How can a God that created all these things be Someone that I can have free access to, Someone that I can communicate with, and Someone that cares for me? I can’t have free access to the president of the USA, yet I can go talk to God any time that I want.
Consider the following information and relate it to the fact that you are on a first name basis with this same God.
Consider the fact there are clusters of galaxies some of which contain 11,000 galaxies, then the fact that the galaxy is made up of many suns.
There are possibly as many as 200 billion suns and their associated systems of planets and moons in our own Milky Way.
Then on the other hand we have the minute world. 1/(25 zeros) is “…the fraction of a square centimeter that a nucleon occupies in space.’ That is one tenseptillionth of a square centimeter. “‘That isn’t the very smallest thing that we look in on by any means,’” (Phillips, McCandlish, “What Every Christian Should Know About The Supernatural”; Wheaton: Victor Books, 1980, pp 43-45)
Nucleons are protons or neutrons. Phillips goes on to state that nucleons are not the smallest part of matter, but that they are made up of quarks. Quarks to Quasars and my God created them all. That God I talked to this morning, the same God to whom we have free access.
Think on these things. He isn’t a being out there somewhere that has the following fifteen and one half characteristics. He is the God that we can know and the God with whom we can fellowship. He is the God that can hurt with us. He is the God that has all the answers, and what’s more He loves to give those answers to his sons and daughters. He is the God that loves you and me. He is the God that acts on our behalf. He is the God that has a purpose for our lives.[1]
[1] by Stanley L. Derickson. DERICKSON’S NOTES ON THEOLOGY: A STUDY BOOK IN THEOLOGY.
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