We need to take God seriously. God has many attributes. If we ignore any of them by over-emphasizing one or a few, we diminish God and do so to our peril.
For example, if we over-emphasize God’s justice, we think of God as a terrible overlord looking for any and every opportunity to smack us down and make our lives miserable because of how we (or our society) has sinned and displeased Him. Life becomes a search for any series of rituals, actions, or sacrifices we can perform to appease Him while trembling in terror that we will find future ways of displeasing Him as well.
But, if we over-emphasize His love, we think of Him as our overindulgent grandfather who didn’t really need to send Jesus because He doesn’t really get angry at our sin anyway. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross becomes unnecessary when we think of God as so tolerant of our sin that He accepts anything from us and simply excuses our sin as “cute,” unintentional, or simply immature.
While writing about all of God’s attributes would fill the internet, and that is far beyond the purpose of this statement, I will briefly address the following attributes of God:
God is personal. God desires a relationship with each and every one of us. He is not an eternal amalgamation of matter from which everything we know derives itself. He creates all that exists, all that we know or experience, from nothing without diminishing Himself. While all that exists does not together equal God, God is nonetheless present in all that exists. God creates us to enjoy Him and nature to support us.
God is immanent. God continues interacting with His creation and did not just create that which would continue in His absence without intervention. We err when we think God “spins” creation like a top and then watches as it gradually slows down. We err when we think God pulls away from His creation and only revisits it from time to time like a boy occasionally visits and plays with a pet snake while leaving it in its terrarium most other times.
Another aspect of God’s immanence is that He chooses to reveal Himself to us. Without propositional revelation, we would be left to figuring out God and “feeling” that God is whoever we need or want Him to be. There is a vast difference between “defining” God and “discovering” God. As “other,” God displays some of His attributes through creative acts while revealing some of His attributes through Scripture.
God fills life with meaning and purpose. Rather than trapping us in a “circle of life,” history has a beginning and an end. God indues each person with meaning and purpose so that their choices and actions really matter. Those who believe their lives run on a perpetual hamster wheel that allows us to grab missed opportunities on the next turn of the wheel overestimate their options and minimalize the impact of each choice. Those who believe their life has no purpose or direction, miss the original intent of God in creating them AND His desire to sustain them until the end.
TO BE CONTINUED