Thinking on God: The God Who Serves Those Who Serve Him

By Don Ruhl

Who is God? How do we even begin to answer the question? Is he so infinitely great that our words cannot possibly capture his essence? Or is God so intimately personal to our hearts and souls that it is impossible to articulate his character and nature? Yet whether God is infinitely high or intimately personal, we have one way to know God in a way we can collectively fathomthrough the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

Thinking on God is an earnest and thoughtful collection of biblical and religious arguments for the proof of Gods existence, and author Don Ruhl dwells on the character of both God and humanity while helping fellow believers see how reflecting on Gods majesty and awesome power can bring us closer to him and his creation. The life and ministry of Jesus Christ play a central role in our getting to know God, and it is through Christ that we see Gods essencehis power, glory, grace, patience, mercy, holiness, and goodness. And yet in the end, it may surprise us that the King of kings will ultimately serve us, his loyal servants, in humility.

We see God in his creation, and we know God through Christ. When we seek God and come to know him in all his majesty, power, and grace, we will discover who God is and be able to set a course for our lives. Let us therefore not go through a single day without thinking on God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781973606369

Don Ruhl

Don Ruhl began preaching in Long Beach, California, with the North Long Beach Church of Christ in 1980; he later moved to Klamath Falls, Oregon, in 1983 and worked with the Nile Street Church of Christ, and since 2002 he now preaches in Grants Pass, Oregon, with the Savage Street Church of Christ. Don manages the website for GrantsPassChurchOfChrist.com, as well as EmailDevotionals.com and TheBibleMeditator.com.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-0635-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-0637-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-0636-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017916880

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/13/2017

To those who were teachers at the Southern California School of Evangelism during the years 1978 to 1980

And if something in me pleases you, here praise Him with me—Him whom I desire to be praised on my account and not myself. For it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves.

—Augustine, The Confessions

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Introduction: Thinking on God

Talking with Atheists and Evolutionists

How Come Earth Got All the Good Stuff?

Who Made the Earth Just Right for Life?

Seeing the Invisible Things of God

The Great Designer

God Exists Because Beauty Exists!

Mankind Exists; Therefore, God Exists

Would Mankind Invent the God of the Bible?

The Ultimate Evidence of God’s Existence

God on Display

Our Glorious God

Who Shall Not Fear the Lord and Glorify His Name?

The Essence of God: What Is God’s Substance?

The Years of God

The Unstoppable Thoughts of God

The Unavoidable Spirit of God

The God Who Knows

Is Anything Too Hard for God?

The Foundation of God’s Throne

The Holiness of God

The Mercy of God

God Most High, Possessor of Heaven and Earth

The Patience of God

The Grace of God

The Goodness of God

The Providence of God

The Majesty of God

The God Who Knelt

Foreword

Thinking on God was written by one of the closest friends I have in this world. Don and I attended the Southern California School of Evangelism in 1978–1980. He and I became study partners, quizzing each other endlessly for upcoming tests. Our families got together every Friday night just to relax.

Thinking on God is about my favorite topic—God. Each chapter is a reflection of some sort on the existence and nature of the God you read about in the Bible. Several of the opening chapters engage in apologetics and a little philosophy. (You do not need to know either to appreciate what Don has written.)

I know Don to be a student of the Word. He has been an avid reader of the Bible and related books the whole time I have known him. Our conversations for the past thirty-nine years have typically been about God and scripture. Don has chronicled his reflections on scripture for decades in publications like The Bible Meditator and in his current e-mail devotionals. What I like about the devotionals is that I get to read the text of a certain scripture and catch a glimpse into my brother’s thoughts twice a day.

At the time of publication of Thinking on God, Don has studiously reflected on scripture and written about it for more than thirty-nine years. He is a faithful Christian and preacher. He has the winning combination of formal training and practical experience. All I can say is—enjoy!

Steven Lloyd

Preface

At a young age, I knew that we could not be alone in the universe because the night sky showed beauty that made my eyes water. Whenever I could, I viewed the night sky, whether in a city or out in the country. (I still do this.)

