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Question:

Genesis 1:26 states, “And God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image after our likeness.'” That sounds as if He is with someone else. How can that be?

Answered on 04/07/06:

The word "our" in that verse is referring to the Holy Trinity. We have one God, but He has three distinct persons in the godhead: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so when He says, “Let Us make man in Our image,” He is talking about the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. They together were the ones that were in existence for eternity.

Question:

In the Old Testament, before Jesus arrived, was God the Father or God the Son their God? Right now, God the Son is our God and Savior under the domain of our Father God. But in the Old Testament with Moses leading Israel with the Lord, was God the Father or was God the Son?

Answered on 04/07/06:

Well, God was what He always has been and what He always will be. He is one God with three distinct persons in the trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament in Genesis, God said, “Let us make man in our image.”

Therefore, it wasn’t just the Father, but it was the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that was operating in the Old Testament. It was all of them. At different times, we see the Son showing up. At different times, we see the Spirit of God showing up. Even in the Old Testament, we see the angel of the Lord in the book of Genesis. I believe that angel of the Lord was Jesus Christ. We see Melchizadek showing up in Genesis chapter 14. Who was Melchizadek? He was the High Priest, without father, without mother. I believe that was Jesus Christ in the form of a man named Melchizadek. So, God showed Himself as the Son, He showed Himself as the Father, He showed up as the Holy Spirit at other times in the Scripture as well.

I just want to make that clear that He is all three in the Old Testament and He’s all three in the New Testament. Now, in the New Testament, He lives in us by the Holy Spirit. The Father doesn’t live in us. Jesus doesn’t live in us. The Holy Spirit lives in us on behalf of God. But the Father is on the throne and Jesus is seated at His right hand now as we speak.

Question:

I have a question concerning the Trinity. I believe without a shadow of a doubt that the Trinity is three-in-one, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. But I’m in a Bible study where we’re studying John. And Christ says He doesn’t do anything without asking the Father. And they say that that’s being subordinate to the Father. I say He’s still God; He can’t be subordinate. So I just want to have an answer for something like that.

Answered on 04/07/06:

First of all, God is three-in-one: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. They are not three; they are three-in-one. And there is subordination to one another. The Holy Spirit doesn’t do anything that He doesn’t see the Father do. Jesus doesn’t do anything that He doesn’t see the Father do. The Father has turned over all the kingdoms to Jesus. And Jesus then, has turned around and turned them all back to the Father.

You should look that up in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 because it’s a beautiful picture of how they submit to one another. Jesus submits to the Father, the Father submits back to Jesus. And ultimately, the Father seems to be the lead personality among the trinity, but they defer to one another, they honor one another, they respect one another in perfect harmony and perfect subordination and perfect submission to one another. There is no fault or defect in them. And all submission to one another is perfect and anything that exists is perfect. It would not be out of the will of God for one to be subordinate to the other because they subordinate themselves to each other in each situation that requires that. And it’s just an absolute perfect scenario.

Question:

Why do some Christians believe that Jesus Christ is God and that the Father is just a title and the Holy Spirit is just a title and that they don’t really exist?

Answered on 04/07/06:

Well, why do some Christians believe a lot of the things that they believe? It’s because they don’t read their Bibles. They don’t get their faith and get their understanding from the Bible; they get it from man’s opinion or somebody preaching. And what we have to do is we have to make sure that we’re getting our answers and we’re getting our understanding of Christianity from the Word of God; from the Bible.

The Bible clearly says that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one. They are the Holy Trinity. You can’t explain it. You can’t figure it out. You have got to know and trust that God said it and that’s it. That’s who He is. He is Father. He is Son. He is Holy Spirit. I don’t know how He is able to do all that. I don’t know how He is Three in One; but He is.

And why do some Christians believe something else? Because they don’t read their Bible and they don’t follow the Bible. Just because somebody is a Christian does not mean that they’re getting their information from the right source. And we need to make sure we get our information from the right source.

God » General

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Question:

What is your view of Job 1:21, where it says, "The Lord gives and the Lord took away"? I really struggle with the concept that our "problems" are from God.

Answered on 07/21/06:

Well, I don’t blame you for that. You should struggle with the concept that your problems are from God because they’re not. Our problems are not from God.

When the Bible says “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away” what does the Bible really mean? What does the Scripture really mean that “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away?” The Lord gives blessing. As we put the Old Testament together with the New Testament, the Lord gives blessing and He takes away cursing. The Lord gives joy and He takes away depression. The Lord gives peace and He takes away unrest. The Lord gives hope and He takes away hopelessness. The Lord gives encouragement and He takes away discouragement.

