In this Chapter I want to be clear about who God is. Now there is so much to who God is and many things we don't know and probably wont until we reach heaven but for now I want to go over the most important things about God.
A Triune God:
We'll beginning with discussing one of the most fundamental Christian beliefs about the character and nature of God. God is a triune being, He is the only triune being. This is something very special about God. So we want to be able to grasp what this means. The Trinity is a hard to understand concept, for man. Because it goes beyond our thinking. We don't completely understand how it works and the Bible doesn't really tell us. It is one of the mystery's God has kept within Himself. But we do know what the Trinity is. The Trinity is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. Three persons in one God. These three persons are equal in power and substance yet are three different persons in one God. Now we need to make sure we understand that the Trinity is not God appearing in three different forms but rather the trinity is God existing eternal in three separate persons. We see from the beginning of Genesis when God creates man He says, "Let Us make man in our own image."(Genesis 1:26-27) It portrays it almost like God is having a conversation with Himself. But He is speaking amongst the Trinity. The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit are communicating with one another form the very beginning. The Bible makes it clear in John 1:1 that Jesus Christ was in the beginning with God and that He was God. He is one of the three persons of the Trinity. And we see in Genesis 1:2-3, that the Spirit was also in the Beginning alongside the Father and The Son. So what does that mean? It means the Jesus Christ is not a created being. He is God.
A Holy Standard:
Not only is God a Triune being but He is the standard of morality, truth, and righteousness. And even from the very beginning with the creation of man God set up a moral standard which was ultimately obey and receive the blessing, or disobey and receive the curse which is death. God's moral standard is full obedience to Him which man has failed to do over and over. For Adam this standard was brought forth in the command given to him not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God warned Adam that if he took of the fruit he would surely die. Adam failed to match this Holy Standard. The next Holy Standard given was in the Law of Moses in Exodus 20. In this chapter God gives us the Moral Code by which He commands all men to live by. And in Romans 2, Paul makes clear that God has also written this Moral Code upon the hearts of men. This Law is given within Ten Commands which are a summery of the moral law, which can be summed up in this way, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.
The Ten Commandments: (Exodus 20:1-17)
And God spoke all these words, saying:
"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
"You shall have no other gods before Me.
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
"You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
"You shall not murder.
"You shall not commit adultery.
"You shall not steal.
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's."
A Holy and Just God:
You may wonder why I placed the Moral Law above here. Because before we can understand God Holiness and Justice we must understand the standard by which He judges.
So now, we'll discuss Justice.
Justice gives the idea of fair treatment and getting what is deserved whether that be a reward or a punishment. So when we speak of God's justice we speak of Him always given what is deserved by His standard not by man's because He is the Almighty God. There is no authority higher than His. So God is just, this means that He will and must punish all sin. There is no sin that will not be punished by God. God will judge the living and the dead each one according to their works. So if every man is guilty of breaking even one command of God, God will punish that sin. His wrath must be satisficed.
Holiness is the idea of separateness. God is not like anything else in all of creation. There is no one whom He can be likened to. He is the only one deserving of worship and glory. God is not like men that He should lie. He is the only morally perfect being in all the world. He is the moral standard itself.
A Merciful and Gracious God:
God is merciful. That is truly the only reason we are all still alive. God is gracious. This is truly the only reason we find hope in Jesus Christ who satisficed the wrath of God on our behalf. That if we would repent of sin and put our faith in Him alone we would have eternal life and our sins would be forgiven. Some may think that God can't be both Just in the way I said above and gracious and merciful. Well here's the thing if there is no such thing as justice, how can one be merciful? If there is no standard for justice there is no way one can be merciful.
Mercy is the act of not giving someone the punishment they deserve. And grace is the act of giving a gift that is undeserved. That is what God did through Jesus Christ. He had mercy by giving the gift of eternal life and punishing Christ in our place. You see if we don't understand the depth of God's wrath against sin and His justice we will never come to a full realization of what Christ did for us. He took the full wrath of God upon Himself that we might be saved from an eternity in Hell. (Romans 5:8) (Romans 6:23)
A Loving God:
"God demonstrated His love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8) God is love. One of the things people love to focus on. Everyone loves a loving God, as long as He's not just. As long as He doesn't hate sin. The moment you say anything about God's justice against sin, well, people get angry. God is indeed a God of Love. But to be a God of love there must be a contras. Something that God hates. That is sin. God hates sin, God hates all the workers of iniquity. (Psalms 5:5) That is why the love of God is so amazing. There is indeed a way in which God hates the sinner because He is holy and cannot be in presence of sin. And man because of sin is completely and utter stained by it. But we must understand when we use the word hate in English we usually are referring to an unjust hatred. A hatred against someone that is not just. But God's hatred is a just hatred against sin. But even in His hate toward Sin and the sinner, God sent Christ. Who became sin that we might become the righteousness of God. ( 2 Corinthians 5:21) That is the act of love given to us by God. That was how God loved us. By giving us Christ. By punishing Him in our place and offering eternal life if we would repent and believe. But apart from repentance and faith all that is left for the sinner is the wrath of a holy and just God. And I'll be clear, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of Almighty God.
I hope this all made sense and that you have a better understanding of who God is and that you will fear God for it is the beginning of knowledge, and that you will love God because He loved you first.
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What F.O.R.C.E Believes
Non-FictionWe as F.O.R.C.E want to make sure you have a clear understanding of what we believe so it makes sense that we would write this book first. This short book will go through some of the fundamental things we believe as Christians\Follower's of the Way.
