There are many times in our lives where we have questions about God, our circumstance, and just the mundane details of life. We start to get tempted with doubts. Questions arise that cause us to think about God’s goodness, His love, His justice. In the midst of the storms of life we feel alone or abandoned. Our hearts our troubled and we begin to question God, His sovereignty and His various attributes. There are times when we are stirred by the Spirit to want to know more about God, more about His name, His attributes, and the Persons of God.
Sometimes, we turn to man to answer these questions. Or we think about them for a little bit, then move on because our attention gets diverted in a different direction (or distraction). Our hearts and spirits hunger for more, but what do we do with this hunger. Do we starve it with the excuses of “not enough time”? Or do we nourish ourselves with a pursuit of God? We may not know why the circumstances are the way they are, whether that is good or bad. We may feel like we are drowning in sea of turmoil. Or we may enjoy floating and swimming in the sea of abundant grace.
God has given us a guide to seek Him. For every believer, there is the Spirit that indwells them and guides them. But for all of the world, He has given us a book of knowledge. A guide to know Him more and better. During those times of struggle and pain, I cannot describe how important it is to me to turn to God and His Word to know Him more. In seeking Him, my heart gets filled. Peace comes. Anxieties get quieter. In the stillness of seeking, a Good Shepherd guides a lost and hurting lamb. The struggles are still there, but so is God as He is always there.
This post will focus on 25 important Scripture references that teach us about God, including His name, attributes, the Persons of the Godhead, and even our own humanity and design. For those times, when you feel God is silent, when you feel lost, or alone; when your heart breaks; when blessing comes; when doubts arise; when you see a beautiful sunset designed for a glorious purpose, with the clouds painting a brilliant picture; when you have made too little of God or put Him in a box; remember these verses. Write them on your heart, and remember there is a God that is bigger and greater than you could imagine or even fathom to understand the brilliance of His name. Some of my favorite parts of each verse I have put below in red to show what stands out to me. Finally, to break the cardinal rule of Bible Exposition and take a verse out of context, let us be still and know God (Ps 46:10). (Please note, in no way am I saying these are the only verses to remember or that they are the most important in all of the Bible. These verses mainly discuss the personhood and nature of God. They are important and good to know, but they don’t even begin to scratch the surface in what God has revealed about Himself. These are just some key verses to look to in order to know more about God and that is all this post is trying to convey.)
Twenty-Five Key Texts:
Ge 1:1-3: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Ge 1:26-27: 26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Ex 3:13-14: Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
Ex 20:2-3: 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
Nu 23:19: God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
Jdg 13:17-18: Then Manoah inquired of the angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so that we may honor you when your word comes true?”18 He replied, “Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding
1Ki 8:27: “But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!
Ps 19:1-4: The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. 3 They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
Ps 90:2: Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Ps 139:1-4: You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.
Ps 139:15-17: My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!
Isa 6:1-3: In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
Isa 45:5-7: I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, 6 so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting people may know there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. 7 I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.
Isa 46:10: I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’
Jer 23:23-24: “Am I only a God nearby,” declares the Lord, “and not a God far away? 24 Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them?” declares the Lord. “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” declares the Lord.
Joel 2:13: Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.
Hab 1:13: Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?
Mal 3:6: “I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.
Ac 14:15-18: “Friends, why are you doing this? We too are only human, like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. 16 In the past, he let all nations go their own way. 17 Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” 18 Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.
Ac 17:24-25: “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
Rom 2:14-15: (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) [You may wonder why this verse is in here. This passage is the proof text for natural law par excellence. Also, The human will is in a state of enmity against God. Even Gentiles, who had not the written law, had that within, which directed them what to do by the light of nature. Conscience is a witness, and first or last will bear witness. As they nature. Conscience is a witness, and first or last will bear witness. As they kept or broke these natural laws and dictates, their consciences either acquitted or condemned them. Nothing speaks more terror to sinners, and more comfort to saints, than that Christ shall be the Judge. The apostle owns that they had not the law, that is, the written law of Moses, and yet intimates that they had, and must have a law, against which they sinned, and so deserved punishment, and which they in part obeyed.]
Rom 11:33: Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
Eph 1:11: In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,
1Ti 6:15-16: which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.
1Jn 4:16: And so we know and rely on the love God has for us
Rev 15:3-4: and sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb: “Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the nations. 4 Who will not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.”