Bulletin Insert: God is a PERSONAL God (8/16/2020)

 

God is a Personal Being

What Constitutes “Personality?”

(Pastor Terry Reese, Valley GBC of Armagh)

 

Unlike the impersonal Force of pantheistic religions (e.g., Hinduism, Buddhism), the God of the Bible is a Personal Being who can genuinely say “I AM” (Ex. 3:14)—and we can know Him (John 17:3)!

 

What are the attributes of what we call Personality—those characteristics shared by God, Angels, Men—as opposed to other life-forms, such as plants & animals? While plants and animals may possess some of these various characteristics, they do not possess all of them, joined in a common center:

 

1. Life: Possessed also by Plants and Animals.                       

2. Intelligence: Animals possess, in a certain sense & degree.

3. Purpose: Exclusive to persons: “Why am I here?” Man reacts

to planned, self-purposed future goals, as though the goals were a present reality. Brute animals only react to present stimulus.

4. Activity: Present with animals, and to some extent, with plants.

5. Freedom: Exclusively personal; volunteerism. Animals cannot

rise above programmed instinct and their material environment.

6. Self-Consciousness: Fundamental & exclusive to Personality;

involves self-introspection; e.g., “I am a Man.”

7. Emotion: in the human sense, as opposed to the animal sense.

8. Spirituality: Exclusively Personal! Persons have a spirit (an

intangible, non-corporeal aspect) and are spiritual beings.

 

GOD is…

1. Living (1Tim. 4:10: “we have fixed our hope on the living God”),

2. Intelligent (Rom. 11:33: “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the

wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!”),

3. Purposive (Eph. 3:11: “the eternal purpose which He carried

out in Christ Jesus our Lord”),

4. Active (John 5:17: "My Father is working until now, and I Myself

am working."), 

5. Free (Job 23:13: “And what His soul desires, that He does.”),

6. Self-Conscious (Ex. 3:14: “I AM”),

7. Emotional (Ps. 5:5: “The boastful shall not stand before Your

eyes; You hate all who do iniquity.”),

8. Spirit (John 4:24: “God is spirit, and those who worship Him

must worship in spirit and truth.”).