Do you believe in God? According to a recent Gallup poll, 81% of Americans say they do. The better question is, what is it they claim to believe? Or simply, “What is God?” In another poll, Gallup found that 29% of Americans believe the Bible is a collection of “fables, legends, history and moral precepts recorded by man.” That means there is at least some overlap between those who say they believe in God and those who do not believe the Bible to be God’s Word.
So, who or what is this God in whom they say they believe? Before asking someone if they believe in God, we should first define who or what God is. It is a given that followers of Christ believe in God. After all, Jesus is God and God is Jesus (John 10:30; John 14:10; John 17:10-11). That is who God is.
To dive deeper into the question of who or what is God, we must define His character. We know God does not lie, and He does not change (1 Samuel 15:29; Hebrews 6:17-18). He is not prone to fleeting ideas and desires. God is sovereign over all eternity and has always had a plan to save humanity. Being sovereign means He has all the power and all the control. Nothing escapes His notice (Matthew 10:29-30). Nothing is too difficult for Him to accomplish (Jeremiah 32:17).
God is the source of all wisdom and truth. We would have no sense of right and wrong apart from Him. He is the moral standard to which all must adhere. His Word clearly reveals the morality inherent within Him and that He expects from His creation. Understand if you reject His morality, you reject Christ. It doesn’t matter what you prefer or how you feel, you don’t get to define the standards of morality. Only God is holy, so only He has the authority to determine right and wrong, good and evil.
To believe in God goes deeper than defining who or what He is. To believe in God means you must accept His Word as truth. You must accept it from beginning to end. This means you cannot believe in God and reject Jesus as your Lord and Savior. They are not mutually exclusive. To believe in one is to believe in the other. Without Christ, the God you believe in is an imitation, a product of your imagination.
What is God? He is the Creator, Ruler, and Lord of everything and every person on earth. There is nothing made that He did not make (John 1:1-3). There is no one who can escape calling Him Lord (Isaiah 45:22-23; Philippians 2:9-11). Our God, the only true God, is beyond description and beyond compare. He is, in a word, awesome. Beyond His magnificence, He is also the epitome of love, mercy, grace, and compassion. He is beyond comprehension, yet He desires to know you and to be known by you. What a privilege. What an honor. God is love. God is just. He is everything good and every knee will bow before Him. He is worthy of our praise and our life. This is our God. This is who He is.