On Sunday I spoke at the last Sunday night devotional of the year, the last devotional that I will give as the associate minister at the Goodwood Blvd Church of Christ.  I thought for a long time about what my last devotional thought should be for this amazing group of teens.  Rather than go out with some emotional, tear jerking thought, I felt it would be better to examine the 5 most important things that these teens (and all of us) should believe concerning God and our lives. Over the course of this week we can examine these 5 truths together.

First, God is who He says that He is.  There are so many false pictures of who God is.  He is not a candy machine.  You don’t put your quarter in, turn the handle and get a reward.  He is also not a slot machine, where you put your quarter in, pull the handle and have to wait to see if He randomly gives a response.  There are lots of titles, descriptions, and pictures of God in the Bible.  Writers wiser than I have taken the time to outline all the names of God.  I simply want to look at 4:

1. Creator: Genesis1:1. The fact that God created everything around us is quite impressive.  If I am going to serve a god, I want that god to be bigger than me.  Isaiah addresses the foolish of idols by pointing out that an idol is made by human hands, rather than the other way around.  God took the time to create, and that says something about the love he has for us.  Creation takes time.  Any one who has write a song, created a piece of art, made a piece of furniture, or done any other creative act knows the investment of time required.  And the amount of time we invest in something reveals how important it is to us.

2. Lord: Joshua 3:13. he is Lord over all the earth. It makes sense, he created it all, therefore He should get to rule it.  Some people struggle with authority, I like to think that no one is over, but this simply is not the case.  The CEOs of several major corporations thought that nothing could bring them down, that they would never get caught, how wrong they were.  The thought they were the lord of their domain, but there is only one true LORD.

3. Counselor: Isaiah 9:6. I help balance the image of the Lord of Creation I think that it is important for us to know that God is some one that we can go and talk to at anytime about anything. Each of us has felt lonely, at one time or another and it is comforting to know that we can go and talk with Him.

4. Redeemer:Jeremiah 50:34.  The greatest work that God ever did for us was to redeem us through the cross of Christ.  God created man to be in perfect relationship with Him. That lasted until Adam and Eve messed it up.  Fortunately, God saw fit to restore that relationship.  God is in the process of redeeming his creation, all of it.

So there is my list of what I feel are the most important aspects of God’s nature, but what would you add to the list, what characteristic of God do you most identify with?

Tags: Bible Study, Christianity, Counselor, Creator, Lord, Names of God, Redeemer, Religion, The Nature of God