So it’s true that the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, but we need to define what is it that He gives. The Bible says that He gives the oil of joy for the spirit of heaviness. Throughout Scripture we see that whenever God gives something, He gives something good to take away something bad. He gives provision to take away lack. He gives healing to take away sickness. He gives salvation to take away destruction. See, that’s God’s nature and that’s how God operates.

Question:

My friend is not a Christian and she posed a couple of questions. She’s wondering where God is when you need Him. She said that her mother died when she was 19. She wondered why God, who is supposed to be love, would let something like that happen when someone like Saddam Hussein, who may have been killing many people, still lives. How can I help her get to know who God is better?

Answered on 05/12/06:

Those are great questions. To your friend, I extend my compassion and my sympathy to her for the loss of her mother when she was a child. I think every one of us has lost somebody close to us at a critical age in our lives. I was 15 when one of my best friends committed suicide and I didn’t know God or Jesus at the time. All I knew at the time was, “Wow. He had everything going for him. He had one of the greatest girlfriends in the school. He was a catcher on the baseball team. He was handsome. He was smart. He had all the friends that one could have and I have none of that and he killed himself.” I thought to myself, the same thing that your friend is wondering: “Where is God when you need Him? What is going to keep me from doing the same thing?”

The answer to the question is, God is one prayer away for every one of us. All that we have to do, all your friend has to do, is say, “Jesus, if you’re really there, as they say you are, come and rescue me from my depression. Come and rescue me from my confusion. Come and show yourself and reveal yourself.” The Bible says in Jeremiah 33:3 that “if you call upon Him, He will answer.” The Bible says in Romans 10:12, “All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, delivered, rescued.” You can look throughout the Bible and find scriptures on God's faithfulness. You know how some people say, “We’re just a phone call away.” Well, God is just one prayer away. It says in Hebrews chapter 11, “For all who come to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Now, He’s not going to reveal Himself to a casual inquirer that doesn’t really have sincerity in their heart and doesn’t really care whether He reveals Himself to them or not but He will to those who diligently seek Him. Hebrews 11:5-6 says that if you will cry out to Him; if you will call out to Him; if you will seek Him and ask Him to show Himself and reveal Himself to you; He absolutely will. He will. He will. He will.

You tell your friend that she is loved. God does love her. There is a devil in the world that tries to snuff out our families, our relatives, our loved ones. God is not the taker of life; God is the giver of life. John 10:10 says, “The thief, the devil, comes to steal, kill and destroy. But Jesus has come that we would have life and have it in abundance.” These are some of the things that I would say to her or to anybody in that situation.

We’ll never know the answer to everything until we get to heaven. But, we can know this, that God is a prayer away. Just the name of Jesus coming off of her lips will draw Him to her. The Bible says in James 4:4, “Draw near to Me and I will draw near to you.” The apostle Paul also said in Acts chapter 9, “Who are you Lord?” And the Lord revealed Himself to the Apostle Paul before he was an apostle, before he was a Christian. If she’ll just call out to Him and cry out to Him, He will answer. He is not far. He is one prayer away. God will be with you. He will never leave you or forsake you when you call upon Him.

You can’t get to know Him “better” if you don’t even think He’s there. First start by calling out to Him and go to those Scriptures that we just went over and those will cause her to know him better. When you know Jesus, you know God. Read the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. When you read about Jesus Christ, you’re reading about God Himself. When you see Jesus in the Bible, you’re seeing God himself. There are those that are living right now, that they are not born again, that feel like God is nowhere to be found, but if they will call upon Him right now, the Bible says He will answer. The Bible says, “Call out to Him while He is near, cry out to Him while He can be found.” When your heart is moving you, when your heart is stirring you, when you know He’s out there, but you just don’t know what to do, that’s the time to call upon Him.

Question:

I was seeing that the Bible talks to us about Jesus as a child and then again about when He was an adult and the start of His ministry. I was wondering if there’s anything that refers to Jesus between those two times.

Answered on 05/04/06:

Well, there’s nothing in the Bible that speaks to us about those times in His life when He was a teenager or in between the time when He was a baby and the time of His earthly ministry except for in Luke chapter two when He was twelve years old. His parents found Him in the temple listening to the Word of God and asking questions of the teachers and the Pharisees and the leaders of the synagogue at that time. He told His parents, “I had to be about my Father’s business.”

So, at twelve years old, He was about His Father’s business. One can only imagine how much of His Father’s business He was involved in by the time He was sixteen or eighteen years old. Certainly, we know that He was without sin and so He must have had a very powerful teenage life.

