“You look like your dad.”
Have you ever heard that? That you share features with one or both of your parents or someone else in your family? It’s not uncommon for family members to resemble each other, not just in facial features but in body language, vocal intonation, or even preferred tastes. Frankly, it’s a little strange if we don’t resemble our families.
But there are more ways to resemble someone than just what we look like or the accent we use or the language we speak.
When we accept Jesus and become one of His followers, we are adopted into Jesus’ family. From that moment on, we have a special, holy opportunity: Learning how to look like God.
If God is our Heavenly Father, shouldn’t we expect to take after Him? Shouldn’t we want to resemble Him? The question is how. Sort of like Nicodemus asked in John 3, how can we go back in time and be children again? Can we reverse our years and return to the moment when we were a blank slate?
No. And that’s not what God expects from us either. To be fair, God has many attributes that we can’t copy. There are elements of who He is that are His alone, but the qualities He possesses aren’t only the eternal ones. He has many characteristics that we, as His children, should strive to incorporate into our lives.
When we do that, others around us will start to notice. They will see how we live and see our Father in us and know we belong to Him.
But how can we live like God if we don’t know Who He is? We are experiencing a major spiritual drought in our culture these days. People who say they know and love Jesus have never read His Word for themselves. Some who claim to follow God don’t truly know anything about Him.
That is what we’re going to be studying throughout the month of July: Who Is God? We’re going to study His attributes, His character, what each one mens, and why it should matter to us. And this first week, we are going to focus on the God’s attributes that belong only to Him.
Monday - God is infinite (Psalm 90:1-2)
Tuesday - God is immutable (Psalm 102:25-27)
Wednesday - God is self-sufficient (John 5:26)
Thursday - God is transcendent and immanent (Jeremiah 23:23-24)
Friday - God is Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent (Deuteronomy 10:17)
None of these attributes are qualities that humans can have. Actually, if you think about it, humans are the exact opposite of each of these. And that’s the point. These impossible qualities that are so far out of reach of humanity’s grasp are the most basic components of who God is. Because God is all of these things (and more), He is holy. Unique. Set apart. Different from anyone who has ever existed in all of Creation.
Our memory verse this week actually speaks to this truth about who God is, that He is holy and unique and one-of-a-kind. This week we are memorizing 1 Kings 8:23.
This was part of the prayer King Solomon prayed as he dedicated the temple to God. It was important then to distinguish God from all the other gods and idols that people worshiped. Not much has changed today. We are still surrounded by false gods and idols. So it’s more important than ever to make sure we know the God we say we follow.
Praying for you all this week, my friends.
Amy
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Greatly ooking forward to this@
I’m really looking forward to this week’s devotionals. God is good!