Know Seek Worship: The Study of the Character of God

DAVID B. VIRTS

Know Seek Worship

Copyright © 2022 by David B. Virts

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN

978-1-959365-19-8 (Paperback)

978-1-959365-20-4 (eBook)

978-1-959365-18-1 (Hardcover)

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my Lord Jesus Christ, to whom I owe everything.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my wife, Shirley, for her encouragement and help getting this book written and patiently teaching me much about the computer (I also got computer help from my daughter, Katrina). Also, I would like to thank my former pastor, Paul Meyer, and my current teacher, Terry Frala for going over the book theologically and helping me smooth out the rough spots.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

Prologue

Chapter 1 Man’s Basic Questions Answered

Chapter 2 Why Study God?

Chapter 3 Love: Undeserved and Overwhelming

Chapter 4 God’s Power: Massive and Available

Chapter 5 Truth: Man’s Rock of Gibraltar

Chapter 6 Judge/Judgment: Devastating and Coming Soon

Chapter 7 Access: Open and Available

Chapter 8 Presence: Everywhere and Close By

Chapter 9 Righteous: High Standard but Available to All

Chapter 10 Wisdom: Only One True Source

Chapter 11 Incomprehensible: Worth the Effort?

Chapter 12 Holy: God Is Holy, but Me Holy?

Conclusion

Afterword

Appendix 1 Charts for Further Study

Appendix 2 List of the Character Qualities and Word Descriptions of God

Appendix 3 Alternate List of the Character Qualities of God

Appendix 4 Verses That Mention Each Character Quality of God Used in this Book

Epilogue

Preface

One day as this author was meditating and praying a thought from God came to him: Do you know as much about God as you should? Or, would you like to know much more about God? I had heard and studied a lot about God throughout the years, but I did need to know Him much better.

Thoughts like that became the genesis of the idea to do a study on the character of God from the attributes, character qualities, and word descriptions used in the Scriptures about God. I started by going to The New Nave’s Topical Bible and began looking up the various words that were used to describe God throughout the Scriptures. Then I began to think of a title for the book when these thoughts came to me: #1, it is first necessary to come to know God: this happens when a person is born again, saved, converted, or experiences salvation (or one of the other descriptions of the 20+ things that happen to a person at salvation); #2, then, once a person comes to know God, it is the desire of his heart to seek God and to know Him far better; and, finally, #3, it is then that the person can worship God as Jesus said, in Spirit and in truth. And thus this book came into being to educate people what the Scriptures say about God, and to motivate them to end up worshipping Him.

Introduction

Every serious student of the Bible has some study helps that have been developed down through the years by Bible Scholars. We do—in this day and age—stand on the shoulders of giants who have spent years studying the Scriptures and chronicling what they have learned and pass it down to us.

In this study I used The New Nave’s Topical Bible as my primary reference. I first copied down all the references listed (and, in some cases, used cross references) to get as complete a list as possible of each attribute, character quality of God, or word description of Him. Over 50 words were chronicled from which we get a good picture of God from our perspective here on earth.

To complete the study, the author first carefully wrote down each verse; then a personal paraphrase of the verse was written to try to capture what the original author was communicating; next a two word summary (called a handle) was written for each verse; and finally, a prayer of worship to God was recorded.

Finally, a series of questions were asked: #1, what other character qualities of God are listed together, and why are they listed together? #2, how does each character quality of God touch the life of believers? #3, and how can the believer, through each character quality, come to know, seek, and worship God more fully?

Prologue

Genesis 1:1: In the beginning God . . .

Isaiah 40:26: Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.

Know

Why a book on the character of God?

Throughout the Bible every major Bible character and each writer passed on to us what they knew and had learned about the God they worshipped. Many met with God, heard His voice speaking from heaven, and some were taken up in the spirit and in visions and dreams and saw God. Each passed on to us a wealth of information about the God we can’t see yet we worship.

The key thing is this: one could describe God in hundreds of thousands of words and barely get started describing Him, but God has chosen to describe Himself to us in more than fifty different word descriptions (or character qualities) passed on to us in a collection of writings we now call the Bible. In it God has chosen to reveal Himself to us primarily using a series of those word descriptions. These word pictures tell us a little more about the God we serve. Each word is full of meaning; each is incomplete in itself, but each word helps describe to us a little more about our great God. To complete the picture, two thousand years ago God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ and called Him the Word. So to get a clearer picture of who God is, we can and must look intently at the person and life of Jesus Christ, and in doing so much about God is clarified and amplified. Until we see Him face-to-face, word pictures reveal some of God’s magnificence, glory, splendor, awesomeness, and greatness. As we look intently at these word pictures and the person of Jesus Christ, we see and know God better.

Since this is the way God chose to unveil Himself to men, we must look at each word description of God, as our forefathers through the centuries have done. They searched for more and more meaning and understanding about who He is, what He is like, and especially how He chose to reveal Himself to man. Many books have been written trying to describe God by looking through those words He left behind for us to ponder. As the church age nears its end, many people have had a growing desire to search the Scriptures and discover more about God. When this era is over, and when our lives are over, we will enter His presence to worship Him as He unveils Himself to us, and this unveiling of Himself will last for all of eternity. Could it be that the church senses its time on earth is nearly over and that we are tuning up for the great forever concert of worshipping the God we have come to love and worship?