He didn’t do a miracle until in John chapter two when He turned the water into wine, which is His first recorded miracle that we have in the Bible. But I’m sure He obeyed God. I’m sure He served God. And I’m sure He worked for His father as a carpenter. “Is this not the carpenter’s son?” they asked about Him. And He had brothers and sisters.

So, Jesus had an incredible life, very normal in some ways, but very supernatural in other ways. But no preaching, no teaching, no miracles until the time that He was around thirty years old.

Our teenaged children can truly serve God if you’ll believe God for that and if you’ll train them in the way they should go and trust God that He will touch their life and He will lead them.

Question:

Did God create everything and is He all-powerful?

Answered on 04/07/06:

Well, He didn’t create some of the mess that we’ve created ourselves. So I would have to say, “No, He didn’t create everything.” But He did create everything good. When you look in the Bible in Genesis chapter 1, it goes through God creating the earth and everything in the earth, the heavens and all that is in them. And after every day of the six days of creation, the Bible says that God said, “It is good.” And then when He was done with everything, He said, “Behold, it is very good.” So, creation and goodness are synonymous with God. Everything that He created was good according to the book of Genesis. So, anything that’s not good, He didn’t create. Another Scripture that answers that concern is in James 1:17 which says, “every good and perfect gift comes from God – or is created by God – and in Him there is no shadow of turning." He doesn’t change. He’s good and He creates good.

And God is all-powerful, but He doesn’t enforce His power on people who don’t surrender to Him. So, He can’t make somebody do something that they don’t want to do. He is all-powerful, but the fact that He is God and that He is light and He is good demands the existence of something that is not good. The fact that there’s something that’s not good is what proves how good He really is.

Where did evil come from? Well, it came from Lucifer, the devil. And it came from Adam’s sin. It certainly didn’t come from God. But He gave man the power to choose. And the fact that He gave man the power to choose just shows how good He really is in that He doesn’t just create robots who only choose what is good, but He’s a God who creates free will people who have the free will to choose whether they’re going to go for good or go for bad. And you have that choice. Everyone has that choice to accept Jesus Christ and accept what is good that God made or to turn away from Jesus Christ and away from what is good.

Question:

Is God a man or a woman?

Answered on 04/07/06:

God is God. He is referred to as “He” in the Bible, and that’s what we’re going to stick with. He has within Himself all the attributes of male and female; male and female attributes, both came forth from God. God is God.

When God created Adam, He created him male and female, created He them. So Eve came from Adam’s side. So God definitely contains within Himself all of the attributes of both male and female. But He is referred to as a “He” in the Bible and He is referred to as a Father, and so that’s what we’ve got to stick with.

Question:

I have a hard time understanding how it can be said that God allows it when terrible things happen to Christians. I know the Bible says that God can turn them around and work them for good, but I can’t understand Him letting or allowing bad things to happen to good people.

Answered on 04/07/06:

You’re right. God does not allow bad things to happen to good people. People allow bad things to happen to good people. We allow the things that happen in our life. God’s given us authority. God’s given us power.

I know this is a controversial subject sometimes because we wonder how much power and how much authority we really do have? Well, the Bible says in Proverbs 18:21, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue and those that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.” Death and life are in the power of the tongue. We have to use our words to produce power. We have to speak the Word of God out of our mouth. We have to give God the opportunity to operate in our lives. We have to give God an opportunity to intervene in our lives. And that comes through words. God brought the world into existence through words and we can bring the power of God into existence through words. We can also bring negative things into our life through our words. We need to realize that we can bring death from our tongue as well. God allows what we allow.

Matthew 18:19 says, “Whatever we bind in earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever we lose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Jesus said that. And basically, the word “Loosed” means to allow or to permit. So, He said, “Whatever we permit, heaven permits. Whatever we allow, heaven allows, but whatever we bind, heaven binds.” That doesn’t mean that we should go around trying to control other people or trying to make other people change. What it means is we should take control of our lives, take control of our future, take control of our heart, take control of our situation and use our words to bring forth the power of God, the love of God, the healing of God. Speak the Word of God out of our mouths and we can change what’s happening around us.

We also need to stand on Scriptures like Psalm 91, “Those that dwell in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty” which means He will protect us. We also should stand on the Scripture in Isaiah 54:17 which says, “No weapon formed against us shall prosper.” We have to be people that really believe that God’s Word works, that God’s Word is true, that God’s Word is powerful and effective and sharper than any two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). We have to use God’s Word and speak God’s Word and if we don’t, then we are susceptible to anything happening in our lives.

