Attributes of God - Morally Perfect

God is all-powerful. God is all-knowing. 

This would be extremely bad news if he wasn't also good. 

The Bible makes God's love and compassion abundantly clear. 1 Chronicles 16:34 says, "Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!" And Psalm 33:4 reiterates this by saying, "For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness."

Why is this so important? 

 

If God wasn't perfect:

Imagine something with me for a minute. Imagine a god that is omnipotent, and that knows every single one of your thoughts. Imagine a god that is in total control of your life. 

Then imagine that that god also doesn't care about what happens to you in the slightest. 

Or worse: he not only doesn't care, but he actually isn't admirable. He's petty, envious, and selfish. He doesn't keep his promises. And he kind of dislikes you.

Wouldn't you get a little worried? 

I know I would. Because the god I just described wouldn't think of my life as important at all. He'd view me as expendable, and I'd have to work so hard just to keep myself on his good side. 

If God wasn't loving and holy, then he'd be our enemy. 

The God of the Bible is unique in his love for his people, so we've got several examples of what a god without these qualities would be like. A popular example is the gods of Ancient Greece, primarily their king: Zeus. 

Zeus had a wife, Hera. Together, they were the king and queen of the gods, and they ruled happily, full of benevolence towards their subjects and love for one another.

Right? 

Not even close. Zeus was a horrible husband and a horrible father. He married Hera, true, but he acted as a paragon of unfaithfulness towards her. There are dozens—probably hundreds—of tales of his "romances," and they all paint a picture of a man driven by his passions who has extremely little self-control. 

Even when he had a child with his wife, he was cruel and unreasonable. The child, Hephaestus, was born deformed, with a twisted leg and an ugly face—so Zeus grabbed him and threw him off of Mount Olympus. He was rescued by Dionysus, but was greatly injured by the fall. 

Is this someone we can look up to? 

Absolutely not. Zeus is unfaithful and cruel, and not moral at all. 

Our God isn't like that. 

Our God is good.

 

God is holy.

God has never sinned. 

Never, not once. His nature is incompatible with sin—he is holy. 

So holy, in fact, that when the angels in Isaiah 6:3 speak of him, they have to say it three times: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!"

What is holiness? The word itself means "set apart," and God is more than just holy. He's holy three times over. His nature is not like ours: his nature is perfect.

And God's holy nature means that he won't tolerate sin. He is perfectly righteous, and cannot allow sin to go unpunished.

This is starting to sound worrying. When I'm honest with myself, I see how unrighteous I am. I see that I'm a sinner, and that I can't measure up to God's righteous standards.

Why, then, would it be good news to assert that God is holy?

 

God is love.

Well, because even though we're not perfect, God still loves us. That's the second aspect of his perfect nature: God is loving.

Because we're sinners, God is completely justified in condemning us for eternity. We are at odds with his commands. He doesn't owe us anything.

But God is merciful.

And he loves us like his own children.

The first verse of Psalm 23 says, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." A good Shepherd loves his sheep, and provides for them—exactly what we see the Lord doing in Psalm 23. I shall not want.

God's generosity is reiterated in James 1:17: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights."

God is generous God. He gives good gifts, even though we're sinners—why? Why would he do this, if he didn't love us?

Of course, the biggest gift of all was what reconciled his holiness with our sin. 

Our sin needed to be punished. God is holy, and he can't overlook our un-holiness.

But the price would be eternal condemnation. We would go to Hell forever, and God wanted to save us from that.

So he sent Jesus to take the penalty. Jesus lived a perfect life, holy just like his father, and was killed because of our sin.

God is righteous and loving. And he is good.

 

God is all powerful, all knowing, and perfect. And yet he still loves us.

We're tiny! We're not powerful at all, we're about is ignorant anyone can possibly be, and we sin every day. Every hour. Probably every minute.

Salvation is amazing to think about. Here I am, a sinner who ignored God for years and years of her life. I didn't care about him at all.

I was dead. But he cared about me enough to make me alive.

I hope that you can say the same. If you're a Christian, you are living evidence of a miracle. God gave you a new heart, and now you want to be righteous just like him.

We still mess up. We're still horrible people. I'm still a horrible person.

But I'm clinging every day to the promise that Jesus took my punishment. And someday, I'll go to live with him, and I'll be perfect like my Father.

Isn't God good?