Ron B on the attributes of God - a must read! Please don't miss this.

Dear Lahry, truly you have struck where we are by bringing this forth. Though it ebbs sadly at times in the day to day noise of this present world, it is the cry of my heart. So much that we can get caught up in, so much that can flow far to easily from our lips or our finger tips, how much is really considered, with Him who we have to do...Similarly, Diane elsewhere taps into the very same line that has stuck permanently:This is my take, God defines himself. He defines righteousness and justice. Any man who will say that God is not just is way off the track. You ask if there is anyone who will question God. One of the main messages behind all of Katz' talks is how we need to "know God as he, in fact, is". This is what I have been about for the last year. Learning who God really is and how he thinks. I'm finding that my biggest problem has been having created God in my image. Now that I am allowing God to define himself to me and accepting him for who he is, I'm much more, shall we say, stable.I have a friend who says he is an atheist. He gets really angry when he talks about God. I told him, "you're not an atheist. You believe there's a god, you just don't like who you think he is." And sometimes, neither do I. Love, Dian.Referenced from: I need hopeLahry I couldn't agree more with all of this and just in part:Oh that we might ask our Holy God to give us a spirit that is in awe of His grandure, perfection, and might. Oh that we would have such wisdom as to fear and tremble at just one thought of Who He Is and where He dwells. My God, we need to get back to preaching and discussing this continually. If people don't know God, how would you expect them to realize the necessity of serving and obeying Him? Brother I believe that if we did this more so many a discussion would go away or go under or at least take on a completely different perspective. Surely things need to be discussed and pondered and considered and if this market place of thought and heart is any indication and from long observance often the very wrestling out of expression is it's own healing balm... If we are but looking at it rightly. So much that is mere speculation and presumption, conspiracy, controversy over that which is unknown and at best an 'educated guess'. What of the Lords controversy? Perhaps can save some space in redundancy: Help! Confession vs repentance of sin It's still the same sentiment.The beginning of the end personally and the 'about face' was A.W. Tozers' "Knowledge of The Holy". Forever indebted and may yet have opportunity to thank a Mr. Chip Ingram for it. Everything came to a head and struck, if I may wax here, into the very marrow of being. It defies expression and explanation often, but when truth gets fused there it is impossible to extract it. It so grabbed me and I it that I must know this and somehow understand it that the willingness to forget and let go of everything I though I knew was practically simple. What do I mean? It is well summed up in that incredible paragraph from Adam Clarke earlier.Too much here to comment on, it all just resonates Lahry, so glad you found and brought this up, had not seen it. How many more gems like this out there that just get missed? Oh how I wish there was a searching through and pondering of thought expressed that just gets sidelined in a push and a rush for just ones own opinion. Don't mean to overstate it, am giving my own here. Just that there is so much that never sees the light of day... Came across another searching for just one word to apply here (never did find it).A couple quick thoughts that have been percolating of late:One, "the old paths": Taking Solomons fact of truth that "there is nothing new under the sun" into consideration have been musing on how that word "old" may more entail just 'forgotten', so much so that re-discovering all that God is, in fact as He is, practically becomes "new", so foreign these truths are to us in our day.The other, am finding in prayer that when the silence can be gained the instant and natural response is just worship.Brother you have struck a cord here. Bless you.

