The attractiveness of God

"For I Proclaim the name of the LORD;

Ascribe greatness to our God!

"The Rock! His work is perfect,

For all His ways are just;

A God of faithfulness and without injustice,

Righteous and upright is He.

Deut 32:3-4

When I first joined YWAM, my first job was as a teacher in the International Christian

School that they ran on the now-defunct Goulburn base.

Every school morning, our teaching staff used to start the day with a staff devotion,

where we shared around God's word and sang worship songs. One song that we

sang a lot was based on these verses. Over the years, these verses and others like

them have interested me because they are descriptive of who God is.

If we were to survey Christians as to why they accepted Jesus as their Saviour,

many may say, "coz I don't want to go to Hell! Fullstop. And they are quite right,

Jesus died to save us from the eternal second death, mentioned in Revelation 20.

However, to look at salvation solely as fire insurance is a narrow view of salvation.

Salvation is a doorway; Jesus saved us from something, unto something.

The Bible does not describe God's personal looks very well, but it does describe

His character and its His character that shows us His attractiveness.

When we die and see Jesus, there will not be blissful pregnant pauses because

we are unfamiliar with Him or our new abode, and don't know what to say or

what to do. We will not be forever asking angels for directions!

Heaven will be familiar to us, and we will have a sense of belonging there, because

we are familiar with God and know a lot about who He is and what He is like before 

we even get there.

I said before that Jesus saved us from something unto something. We have been

saved from Hell, unto an infinite, intimate relationship with the living God.

In order to prepare us, the Scriptures reveal God's character to us, and as we walk

with Jesus, we directly experience His character just as it is written. So, we can be

assured that when we arrive, Heaven will be familiar to us.

The Scripture in Deuteronomy tells us about God's character. It tells us that He is,

Great

A Rock

Perfect

Just

Faithful

Righteous

Holy and upright

Without injustice.

Other Scriptures tell us that He is,

Kind

Compassionate

Merciful

A protector

Slow to anger

Abounding in loving kindness

and much, much more.

So, as you read your Bible, don't only give thanks to God for saving you

from the fires of Hell, but also thank Him for His proven character, which

shows us that eternity with the Living God is not only attractive and

desirable, but very, very cool! Heaven is going to rock!