Who Is God? A Devotional Journey Through Genesis and Exodus

Who is God?

A Devotional Journey Through Genesis and Exodus

Published by M.R. Hyde at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 M.R. Hyde

Other Books by M.R. Hyde

Non-Fiction

Exploring the Nicene Creed

Exploring the Lord’s Prayer

Who is Jesus? A Devotional Journey Through the Gospel of Matthew

6 Verses for Preaching: A Primer for New Preachers

Who is the Holy Spirit? A Devotional Journey Through the Book of Acts

Blog: http://thewordwwtw.blogspot.com/

Fiction

She: Stories of a Woman

Mercy and Truth: A Collection of Short Stories

Wife of Lappidoth: A Mountain Tale

Tall Pauley

Blog: http://thewordwwtw.blogspot.com/

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. The NIV and New International Version trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica. Use of either trademark requires the permission of Biblica.

How to Use this Book

This book is divided into small sections of the Genesis and Exodus designed for personal or small group interaction. It will be important for you to have a Bible with you as you read this. The English version used in this journey is the New International Version, but other versions are appropriate as well. If you would like a digital Bible at your fingertips, there are many available online and many of which now have audible formats. Find one that fits and works best for you.

Recommended uses include the following:

Personal Daily Devotional

Personal Weekly Devotional

Small Group Weekly Discussion Starters

Jesus said,

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

for they will be filled.

—Matthew 5:6

Table of Contents

Introduction Who is God?

The Creator Genesis 1-2

Creator of Free Will Genesis 3:1-13

The Merciful Genesis 4

The Prevailing God Genesis 5

God of Promises and Covenants Genesis 6-9

Sovereign Genesis 11:1-9

Lop-Sided Love Genesis 12 & 15

God of the Dumb Things We Do Genesis 12, 16 & 18

The One Who Sees Me Genesis 14 & 16

The Just Genesis 13, 14, 18-19

Confirmer of the Covenant Genesis 17

God of Fulfillment Genesis 18, 21 & 22

God of Good Marriages Genesis 24

God of Liars Genesis 25:27-34, 27, 28, 32:24-26

The Wise Guide Genesis 29-31

The Helper Genesis 32:1-21, 33:1-4

The One Who Answers Genesis 35

God of the Hated Genesis 37 & 39

God of the Principled Life Genesis 39

Strong Support Genesis 40-41

The Reconciler Genesis 42-50

Our Hero Exodus 1-4

God of Temporary Pain: Part One Exodus 4:18-7:6

God of Temporary Pain: Part Two Exodus 7-12

The One to Remember Exodus 12

God of the By-Pass Exodus 13:17-14

God of the Grumblers Exodus 15-17

God of the Fighters Exodus 16-17

God of Dysfunctional Families Exodus

God of the Nations Exodus 19

The Lawgiver Exodus 20:1-5

Worthy of Worship Exodus 20:1-6

Name Above All Names Exodus 20:7

God of the Sabbath Exodus 20:8-11

God of Honor Exodus 20:12

God of Life Exodus 20:13

Hater of Adultery Exodus 20:14

God of Trust Exodus 20:15

God of Truth-Tellers Exodus 20:16

Source of Contentment Exodus 20:17

The Back-Up Plan Exodus 32

Portable Glory Exodus 34 and 40

Bibliography

Endnotes

Introduction Who is God?

Greetings, reader! This series is designed to walk you through selected passages in the Old Testament on a quest to know God. You can also journey through Matthew to know who is Jesus is and through Acts to know of the Holy Spirit. This volume is intended to be the first of three in attempting to understand the Trinity. While the term Trinity does not show up in the Biblical text, as Christians we do believe in one God who reveals himself in three persons—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is a difficult idea logically, but an idea that is represented throughout the Bible as a whole. That is why we are wrestling with this mysterious concept through the reading and study of God’s Word. So, we begin.

The Creator Genesis 1-2

Do you believe in God? Is he a benevolent or wrathful God? Is he involved in the world or distant and uncaring? How do we know what God thinks? Can we know? Can we really discern and understand the path for our life? Can we know the will of God for ourselves, for our church, for our world? Is our life just left up to fate? Do things just happen to us without any of our own will or way being involved? Is God just a universe-sized puppet-master pulling the strings this way and that?

When we look at and try to comprehend disasters of biblical proportions, and the phenomenal amount of human life lost in massive earthquakes, fires and storms, what does that tell us about the character of God? If God is a loving God, why does he permit these kinds of disasters and things like the Black Plague, HIV/AIDS, Hitler's regime, slavery, etc? Who tells us what to believe about God? Is what we believe accurate, true or complete? How do we tell other people about God if we ourselves do not know either him or know anything about him?

