What is God like?

How many millions down through the ages have asked this question?

What is God like?

Men heard the thunder roll and crackle.

The heavens shook.

Violent winds tore through the earth and uprooted trees. In the awesome hours of terrible storms men have wondered, what is God like?

Is He wrathful like the cruel storm?

Is He angry and vengeful like the roaring seas and the pounding surf?

Men have looked up toward an endless space, up at the white hot sun, up at the countless stars.

Who made it all?

How can you know Him?

Others have listened closely to those who claim to represent the Almighty. They have heard words which sound so small, precepts and principles which appear too shallow to come from the mind of the Creator of all things.

Men have stared into the eyes of the legalists, the eyes squinting with bigotry and self-righteousness, the eyes hostilely condemning others for evils and wrong doings, and listened carefully as they spoke about a God who was concerned about a thousand petty scruples, but apparently unconcerned about a million heartaches and burdened souls.

Men heard the hypocrites and the professional religionists, and walked away, stirred down inside, actually angered, knowing in their heart of hearts, "No! This is not God. This is a misrepresentation! God must be too magnanimous to be this narrow, small and absorbed with pettiness."

So the question remains . . . "what is God really like?"

Men sought Him in their reasoning, attempted to define Him in their philosophies, but the very word "God" is so abstract, so difficult to define . . . who can know Him, say nothing of love Him?

Is He vicious like the snarling hurricane that leaves men homeless in its wake? Is He cruel and heartless like the lightning bolt that strikes from the blue to leave a smoking corpse on the ground? Is He unmovable like the mountains of granite? Is He as cold as the blue-white icebergs? Is He as unfathomable and mysterious as the deepest sea? Is He as distant as the farthest star? Is He as difficult to discover as the source of the wind? Is He harder to touch and keep as a warm breeze?

Oh! What is God really like?

God answered that question in a way only God could devise.

The answer began in the incarnation.

God Himself took on the body of a man and everything that Man did said, "Look! This is what God is like."

It begins in the Christmas story, a virgin bearing a son.

God is not bound by human limitations; with Him nothing shall be impossible.

The Holy Spirit came upon a Jewish maiden. Conception took place in her womb . . . a Son was born, God manifest in the flesh.

Communication is so difficult at times. We cannot explain to a man something he has never seen. It is almost impossible for him to truly envision what you are saying. If you saw an animal that he had never seen, and you tried to describe it . . . no matter how eloquent you were, it's very doubtful that your description would place the proper picture of this animal in his mind.

Concepts of God are infinitely more difficult to communicate because God is a Spirit.

He is not like men.

He is not anything natural to us.

If you wanted that man to really know what the animal you saw was like, you would have to show it to him and say, "There, now you know what it is like."

So . . . God revealed Himself in Jesus.

He points at Jesus and says, "I am like that."

Jesus said, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father."

Jesus came and demonstrated God.

One translation says, "He brought God out where He could be seen."

Jesus made God tangible, understandable.

For centuries men cried from their hearts, "Oh, what is God like?"

Then Jesus came . . . walked, talked, lived and died before men . . . here is what God is like!

If you want to know, look at Jesus, the incarnate.

"The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).

"All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made" (John 1:3).

Look to Jesus Christ.

Behold Him and understand the nature of God.

When the time arrived for His earthly ministry, Jesus of Nazareth came out from the wilderness where He had been for forty days and forty nights.

This was the time for expelling shadows; a time for the brilliant light to shine and shine; a time for the righting of confusion; a time for bringing things into focus.

Jesus walked into a synagogue in Nazareth and stood up to read from the Scripture. The men of that day knew the Scriptures, but in the writings on those parchment scrolls, they had seen a God of relentless, unbending legalism. They saw a God so distant and unapproachable, dwelling high on a fiery mountain. No one was allowed to come near, only a very few especially chosen, only the very religious could communicate with this Being. They saw in those parchment scrolls a God who seemed only interested in the religious activities of men, who only related to men through ceremonies on special days.

Then Jesus came.

Jesus opened the scrolls to show men something else, to show men the true nature of God.

He read, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised" (Luke 4:18).

The Bible says when Jesus closed the book that "the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on Him" (Luke 4:20).

They were amazed, stirred to the very depths of their being.

They had just had a revelation of the real nature of God.

For years there had been a secret, silent question in the hearts of these people.

What is God really like?

Jesus came and said He is a deliverer.

He is a comforter, a healer.