Later, when I started reading the Bible, I discovered a connection between it and nature, particularly, what I had observed in the night sky. I discovered that the same God who gave the world the Bible also gave the world His beautiful work of art, with a black background painted with innumerable points of light!

Continual observation of both earth and sky, and meditation on the scriptures, known as the Bible, has reinforced for me that connection between the God of the night sky and the God of the Bible.

Thinking on God details my thoughts on the existence of God and on His nature, and it includes a surprise ending, something that I discovered about this God that I never would have imagined.

Introduction: Thinking on God

The only God worth talking about is a God that cannot be talked about.

—Walter Kaufmann

John Wesley declared, Bring me a worm that can comprehend a man, and then I will show you a man that can comprehend the triune God! If we brought all the worms of the earth together, could they collectively comprehend a human being? No. Likewise, neither can a person, or all people together, figure out God completely.

Who Is God?

How do you answer the questions young children ask? Why is the sky blue? Why do dogs chase cats? Why do you keep driving past the Do Not Pass sign? Who is God?

How do you answer that last question? The only God worth talking about is a God that cannot be talked about (Walter Kaufmann). He is so high that talking about Him lifts the soul like nothing else can. He is so high that anything we say about Him falls short. Yet He who knows us wants us to know Him, as that summarizes the message of the Bible, and it summarizes the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth: ‘If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.’ Philip said to Him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, Show us the Father?’ (John 14:7–9).

Commentators call John 1:1–18 the prologue to the Gospel According to John. Consider the last verse in that section: No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him (John 1:18). After writing that, John recorded the numerous times when Jesus referred to the Father: Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner (John 5:19). For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak (John 12:49–50). Therefore, we can answer the child’s question, or we can answer the philosopher’s question, of who God is by pointing to the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.

When we see Jesus in the scriptures, we see deity in the flesh, as Paul declared in Colossians 2: For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power (Col. 2:9–10). The totality of the Godhead dwelt in the body of Jesus. He did not lack one divine attribute. After that, Paul explained to the Colossians what that means for us. Since Jesus had the fullness of deity in the flesh, we can find our completeness in Him. What, then, I think of God, especially what I think of Jesus, has a massive impact on my life. That would also mean that failure to think on God and failure to think on Jesus will have a massive negative influence on my life. If the unbeliever does not feel that void, he will feel it when he comes to the end of life’s journey. Then again, many die with peace of mind without ever having thought on God. However, something different will happen once they enter the afterlife. They will experience the second death, eternal separation from God.

Let us therefore not go through one day without thinking on God.

Thinking on God

We cannot rise above what we think of God, because our thoughts on God affect every part of our lives; even if we do not think on Him, it shows in all that we do. We cannot think on anything higher.

Our understanding of Him either lowers us or raises us.

To those who know that something greater than the creation exists, to those who long for their Creator, to those desperate to know God, thinking on God provides the most fulfilling experience. Frederick W. Faber wrote the following:

Only to sit and think of God,

Oh what a joy it is!

To think the thought, to breath the Name

Earth has no higher bliss.

Once we discover who God is and what we think of Him, we can set a course for our lives. We can see where we have been, why we have our present status in life, and where we shall go in life.

Whom God Is Not

God is not an idol. As Psalm 115 reveals, the Gentiles made idols in their own image.

Why should the Gentiles say,

So where is their God?

But our God is in heaven;

He does whatever He pleases.

Their idols are silver and gold,

The work of men’s hands.

They have mouths, but they do not speak;

Eyes they have, but they do not see;

They have ears, but they do not hear;

Noses they have, but they do not smell;

They have hands, but they do not handle;

Feet they have, but they do not walk;

Nor do they mutter through their throat.

Those who make them are like them;

So is everyone who trusts in them.

(Ps. 115:2–8)

The true God made mankind in His image. If He is God, then, as Psalm 100 testifies, He made us, not the other way around.

Know that the Lord,

He is God;

It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;

We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

(Ps. 100:3)

If your conception of God is what you design, how can you call that God? How can God be what you have invented? If He is as we conceive Him, we have made an idol. Idolatry does not consist "only in kneeling before visible objects of adoration … The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. It begins in the