Have we had enough questions yet? We are plumbing the depths of the human psyche. When things like personal loss, grave illness and human suffering stare us in the face, these kinds of questions distract our driving, wake us in the middle of the night, sometimes make us angry, depressed or cause us to live with feelings of hopelessness.

I would like to invite you along on a journey. It's a journey to try to discover some of the answers to the questions we have raised. I would like to point our inquiry to a specific direction before we start this journey.

As a Christian I believe we can know, experience and have a personal relationship with the one, true, living God. I believe we can walk in a confident faith in the God of Creation. We can have profound faith not only in God, but also in his will and his character.

I believe this because I believe God has revealed his character and his will in at least four distinct places: 1) nature, 2) experience/reason/intellect, 3) religious Christian tradition, and 4) revelation.¹ As Christians we can believe that when all four of these elements are found to be in agreement we can discern and know God himself. Let's look at these aspects of theology to get us ready for our journey.

Nature is made up of many elements: things that we can see and feel and experience, as well as things we cannot. Gravity, for instance, is the physical reality that we experience moment by moment as it sticks us like glue to the surface of this globe. We cannot see it, nor can we touch it, but it works. Trees grow without our assistance all over the world. Volcanoes erupt, earthquakes happen in the ocean, mountains tower, grass tosses a beautiful blanket over dust to keep it in place. All of these are wonderful and terrifying realities that can help us understand that a Being exists who created everything.

Some scientists have posited a theory that the world was created from a big bang—celestial bodies colliding in the blank universe—and out of that fusion came one cell of life from which all creation sprang. While I wish to respect their research and theories, I am a simple person and come to a simple question. How did such a life-giving cell arrive in the midst of the fusion? No good answer has yet arisen.

In another way of trying to comprehend the stuff of life, mythologies have been developed. Every culture has their myths of creation. We can read of the warring and capricious gods in the Roman and Greek traditions. We can read the Enuma Elish which relates stories from the ancient Middle East where gods cast magic spells and create heaven and earth from the split cadavers of their enemies. Victor Hamilton has related this: The study of mythology helps the believer to see how ancient man tried to answer ultimate questions about life and reality when the light of revelation had not dawned upon him. Interestingly, the answers provided to those questions by ancient man are not all that different from the answers provided by modern but unredeemed man.² Hamilton makes the very fine point of contrast with the Judeo-Christian view of creation and God as completely counter to many mythical accounts. The Christian understanding of God is that he did not create out of violence or jealousy, but he created out of the goodness and greatness of his nature.

Read Genesis 1-2:3

That, my friends, is the way we begin to understand not only our world and its beauty and power, but also God and his goodness.

Read Genesis 2:4-25

In chapter 2 of Genesis we read a second version of the same creation story. And what we learn from both of these is that God is a creative God, seeking to make good things from nothing. This is the general will of God which we can accept by faith. The ancient and modern persons who live without God may tell you plainly that if God exists at all, his character and will are destructive and not creative. If not, why then would a good God make bad things happen?

On our journey we want to keep our compass rightly oriented toward knowing and experiencing the personal, Judeo-Christian God. As distressing as this may seem to those of us who are really humanistic—human-centered—the personal and universal God does not always have our personal and physical comfort as his priority. There are matters at stake that far outweigh our daily comfort levels.

In Genesis chapter 3 we read how Adam and Eve went against the known will of God. They had been instructed very specifically not to eat from one tree—just one—in the Garden of Eden. That tree was to keep them from knowing good and evil. And guess what? They did it anyway. From that point forward all of humanity entered into a realm of suffering and hardship that God did not intend for his creation. God has always been straightforward about who we are—creatures not creators, workers not lazy, community not individuals—and his design was set up to work well. All of which can be learned from Genesis 1 and 2.

But when we sin there are consequences for our sins. A tactile example might be found in nature. If you run your hand against the grain on a plank of unfinished wood, you are likely to get a splinter. That principle can be translated into how we do life. If a chemical company operates out of greed and selfishness and does not care what happens to the river they dump their toxic waste into, then thousands of people may develop cancers and illnesses formerly unknown to mankind—just like Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit. These are the kinds of things that are consequences for behavior against the order and will of God.

That does not nor should not make God out to be the bad guy. We not only have the privilege and responsibility to work in concert with God's nature, but in concert with his commands as well. To bemoan the fact that you cannot afford rent when you have spent your income on alcohol does not make it God's fault. To wail about how unfair God is when you have not tried to live for him does not make a miserable life God's fault. To scream about how mean God is when you will not follow his directions doesn't make bad things God's fault. These are examples of sin—deliberate defiance of God’s will and person.

God has made it very clear through his good creation and revelation through his Word that his goodness is available to each one of us as long as we do it his way. The wonder of nature, the joy of birth, the death and restoration of nature as we see each spring, summer, winter and fall, is all evidence of God's character. He is the good God full of grace and truth.

