God’s Attributes

by Josh McDowellAlbum: Journey Towards God

Today I want to talk about God. Who is God? Probably the most profound and the most misunderstood term in the world is the term for God. I am convinced that at the heart of most spiritual problems is the misconception of God. Much of religious heresy is the result of misunderstanding God. Daniel 11:32 says, "And those who know their God should do great exploits." When we come to properly understand God, then we can trust Him and see great things happen.

Yet here is a problem that keeps many of us from a proper relationship with our heavenly Father. Psalms 50:21 says, "You thought that I was just like you." We project on our Heavenly Father the image of our earthly father. If our earthly father did not spend time with us, it is hard to grow up and think "My Heavenly Father wants to spend time with me." If our earthly father would not listen to us, it is hard to think "My Heavenly Father wants to listen to me."

I have learned one thing over the years, my Heavenly Father is a lot different than my earthly father. I thank God for that because my earthly father was an alcoholic and very abusive verbally and emotionally. As a result I projected that upon my Heaven Father, and that was one of the barriers to me truly coming to Christ.

Now the question is: Who is God? God has revealed Himself in the scriptures. He has revealed himself through showing us His attributes. An attribute is something that is true of God in His basic nature. So when we say God is loving, He is simply being Himself. Let's look at some of His attributes.

The first one is this – God has revealed Himself as being omnipotent, all powerful. Every time I see the word omnipotent I think, "He can do it." And the scriptures point out that "He ruleth over all the kingdoms of the heathen and nothing is too great for God." He spoke to nothing and something came into existence. Now how does this affect us in our personal life and walk with Christ? It allows me to pray for things that I would never dream of praying for if I didn't know He can do it. Second, when you are really tired, He gives strength to the weary.

A number of years ago I was speaking at a conference and I had had two weeks of heavy meetings. The week before a true revival broke out and I was exhausted. And I sat there that Saturday morning and I started to cry. I just said, "God, I can't do it. I am so exhausted. I don't even have the energy to get up out of this chair and walk to that podium let alone give an hour talk." And I just said, "God, please help me."

Something happened when they started to applaud and said, "Here's Josh McDowell." Strength came into me, I stood up, and I walked to that podium and probably exerted almost more energy for one hour than I ever have in a talk. Later, I said, "God, I can't believe it. But you are able." I cannot tell you how many times in my life I have had to call upon that strength.

The Bible says that God is not only omnipotent, He is omnipresent, all present. This is a phrase that I use, "He is here." That means there is no point nearer to God than any other point. Psalms139 says, "Where can I go from thy spirit, or where can I hide from thy presence? If I ascend to Heaven, thou art there. If I ascend to Sheol thou art there. If I take the wings of the dove and if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there thy hand will grip me and thy right hand will lay hold of me." God is immediately accessible wherever you are.

Now the Bible says to draw near to God. How can you draw near to God if there is no point closer to God than any other point? When it talks about drawing near to God, it is speaking of your experience, not your position. I have had the privilege of being married to Dottie for twenty-nine years, and I am still learning things about Dottie. We are being drawn closer together, not physically in position, but emotionally in experience. When God says to draw near to God, He's not saying get closer physically in position but rather emotionally in your experience.

Then the Bible says that God is omniscient, meaning "He knows it." Psalms 139 says, "Oh Lord, thou has searched me and known me. Thou doth know when I sit down and when I rise up. Thou doth understand my thoughts from afar and thou doesth scrutinize my path and my lying down and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Thou have enclosed me behind and before and laid thy hand upon me, such knowledge is too wonderful for me." He knows every thought. God is just not the God of reality, He's a God of all possibilities.

My whole life centered around law school. I had a full scholarship, but I wasn't quite sure that was God's ultimate desire for me. Because of knowing that HeÔÇÿs omniscient it helped me to make that decision. I said, "God here is my life, my future mate, my future profession. Here's everything to my future." What helped make that decision so much easier is that I knew God knew all of the possibilities of my life and because He loved me, He chose the best.

I don't have any fear of any skeleton coming crashing out of the closet in my relationship with God. If there is any skeleton there my wife wouldn't know, God knows it. He's acquainted with all of the intimacies of my life. Because "He knows it", I have no fear that there is some unknown weakness in my life that is going to destroy my relationship with God or Him ever using me. He knows all the weaknesses and He still loves me and uses me.

Then God is immutable. He never changes. Malachi 3:6 says, "I am the Lord. I change not." His power can never diminish nor His glory ever fade. He will always be the same. This encourages me to pray, not thinking, "Today He might hear my prayers, tomorrow He won't." He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. I know every day He will hear my prayers if I come in purity and faith before Him. I do not have to worry if I am going to find God in a receptive mood or not. He never changes.

As human beings, we project our earthly relationships upon our Heavenly Father over scriptural truth. My relationship with my father, the town alcoholic, his physical abuse of my mother, his verbal abuse of me and the other kids, so implanted a negative image of a father that when people would talk to me about their Heavenly Father, I couldn't grasp it. With many people today, the number one barrier to coming to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord is the image of their earthly father. Because Like God said, you look at me altogether as you look at yourselves. And so one of my prayers is that as we go through who God is, He may be your father, but He's not your old man. He is totally different than our earthly father.