One day as I was thinking and praying, a question came to me from God: "Do you know much about Me, or do you just think you know Me well? Wouldn’t you like to get to know Me better? I then set out on a mission to know Him better and to bridge the gap between the infinite God and the fact that I am finite. I realized that many people think the way to know God better is to look at nature and the world He has made. That is a good place to start, and in Psalm 19 we are told that God’s voice is booming down to us through the universe around us, beckoning us to look up" and know Him. But, as we study science and nature, we still come up far short. We can determine that God is powerful, creative, and full of wisdom and understanding far beyond human comprehension. This is a good place to start, but it falls short of giving us an idea of the vastness of who God has revealed Himself to be.

Being a student of the Bible, I knew it introduces God to us as the Word (John 1:1). It further tells us that the universe was created by the word of God, Hebrews 11:3. This explains that God spoke this world into existence! Not only is that a powerful force, one that totally escapes man, but it also gives us a clue as to how we can know Him. God has chosen to reveal Himself to man in depth and detail using words. Many times in the Bible (and especially in the Old Testament), it says, And the LORD said . . . or, Thus saith the LORD . . . The greatest outpouring of information about God—especially as He intended to communicate to man—is through the Word, which John in his Gospel identifies to us as Jesus Christ Himself. Hebrews 1 tells us that God spoke in time past through the prophets but now in these last days has spoken unto us by his Son. The point here is this: God has chosen to use words primarily to reveal to man much about Himself, so we will look at a number of words that define and explain to us a little more about the awesome God we serve.

When God put the challenge before me, I began to use topical Bibles and concordances and looked up all the words I could find in the Bible that described each character quality of God. I listed the reference for each word. Many words and thoughts about God are duplicated many times, but each one emphasizes a little more about God and His character. For example, when doing this Bible study, a student would look up the word love or power or knowledge of God in a concordance or reference book and find all the verses in the Bible that use that particular word (I mainly used Nave’s Topical Bible, but Wilmington’s Book of Bible Lists would also be helpful). After compiling a list of the references, the student would take each verse and do a brief study on it.

Here is a sample of how it can be done: let’s take for example God’s power. In the charts at the end of this book is a list of many of the verses used to find out information about God’s power. One of the verses is Isaiah 40:26. This first thing to do is write out the verse. Here is the verse rewritten in paraphrase form: Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.

Next, paraphrase the verse. In a paraphrase you need to do several things: first, rewrite the verse in your own words. Develop your own style of writing. If you are good at writing in rhythm or in verses of poetry, use that. Second, try to get all of the content of the verse included in the paraphrase, and whenever it is possible, put the words in the first person. The words I, me, and my make the verse personal to the writer.

Here is a paraphrase of this verse: Look up far above everything in this world and see the God who created all of these things. He has each of the stars in His creation counted—and He calls each by name! He does this because He has unlimited power and ability. He knows where each one is, and not one of them is missing.

Next, look carefully at the verse; do you notice any other character quality of God mentioned? Here God’s infinite knowledge (known as His omniscience) is brought alongside His power. The verse goes on to call it the greatness of His might and the strength of His power. This again emphasizes how much power God has. It is not adequately described simply as power; it uses a number of words to demonstrate how much power He has. Also notice that His power is called great. Writers of Scripture struggled to express to us how powerful God is, so they often used the words great power. We today would say His power is immense or massive. His power is far beyond our comprehension.

In the paraphrase, one has to look at the who, what, when, why, and where of each verse and discover its meaning and content, and as you rewrite it, let it become yours. The next thing in your study is to give each verse a one- or two-word handle. The handle encapsulates the content of the verse and makes it easier to memorize and keep in mind for future use.

Finally, write out a prayer of application for the verse. Make the prayer personal as you pour out to God what you have discovered from the verse. When you are done with that, then the ultimate suggestion is to meditate on the verse. Take five or ten minutes to chew the verse over in your mind (which is a description of how to meditate). When you meditate on a verse or passage of Scripture, you are firmly putting it in your mind, which makes it easier to memorize.

Here are several other things to look for in the study: discover examples of His power in the various stories of the Bible; look for word pictures of His power in action (such as the east wind blowing and parting the Red Sea for the Israelites and drying it up so they could pass over); look up definitions of words you don’t understand; ask questions about each verse—for example: why did the writer say it that way, or what did he mean by that phrase?

After looking up all the verses on a given character quality, write a summary. After God laid it on my heart to complete the study, I spent fifteen and a half years going over the various character qualities and descriptions of God and summarizing them. In the summary one would chronicle all the other qualities of God mentioned in conjunction with the one study (in our example, power), listing the insights given by a number of verses that point to one specific truth, and make a chart of each quality and how it relates to your life personally. In our example a chart could be made up that chronicled all the things God did for His children that demonstrated His awesome power.

Here is a brief list of the tools available to all believers:

1. Jesus told us that when the Holy Spirit came and lived in each believer, one of His jobs was to lead us into all truth (John 16:13). So we must pause and ask Him to reveal to us the truth of the passage we are studying.

2. Learn to paraphrase and personalize the Scripture. In the paraphrase you try to express in your own words what you believe a particular verse is saying, and in the personalization, you put it in the first person—make it yours! For example: God created me in His image—that is, in many ways He created me like Himself.

3. Let the Scriptures define each character quality. Our definitions of God’s character qualities are far short of a good clear biblical definition.

4. Always pray and ask the Spirit for guidance. Make this a prayer each time you approach the Scriptures.

5. Use the many helps available, including study Bibles, maps, concordances, lexicons, cross references, Bible dictionaries, topical Bibles, etc. (Many of these are available online.)

6. Commit yourself to a set time of study each day. Make it the same time of day, if