We can experience him through these avenues and learn to follow the laws of nature by applying our intellect and reason to what we can discern. Caring for the earth and the animals properly and making sure our fellow human beings are cared for is all a part of God's will. All of this even many non-believers understand. All of this can be learned by experience and can be acquired through the proper use of the good gift of brains and intellect.

One more thing we can learn from experience and applying our intellect is that even in the darkest of human tragedies people can survive. If they cannot survive physically as the giant waves roar over them, they can survive spiritually as they cry out to the one true God of Creation. His Word promises that when we cry out to God he will hear us. Read what the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 116:1-2. I love the LORD, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live. In those desperate moments, if we are earnestly seeking him, he will gather us to himself and keep us for eternity. And those of us who are left, will always find a way to survive and recover. It's happened for centuries that the human will, which is a tiny reflection of God's will, seeks to restore the broken, rebuild the rubble and renew the burned out.

Christian tradition teaches us these things as well. Tradition keeps the reality of truth alive from one generation to the next. As a old carpenter teaches his apprentice that one does not run his hand against the grain of the wood, as a chemical engineer reminds her young staff that the consequences of our human creations are far-reaching, as a grandmother tells her grandchild that attending religious services is a good thing because you can learn about God, tradition is part of how we know God. Traditions—through ritual, repetition, story-telling, preaching, teaching and reading—convey the reality that God's will is to help us and to guide us. It is his character to be truthful and corrective with us and to show us who he is.

And in each one of these elements—nature, experience, intellect and tradition there is the plain fact that God wants us to know him. So, he gives us nature to see his handy work, he permits us to experience and to learn from our mistakes, to discover that his way really is the best, and he helps us establish traditions that bring us to the greater knowledge of his will and character corporately.

God has not left us to just feel around by experience, but he has also revealed his will and character through the written Word, passed down for centuries as the revelation of himself to us. We have used and explored his Word already to know more about him. In the pages ahead we will be exploring all of this together, using the compass of his written word, to help us to understand who God is.

Are you ready to go on this journey? Write down some of the deep questions you have about God and his will. Then pray that as you take on the stories of God with his people that you may learn from their experience, our tradition, nature and from God's revelation in Scripture how we can know God himself.

Creator of Free Will Genesis 3:1-13

How did we get into such a pickle? Whose fault is this anyway? Two questions, and many more like these, lead us to wonder at the state of the world. If God is such a good Creator, why in the world are we in such a mess? Free will—plain and simple.

His will, which is absolutely free, was employed to create us in his image. His will, which is always good, demonstrated goodness through the creation of the natural world in all of its intricacies and wonder. His will, which is always perfect, set humanity up for success. If human will is a tiny, tiny reflection of God’s will it must be somewhat powerful. Many around us will tell us that our will-power is easily overcome. But if we buy into that we buy into the same argument that was posed to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

For some reason, God created humanity with a free will. Adam and Eve could freely choose to follow God’s plan and purpose outlined in Genesis 1 and 2. It is here that we read that God purposed humanity to rule over the animals (1:26), to be fruitful, to fill the earth and subdue it (1:28), to care for the garden (2:15) and for man and woman to be suitable helpers for each other (2:20b-24). There is also an implied freedom throughout the creation story. This is the freedom of the human will to interact with, love and obey God. After all the goodness that God created Adam and Eve could have settled in for ages of pleasant and purposeful living with God. And yet . . .

Read Genesis 3:1-6

In this passage we see the reason we are in such a pickle. And we also see whose fault it is that we are in such a mess. When we stop and think about God giving us free will it really is astonishing. He created a creature that had the capacity to choose to love him and be in a living, loving relationship with him, and who could tragically turn against him.

One of the things that we as Christians believe about God is that he is all-knowing (omniscient). Psalm 139 speaks of God knowing us even before we were in our mother’s womb and seeing us when we sleep and when we are awake. So when God created us he knew that we could fall, and more tragically that we would fall away from him. And yet that did not keep him from breathing his breath into us (2:7) making us living creatures. While parts of God’s creation are all the good and wonderful animals of the earth, none of them has his breath breathed into them. None of them will turn against our Creator. This is what separates us from the animal kingdom. We have a spiritual dimension that they do not have. We are made in God’s image—full of choice and will.

Apparently the angels also have free will. Satan, who in this passage is represented by a serpent or is a representative of Satan, uses his will against his Creator. He perverts and twists, questions and leads to doubt, tricks and trips those who are human. Frankly, it is difficult to trace the origins of angels and demons in Scripture and such verses are few and far between. But that they do exist is replete throughout Scripture. The preeminent passage about how evil fell to earth is the one Jesus spoke in Luke 10:18 which describes that he saw Satan fall from heaven. These are certainly weighty theological particulars, for which more in depth study may be called. However, one simply needs to think back on their life and look at the world order to recognize