Repeating..."Perhaps we should understand Peter’s words thus: Entertain just notions of God; of his nature, power, will, justice, goodness, and truth. Do not conceive of him as being actuated by such passions as men; separate him in your hearts from every thing earthly, human, fickle, rigidly severe, or capriciously merciful. Consider that he can neither be like man, feel like man, nor act like man. Ascribe no human passions to him, for this would desecrate not sanctify him. Do not confine him in your conceptions to place, space, vacuity, heaven, or earth; endeavor to think worthily of the immensity and eternity of his nature, of his omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. Avoid the error of the heathens, who bound even their Dii Majores, their greatest gods, by fate, as many well-meaning Christians do the true God by decrees; conceive of him as infinitely free to act or not act, as he pleases. Consider the goodness of his nature; for goodness, in every possible state of perfection and infinitude, belongs to him. Ascribe no malevolence to him; nor any work, purpose, or decree, that implies it: this is not only a human passion, but a passion of fallen man. Do not suppose that he can do evil, or that he can destroy when he might save; that he ever did, or ever can, hate any of those whom he made in his own image and in his own likeness, so as by a positive decree to doom them, unborn, to everlasting perdition, or, what is of the same import, pass them by without affording them the means of salvation, and consequently rendering it impossible for them to be saved. Thus endeavor to conceive of him; and, by so doing, you separate him from all that is imperfect, human, evil, capricious, changeable, and unkind. Ever remember that he has wisdom without error, power, without limits, truth without falsity, love without hatred, holiness without evil, and justice without rigour or severity on the one hand, or capricious tenderness on the other. In a word, that he neither can be, say, purpose, or do, any thing that is not infinitely just, holy, wise, true, and gracious; that he hates nothing that he has made; and has so loved the world, the whole human race, as to give his only-begotten Son to die for them, that they might not perish, but have everlasting life. Thus sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and you will ever be ready to give a reason of the hope that is in you to every serious and candid inquirer after truth. Most religious systems and creeds are incapable of rational explanation, because founded on some misconception of the Divine nature."~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~"The other day I heard a man pray this prayer: “Oh God, who art the truth, make me one with Thee in everlasting love. It wearieth me often to read and hear many things, but in Thee is all that I would have and can desire.” The Church will come out of her doldrums when we find out that salvation is not a light bulb only, that it is not an insurance policy against hell only, but that it is a gateway into God and that God is all that we would have and can desire. Again I quote Julian: “I saw that God is to us everything that is good and comfortable. He is our clothing; His love wrappeth us and claspeth us and all encloseth us for His tender love, that He may never leave us, being to us all that is good.” \tChristianity is a gateway into God. And then when you get into God, “with Christ in God,” then you’re on a journey into infinity, into infinitude. There is no limit and no place to stop. There isn’t just one work of grace, or a second work or a third work, and then that’s it. There are numberless experiences and spiritual epochs and crises that can take place in your life while you are journeying out into the heart of God in Christ. \tGod is infinite! That’s the hardest thought I will ask you to grasp. You cannot understand what infinite means, but don’t let it bother you—I don’t understand it and I’m trying to explain it! “Infinite” means so much that nobody can grasp it, but reason nevertheless kneels and acknowledges that God is infinite. We mean by infinite that God knows no limits, no bounds and no end. What God is, He is without boundaries. All that God is, He is without bounds or limits. The Immensity of God\tThe Scripture also teaches the immensity of God. It says in Isaiah, “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?” (40:12).\tImagine going out millions of light years into space and finding a body so vast that you could throw all our solar system into it. Like throwing a shovelful of coal into a furnace, it would simply swallow up our solar system and go on. After you’ve thought of all that, remember that God contains all that. Remember that God is outside of all things and inside of all things and around all things. Remember that our God made it. That is the immensity of God. \tThe Holy Ghost is bigger than all the universe, this little hazelnut that Julian saw. “Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket” (40:15). You know, it’s awfully hard to get a Christian scared. It’s hard to get him panicked if he really believes in God. If he’s just a church member, you can get him panicked. But if he really believes in God it’s very difficult to do it.\t\tOld Dr. Neighbor used to say that the word vanity in the Hebrew meant “a soap bubble”—something that floats along on an infinitesimally thin skin. You touch it and it’s gone; no one can find it again. That’s what it means: all the nations of the world are to Him as a soap bubble.It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth. (40:22, 25-26)\tNow this passage is probably the most daring flight of imagination ever made by the human mind. We have here in Isaiah that which is vaster and more awesome than anything that ever came out of the mind of Shakespeare. It is the thought of the great God, the Shepherd of the universe, moving through His universe, with its billions and trillions of light years, with its worlds so big that our whole solar system would look like a grain of sand by comparison. And God stands out yonder and calls all of these millions of worlds as His sheep; He calls them all by name and leads them out across the vast sky.\tI’d say this is the highest thought I know of, in the Bible or out. And God does this “by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth” (40:26). Just as a shepherd keeps all of his sheep and not one is lost, so God keeps all of His universe. Men point their tiny little glasses at the stars and talk learnedly, but they’ve just been counting God’s sheep, nothing more. God is running His universe. \tAnd then in the Psalms we read,Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honor and majesty. Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind. (104:1-3)"The Attributes of God"A Journey Into the Father's HeartA.W. Tozer