He cares about the people on the very bottom levels of life.

He sends His word of promise and hope to the poor, to the forgotten people . . . the people brushed aside and all but left in the wake of life, the heartsick people, the lonely people, the tormented and driven people.

Men looked within themselves and saw evil . . . clouds of hate and wickedness. They looked in the Scriptures and saw a high and holy God, a vengeful God and they despaired. They said, "Oh, what hope is there for me?"

Men were weak. They fell victims to their lusts, their greed. They were made captive by their sins, brokenhearted by their shame and guilt, bruised by their own self condemnation and failure. They beat upon their breasts and wept at their unworthiness.

Then Jesus came with the Gospel.

God loves you. Be of good cheer, God forgives you.

God will soothe your heart with pardon.

He will liberate you with His grace.

This is what God is like.

He is merciful.

He has compassion.

He understands.

A religious man thought he knew God. He was standing beside Jesus when a very sinful woman came and wept at the feet of Christ. She was sorry for her sins. She wanted a new life, a new start.

The religious man had his judgmental self-righteous thoughts, inspired by his untrue concept of God. He thought, "If Jesus knew about this woman's past, He would not let her get near Him."

At that moment he was afar from God but she was very close to the very heart of God.

He never realized that, and his counterparts today don't realize it either.

The religious man thought, "God would rebuke that woman. He would give her a tongue lashing about her past. He would tell her how wrong she had been; that she was only suffering the just reward of her evil past life, guilt and shame."

That was the religious man's idea of God.

Jesus gently spoke.

"Your sins are forgiven you."

And in the light of love aglow from that woman's face, you could see the message shine, "This is what God is like."

Men picked up stones to throw at a woman caught in adultery. They said to Jesus, "The law says stone her!"

Jesus said, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her" (John 8:7).

They walked away.

The woman was forgiven.

This is what God is like.

He did not call you and me to throw verbal stones at those who fail in His laws.

He did not call us to enact punishment or pass judgments.

Hear me!

If you have never sinned, then pass judgments, but if you have ever sinned, then be just and show mercy because God has shown mercy to you.

This is what God is like.

There was a great emphasis on religious activities, traditions and doctrines; but Jesus came and put the emphasis in the right place.

"Forgive!" Because this is what God is like.

He said, "Love the Lord thy God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27).

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (Luke 6:31).

"Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you" (Mat. 5:44).

I receive so much mail full of doctrines that men want me to read and teach, but we would all be so much better off if we would put all of our effort and time to practicing the doctrines that Jesus gave us when He came to set the record straight.

Throw aside all pretense religiosity and show men what God is really like and what He desires from people . . . the simple works of love, the real matters of life, the heart matters.

What is God like?

See Jesus listening to the cries of a blind beggar, being moved by the tears of a distraught mother who had a tormented daughter, feeding hungry people with a miracle, sending an insane, driven man back home to his family well and in his right mind.

See Jesus involved with the multitudes, blessing the children, healing the leper, touching the afflicted with a healing hand.

See the compassion in His eyes, the way He stood against the pain, against the guilt and the poverty and other things that destroy men.

He was against all that consumes men; all that burdens their hearts, tortures their bodies, distorts their minds, breaks up their homes and robs them of a full life.

Jesus was, and is, against these things.

What is God like?

This is what He is like!

"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10).

Now I want you to look at an execution.

See a man spiked to a wooden cross.

His hands are nailed and bleeding, His feet spurting blood.

His face is marred.

Thorns press into His head.

He is being mocked and jeered, murdered by those He came to save.

Now listen!

His voice rings out!

His voice rings out high above the cursing, clear above the torments.

His voice rings out, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34).

What is God like?

You see a revelation of His nature there on the cross.

He cares!

He wants men to live forever in heaven.

God's heart is exposed in John 3:16.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

He has come to men. He lived as a man, and He gave His life for the sins of men.

Christ is against sin.

It destroys men and keeps them separated from God. The wages of sin is death.

But Christ Himself paid the penalty so that the demands of justice might be met.

What is God like?

This is what He is like . . . loving, kind, full of grace and mercy; very, very concerned about all men, concerned about you.

He wants you to come to Him.

The call is out, it's out to you.

He will give you pardon.

He will give you eternal life.

Turn to Him today, then grow in the knowledge of God.

Do this by reading the words of Jesus.

Read the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

As you do this, divine light will daily flood your soul.

You will know what God is like!