It’s just like taking authority in your automobile to put your hands on the steering wheel and put gasoline in the car put your lights on and drive the speed limit or close to it at least. If we don’t do those things, we are not exercising the power that we have over our automobile and therefore, we are susceptible to more tragedy; we are susceptible to accidents. If you don’t turn the headlights on in your car, then somebody won’t see you. They could hit you without being recognizing it and you could say, “Well, why did God allow that to happen?” But you allowed that to happen by not turning your lights on. In other words, you had the authority; you had the power to turn the lights on in your car.

In the same way, we have the authority to pray. We have the authority to believe the Bible. We have the authority to give. We have the authority to bind the devil. We have the authority to tell the devil to leave, to submit to God, to resist the devil and he will flee from us. We have that kind of authority and we need to exercise that authority. And when we exercise that authority, mighty, powerful things will happen in our lives.

And so, I want to encourage you to let that happen and to see that it’s not God stopping you from good things happening and it’s not God causing bad things to happen. It’s God giving us the tools, giving us the equipment and then saying, “Go do it. Go use it.” Jesus said in Luke 10:19, “Behold, I give you authority to trample upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means injure, hurt or harm you.” We have to take God at His Word. We have to believe that He is a literal God with a literal Bible who’s given us literal power and authority. Not “little” power. Literal power. True power and authority over Satan and over the devil.

And you say, “Well, I’ve bound the devil and I spoke the Word of God and I believe the Bible and something bad still happened.” Well, we live in a fallen world, and we have to accept the fact that far worse things would happen if you weren’t believing the Word of God. Far worse things would happen if you weren’t speaking God’s Word. Far worse things would happen if you weren’t exercising your authority and binding the devil and casting out the devil and pushing the devil back. The Bible says in James 4:7, “Submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.”

Question:

Does God love Satan?

Answered on 04/07/06:

Absolutely not. Satan is a fallen angel. God loves people and He pours out His love upon people. He demonstrates that love for people. God does not love Satan. Satan is not a person; he is a fallen angel and is incapable of receiving love.

Question:

I understand that if we reject God, His justice requires some kind of consequence. How can you truly love someone if there is this fear of horrible punishment if we don’t?

Answered on 04/07/06:

God created hell for the devil and his angels. If you reject Jesus Christ, you are destined to hell because you are rejecting the only sacrifice that has been made to provide a way for you to be in a relationship with God.

God is a just God; God is a holy God. Sin has to be paid for. Either Jesus pays for your sin, or you reject Him and end up having to pay for your own sin. It’s not punishment; it’s simply the harvest of the seeds that we sow. Every wrong action is going to merit a consequence. That is just the way life is; that is the way that God set up justice and righteousness.

What does that mean to us? It means that if we sin, we can go to God and receive forgiveness and cleansing through the blood of Jesus. We don’t have to be afraid of punishment. I don’t serve God because I’m afraid of Him; I’m in a relationship with Him because of His love for me. God wants you to honor Him for who He is and not just obey Him because you are afraid of Him. The devil wants you to be afraid, but perfect love that comes from God casts out all fear. So study more about the love of God. That fear is coming from the devil himself.

Question:

Does God send bad things to happen to teach us a lesson? Is that what He did with Job?

Answered on 04/07/06:

God does not send bad things to teach us a lesson because God is a good God. James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of Lights.” Because He is good, He can only send good things.

If you read Job 1 and 2, you’ll find it wasn’t God who smote Job with sickness and disease; it was Satan. Did God permit that to happen? Absolutely. God permits what we permit. Job got into pride and fear and he got to a place where he was self-righteous. He said, “Why do you let these things happen to me? I’ve done this for you. I’ve done that for you.”

So God doesn’t send bad things; He permits them because we permit them. If I permit my marriage to go down the drain and end up getting a divorce, that wouldn’t be God sending that divorce, it would be me allowing that divorce. God gives us free will. He allows us to hand our lives over to the devil if we want to. He allows us to do drugs, commit wrong behavior if we choose to. Job had free will. You have a free will. That’s why Scripture teaches that we have to surrender our will to the will of God. That’s when life is lived joyfully and joyously. Will God protect us when heinous crimes are plotted against us? Yes. If we ask Him and trust Him and believe in the power of the blood of Jesus, He will send protection for us. He’s given us His Word to teach us, according to 2 Timothy 3. He’s given us the Holy Spirit to teach us, in John 16. And He’s given us apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers to teach us, according to Ephesians 4:11. Then why would He need bad things to teach us?

No, God does not send bad things to happen to us. God does allow some things to happen to us because we reap what we sow; we sow the seed, we get the harvest. If I went out in my backyard and sowed marijuana seeds and then I got a bunch of marijuana and the police came over, I can’t blame God and say God why did you allow this to happen. God would say, I allowed it because you allowed it. It was that I allowed it; therefore, God had to allow what I allowed. I have a free will.

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