Week 3: The Nature and Character of God

"I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army through his chariots and his horsemen. The Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen." - Exodus 14:17,18 (NIV)

"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." - I Corinthians 10:31 (NIV)

"May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." - Romans 15:5,6 (NIV)

"... It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Sovereign LORD, when I show myself holy through you before their eyes." - Ezekiel 36:22,23 (NIV)

(bold and underlined emphasis mine)

Have you ever taken notice of how many times God refers to us bringing Him glory? He not only refers to us humans bringing him glory, but all things in the universe; the animals, the vegetation, the earth, the cosmos, everything! Sometimes, when we are doing a poor job of giving Him the glory (which is so much more than "sometimes" implies), He takes matters into His own hands to show how amazing He is and that He truly is the LORD. A good example of this would be in Ezekiel. God had been speaking through Ezekiel to the captives in Babylon in Israel, telling them of the judgment they had caused God to invoke upon them time and time again. Eventually, and seemingly unexpectedly, He tells the Israelites that he will bring them out of their captivity and put them back in their land that He promised their ancestors. The same land that they defiled and proved that they did not deserve (Ezekiel 36:24-30). As you can see though in the last verse I quoted above, right before He tells the Israelites what will be done, He makes it clear that He is not doing it for them, but for Himself. He does all of this so that He can show the world just how holy He is. Have you ever wondered why God is so emphatic on showing how awesome He is?

I know I hadn't ever thought twice of it. In previous Bible readings I would probably just gloss over it. This was true up until this last Spring. For some reason I started to be quite interested in how atheists thought (and still do right now to be honest). Now, before anyone raises any eyebrows suspiciously or begins to question the authenticity of my faith, let me explain. I have often wondered what it is that makes people not believe in God, and for most of my life that's as far as I went; simply wondering. With this wondering I would draw up scenarios that I thought made atheists not choose God, and from those scenarios (that I constructed I remind you) I was able to come up with very good arguments of my own and felt quite proud of myself being able to convert these atheists I had fabricated in my mind. Somehow I was able to take a step back in this thinking and realize just how silly and meaningless this thought process was. This led me to realize that the best way to figure out what goes on in an atheist's mind is to simply read the things they posted, watch videos about them, and actually talk to them in person (unfortunately I haven't many atheist friends, so this has not happened so much... yet). From that point on I've made it somewhat a hobby of mine to look into it. I began watching videos of debates between atheists and Christians and read up on some sites, and I found out that some atheists had taken notice of God's demand for us to glorify Him and turned it into an attack. The specific post that I saw spoke of God creating humanity just to show off His awesomeness and no other reason, making Him seem like an egotistical dictator in need of a constant power-boost/reaffirmation of his magnificence. Reading this made me frustrated at the accusation of course, but at the same time it had be wondering, "What is the reason for God striving to be glorified in all ways?" I knew that the god atheists were describing was not the God I worshiped, so it put me in a trap trying to figure out what the reasoning was after all.

A close-up of the sunrise we get to see every morning from the cafeteria

It was not until I came here, specifically this week, that the answer was presented to me. I was reading the same passage in Ezekiel I mentioned earlier, and somehow, the Lord presented Himself to me and made it very clear what His intentions were. He showed me how people would not follow Him and trust Him if His might and power and glory and grace was not shouted out and expressed by His people and all of creation. It made all the sense in the world! Why would I want to follow a God that didn't do marvelous things, make wonderful creations, and cause humans to do no less than cry out His majesty and worship everything about Him? God does not need us little humans to tell Him how almighty He is, He is fully aware of who He is and what He can do (which is not pride, it is humility because He is believing in the truth that He is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omnificent). He wants us to glorify Him because it is part of the requirement to show how perfect He is to the rest of the world so that they too can worship Him and be saved. Our worshiping and glorifying of Him helps others. This realization was one of most humble lessons I've learned in all my life. It was also re-enforced during the teaching this week. Our speaker was the director of the base here at YWAM Ozarks, Barb Nizza, and she spoke on The Nature and Character of God. The topic that I felt most correlated with my recent learning was titled God wants us to obey Him because He desires our best. The verse she showed us to get the point across was this:

"The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb. By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward." - Psalm 19:7-11 (NIV) (emphasis mine)

So many words are able to be used to express how good God's laws and desires and commands are. I see how this glaringly shows how God gives us laws for our benefit, but I then combined this lesson with what I learned earlier. God wants us to glorify Him for the sake of everybody else so that they may find Him and be saved, so I edited the topic a little bit; God wants us to obey Him because He desires our best and the best of the people around us. Our actions affect everybody, so why not make them godly actions?

It has been so exciting this week as God has unfolded to me more and more of His big plan, and I am so thrilled to be a part of it. I am also so very thankful for the rest of the teaching Barb gave us. If I could give an overall statement about what Barb taught us it would be the simple yet all-encompassing statement that God is good. At times I feel that statement is so incredibly lacking to describe God (because it really is), but other times I feel it is all I can possibly say about God because of the many different words that can be implied by the simple word "good". We learned about many more topics including:

- We are valuable because God values us

- The Kingdom of Heaven should be something that we are willing (not grudgingly tolerant) and excited to sell all we have and hold dear to pursue, otherwise we have some prioritizing to do

- The Lord understands our feelings because he has feelings as well; if he didn't have emotions, then how could He help us with ours?

In other news, yesterday (Friday, October the 12th) we were informed of the outreach teams, and I found out that I will be going to Kenya! I shouldn't say found out since I have had a strong feeling from God that Kenya is where He is wanting me to go; this just confirmed His plan for me. It is all so extremely exciting for me to think about as it is becoming more and more real as time goes on. I feel ready right now to go to Africa and do His work, but I know God has much more knowledge for me to attain here as I still have 9 weeks of the lecture phase left, which I am more than willing to do. Every day God seems to be showing Himself to me through new ways and I have been growing more and more confident in this faith I have been fortunate enough to grow up in. It's hard to believe that it's only been 3 weeks that I've been here, yet at the same time I can't believe that I'm already a quarter of the way done with this phase. I hope I continue to make the most of my time here and continue to strive to learn more about God's character and how I am to imitate Him.

View of the sunrise including Ozark (nearly impossible to see, right above the treeline to the left)