Posts tagged 'god's nature'

  • 1 Corinthians: Chapter 1 (verses 26-31)

    In the last six verses of 1 Corinthians 1, Paul makes the point that God has His own way of doing things.

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • Jesus—His Life and Message: John 14: The Way, …

    John chapter 14 continues in the same setting as chapter 13, where Jesus was eating a meal with His disciples. Once Judas, the betrayer, had departed and after Jesus had told the apostle Peter that he was going to deny Him ...

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • More Like Jesus: Reflections on Love

    God’s Love

    The topic of love is multifaceted, as it enters into various aspects of our lives: our relationship with God, with family, friends, neighbors, and strangers. ...

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Creed (Part 2)

    One God, the Father Almighty

    The Nicene-Constantinople creed, hereafter referred to as the creed, compresses major Christian doctrine into a relatively brief statement. In a mere six sentences ...

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Deity of Jesus (Part 4)

    The focus of much of the New Testament is the life, sacrificial death, and resurrection of Jesus, and the impact He had on humanity as its Savior. His Incarnation and sacrifice are how we are able to enter into an eternal relationship with God. ...

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Deity of Jesus (Part 2)

    The first part of this series focused on how the glory and honor given in the New Testament to Jesus is the same as that given to God the Father. We worship, pray to, love, and obey Jesus in the same way we do so in our devotion to God. ...

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • How Great Thou Art

    Maria and I are fortunate to have a view of some beautiful scenery from our living-room window. The mountains, the trees, and the verdure are uplifting to look at and often cause us to thank and praise the Lord ...

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • Unconditional Love

    When I think about how to sum up who God is in a single phrase, “unconditional love” comes to mind. Of course, God is many things and cannot be confined to one phrase or term, but as we know ...

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Stories Jesus Told: The Barren Fig Tree, …

    The parable of the barren fig tree is found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter thirteen. According to Luke, Jesus had been speaking to a large crowd. He was asked about an incident in which some people from the north of Israel were killed ...

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • Christmas Prequel

    In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, we read the story surrounding the birth of Jesus. We’re told of the angel visiting Mary; of her miraculous pregnancy; of the difficulty that Joseph, her betrothed, had when he found out she was pregnant; ...

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Stories Jesus Told: The Wheat and the …

    The parable of the wheat and the weeds, which only appears in the Gospel of Matthew, shares some similarities with the parable of the seed growing1 in Mark chapter 4 in terms of vocabulary used and ideas expressed, but it is also significantly different. ...(Video and audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • Jesus—His Life and Message: The Kingdom of God …

    As discussed in the first two articles on this subject, the kingdom of God is a present reality which will reach its fullness at the end of time. Entrance to the kingdom requires coming into a relationship with God through His Son, ...

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • Jesus—His Life and Message: The Kingdom of God …

    As noted in part one, Jesus’ miracles were an indicator that the kingdom of God had come and was present, at least in part, during His ministry. Jesus also conveyed the meaning of the kingdom of God ...

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • Jesus—His Life and Message: The Kingdom of God …

    The central theme of Jesus’ teaching throughout the Synoptic Gospels was the “kingdom of God.” Within these three Gospels, there are 76 distinct kingdom sayings and another 27 which are shared among the three. ...

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Stories Jesus Told: The Father and the …

    This third parable in Luke chapter 15 is a continuation of Jesus’response to the scribes and Pharisees’ criticism of His keeping company with sinners. He began by telling the twin parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin, ... (Video and audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • Radiant Imprints

    “He (Jesus) is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of God’s nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power." ...

    by Maria Fontaine

  • Rewards

    Throughout the Bible, there are numerous promises of the rewards that will be given to the faithful, both in this life and in the life to come. But what is the essence of these promises and what is the purpose of these rewards? ...

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Ultimate Pet Rescue Service

    God will prepare everything for our perfect happiness in heaven, and if it takes my dog being there, I believe he’ll be there.—Billy Graham

    Pets the world over act as companions, helpers, ...

    by Maria Fontaine

  • Those Dirty Shepherds

    One of my favorite pictures as a child was of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, as He carried a little lamb in one arm and His staff in the other.

    Perhaps our image of shepherds and their sheep has been formed from some ...

    by Maria Fontaine

  • The Heart of It All: Sin

    What Is Sin?

    This set of articles is going to address the topic of sin. It will cover the definitions of sin, the origins of sin and its effects on humanity and the world, and will touch on God’s plan for redemption from sin. ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • Quarks in His Glory

    Peter and I were taking a break for a few days to help us to step back a bit from a period of intense writing and TFI business, and we had gone to a beach town for a little solitude. I was taking a walk along the beach in the late afternoon ...

    by Maria Fontaine

  • The Fear of God

    I recently came across a topic that piqued my interest—the fear of God. The Bible speaks a fair bit about fearing God, and one can come away with the impression that we’re supposed to be afraid of God in the sense of being terrified ...

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Rock

    Maria and I recently returned from a trip to Switzerland for a yearly foundation board meeting as well as other TFI-related business meetings. While there, I would often look out the window at the beautiful lake and surrounding mountains, ...

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    Conclusion

    When looking at God’s nature and character, we can see that God has many attributes, and these attributes are who He is. It’s not as if God is partly righteous ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Omnipotence

    God, who created all things out of nothing, known as creation ex nihilo, is all-powerful. The traditional word for God’s infinite power is omnipotence, which comes from ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Omnipresence

    When God created the universe and the world within it, He created matter, energy, time, and space. The world we live in is a three-dimensional material world, and we are limited ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Omniscience (Part 2)

    In the previous article, God’s omniscience—including His self-knowledge; His knowledge of everything past, present, and future; and His hypothetical or middle knowledge ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Omniscience (Part 1)

    Because God is the infinite and supreme Being, His knowledge is unlimited. He knows absolutely everything. The common theological terminology ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Immutability

    The immutability of God—or His unchangeableness or constancy, as some theologians call it—is part of His divine nature. It means that God doesn’t change in His Being, ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Eternality

    God’s eternality is another aspect of His essential nature. God is eternal; He existed before the creation of the universe, and thus before time was created. ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Self-Existence—His Aseity

    The first verse of the Bible, along with others, teaches that before the creation of the heavens and the earth, God existed. ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Love

    In earlier articles I’ve written about different attributes of God, including holiness, righteousness, justice, wrath, mercy, patience, and grace. Now we move on ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Wrath

    We have seen in earlier articles in this series that God’s nature and character includes His perfect holiness, righteousness, and justice. God’s wrath, or anger, ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    Patience, Mercy, and Grace (Part 2)

    God’s mercy can be understood as God’s love and goodness toward those in misery and distress, those in need—even if they don’t deserve it. ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    Patience, Mercy, and Grace (Part 1)

    Besides being holy, righteous, and just, God is also by nature and character patient, merciful, and gracious. In the Old Testament ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Righteousness and Justice

    An attribute of God which is closely connected to His holiness is His righteousness—which means uprightness, goodness, virtue, ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Holiness

    God possesses a different mode of being than all other beings. Only He is uncreated and infinite; everything else is created and finite, so He is different from ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God Is Spirit

    In John chapter 4, when Jesus was speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, He told her: God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    The Living and Personal God

    In this series of articles, we are looking at a number of aspects of God’s nature, being, and character. We’ll start with looking at how God is alive and God is personal, ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    Overview

    In the “Trinity” section of this series, we explored the three Persons of the triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We reviewed the nature of the Trinity ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam