Most everyone acknowledges that God is the Eternal One, who has no beginning or end. From the start of human history, God’s spoken word (Greek logos) has been identified as the Creator of the natural universe and the originator of all its life forms. (a) [see endnotes for Scriptures]
Scripture describes the Spirit of God as omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, and invisible. God is always present, all-powerful, all-knowing, and not contained by natural forms. With such characteristics, He can appear to be beyond our ability to relate. So, how can we relate to God?
God’s Image As A Mirror
The Bible is clear about God’s expressive nature: “God is light…God is love.” (b) Consequently, His expressions and actions are loving and enlightening, void of any dark thoughts like disdain, hatred or contempt. (c) The Eternal One “is not like men,” (d) who tends to shift between the energy and motions of this natural world’s productive good and destructive evil actions.
God responds to our misconceptions: “You thought I was like you.” (e) However, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways…For as the heavens are higher than earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (f) Scripture is clear, “God is not a man that He should lie, nor the son of man, that He should repent.” (g) “God sees not as a man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (h)
A deposit of God’s Spirit is in every person, usually referred to as the “spirit of life.” When our spirit – breath of life departs, “our body returns to dust and our spirit returns to God.” (i) Every person is an offspring of God even if we do not know it or act like it. (j) Since a deposit of the Eternal One is in each of us, everyone is equipped to relate to God and interact with His presence.
We are all born into this life to live as an “image and likeness” of God. (k) The Hebrew words that are translated image and likeness can easily be translated as “reflection and resemblance.” We are designed to “reflect God’s image as a mirror” and to “resemble His likeness as a child.” Realizing we are expressions of God allows us to begin to understand and relate to Him as our Father.
The Spirit of God-in-Christ even promises to “never desert…nor will I ever forsake you.” (l) While we may ignore His presence, He remains steadfast and reliable. Rather than living as wandering offspring, we want to be more responsive and learn to live as disciplined, maturing children. (m)
Every person is an offspring of God even if we do not know it or act like it.
God As Father
Two thousand years ago the Eternal One spoke and His “spoken expression” (Greek logos) came into the womb of a woman to conceive and be formed into the baby Jesus. (n) The mature adult life, words, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ revealed to mankind that God’s expressive light and love includes His forgiving nature. (o)
God is noted as Father only a few times in the Old Testament because His fatherly love and care for us as His offspring was not a clear perspective. Jesus revealed and illustrated that God desires to be our guiding influence through this temporal life, as the best of all fathers.
The New Testament speaks of God as Father 
over 250 times. Jesus Christ taught and illustrated the truth that God is our loving and insightful Father. (p) Jesus always spoke of God as His Father and stated he was a son of God multiple times. God even stated that Jesus is His beloved son.” (q)
While God is generally acknowledged today as our heavenly Father, it was not known in those days. In the Hebrew societies a son was respected as being equal to the father. Claiming to be a son of God was considered blasphemy. Unfazed, Jesus upheld the revealing insight that his intimate interaction with God was as a son. This is what led to his crucifixion. (r)
As the ideal human example of God-Love and God-light, Jesus sought to say and do what he sensed his Father was saying and desiring to accomplish. (s) He also sought to clarify, when we approach God as adoring children, we are better able to know and relate to Him as our Father. (t)
Jesus instructed everyone to pray to “Our Father who art in heaven.” (u) He even directed his disciples to “pray to the Father…for the Father himself loves you.” (v) Jesus encouraged us to become more than wandering offspring who only know or relate to God as our ruling King or our Lord and Master. The Eternal One is our loving and enlightening Father.
As offspring of God, everyone can experience His insightful guidance. The life, words, and actions of Jesus illustrate God’s desire for each of us to live as responsive sons of God. The expressions of God seek to lead and guide us through this life as His maturing children.
The expressions of God seek to lead and guide us through this life as His maturing children.
Understanding Who God Is
Scripture describes the expressive qualities of God as spiritual fruit that we are to receive and adapt as our own: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” (w)
These expressive attributes convey and demonstrate the enduring attitude of God toward us. The fruits of God’s Spirit enable us to perceive and “put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other.” (x)
Since God does not grow and develop like us, we do not want to degrade Him to our human perceptions. Neither should we condemn those that do not perceive, see, or act like us. What we think of God, right or wrong, inspires the way we live. The character, attitude and personality (CAP) traits we believe are in God influence who we are and the person we become.
What about the various ideas and symbols we use to describe, illustrate, show admiration, and to worship God? The Eternal One is able to look beyond our limitations, imperfections, tainted perceptions, symbols, and rituals. God actually hears and responds to the intents of our heart. (y)
God is long-suffering, forgiving, and lovingly dedicated to our maturing growth. Scripture states: “For neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities (Greek-beginnings), nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (z)
Our heavenly Father’s love for us is everlasting, enduring, and inexhaustible! “Beloved, if God so loves us (to forgive our error), we also ought to love one another…If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected (Greek-matures) in us,” (aa) as His developing children.
The portions of God’s love and light that we absorb from His abiding presence helps us mature and become more like Jesus: “As he is, so also are we in this world.” (bb) Our positive response to God-in-Christ helps us mature into more enlightening expressions of our heavenly Father.
As we catch glimpses of the enlightening love of God in one another, we are encouraged to be more like Him. As sons of God, we can help others comprehend more clearly how God is our Father!
God is long-suffering, forgiving, and lovingly dedicated to our maturing growth.
a) John 1:1; Genesis 1:31-2:1; b) 1 John 1:5; 4:16; c) 1 John 1:5; d) Numbers 23:19; 1 Samuel 15:29; e) Psalm 50:21; f) Isaiah 55:8-9; g) Numbers 23:19; h) 1 Samuel 16:7; i) Ecclesiastics 12:7; j) Genesis 2:7; Acts 17:22-29; k) Genesis 1:26; l) Hebrews 13:5; m) John 1:12; 12:36; Romans 8:14; n) John 1:1, 14; o) 1 John 1:1-2; 2:2; 2 Corinthians 5:19; p) Mathew 11:25-28; John 14:6; q) Mathew 3:17; 17:5; r) John 5:17-18; Luke 22:70-71; s) John 5:18-19; Matthew 26:39; t) Matthew 5:16, 43-45; 6:4-15; John 14;6-11; u) Matthew 6:6, 8-9; v) John 16:23-27; w) Galatians 5:22-23; x) Colossians 3:12-13; y) 1 King 8:39; z) Romans 8:39; aa) 1 John 4:11-12; bb) 1 John 4:17
Keith Carroll, “The Relationship Guy”
Relational Gospel Founder
Created To Relate author