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Knowing God
an original group study series
The Character of God, Part 1 Knowing God An Introduction to Parts 1 and 2
Welcome to our two-part Character of God Connect Studies! Most of the attributes of God can be grouped into two categories: good and great. The GOOD aspects of God’s character are attributes that all of humanity are able to exemplify in some ways because we are all made in the image of God, our Creator. Not one of us could ever be good to the level of God’s goodness. But, in various ways, it is possible to see the goodness of God in humans. And those who carry the name of Christ-follower, those who are redeemed by the sacrifice of Jesus and filled by the Holy Spirit, are truly able to demonstrate attributes that are good.
Then there are the GREAT attributes. These are the characteristics of God that involve His transcendence (being above and beyond all else). No matter how loving, patient, and good we might be in any given moment, we will never demonstrate the GREAT attributes that are ascribed only to God. We cannot speak anything into existence. We cannot know tomorrow. Our power is incredibly limited.
In Part 1, we will focus on the GOOD attributes of God. Part 2 will deal with the GREAT attributes of God. Consider this — our ability to trust God increases as our relationship with God grows. We need to know God better in order to trust him more so trust is an individual and personal thing. For it to last, our trust has to be based on truth so trust is a right-thinking thing. Trust is not sustainable if that trust is only academic so trust is a transformational thing. And it all comes to nothing without intimacy with God so trust is a relational thing. In summary — we each need a trust in God that is based upon truth which is both transformational and relational.
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The Character of God, Part 1:
“Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together!”
Psalm 34:3 ESV
”Magnify” … Does it seem odd that a little-human would want to make the big-God look big? He IS big! So why would we need to magnify him? The answer is found in correcting our thoughts on scopes. Think telescope, not microscope. A microscope makes something small that is close seem bigger than it actually is while a telescope makes something big that is far away seem closer to us and closer to its actual size.
The sun is our closest star. It’s not very big compared to other, more distant, stars. Yet those stars seem much smaller than our sun and some of them are actually invisible to our eyes. The problem with our point of view is our inability to see. So, a telescope “gets us closer” as it makes our view of the sun closer to its true size. The reason we are invited to magnify God is not that He is small; it is because we lack perspective and proximity. As we adjust our perspective and our proximity by studying the character of God, together, we are reminded of this humbling reality — God is big and we are little so we NEED to magnify him.
