In writing my accompanying post, “Memoir,” I reviewed a number of Scripture verses depicting various attributes of God. Following are a selection. Feel free to comment with some favorites or your own.
God engages: Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: (Isaiah 1:18, ESV)
God is compassionate: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)
God’s deference for the downtrodden: Although He is greatest of all, He is attentive to the needy and keeps His distance from the proud and pompous. (Psalm 138:6, VOICE)
God is exalted in stillness: He says, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." (Psalm 46:10)
God’s longing for us is not diminished by our rejection of him: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. (Luke 13:34)
Our intelligence is sourced from God: I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me? (Jeremiah 32:27)
God relentlessly pursues us: For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. (Ezekiel 34: 11-12, ESV)
God is all powerful: Yes, and from ancient days I am he. No one can deliver out of my hand. When I act, who can reverse it? (Isaiah 43:13, NIV)
God is both creator and controller: I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things. (Isaiah 45:7, ESV)
God made humans in his image and manner: So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27, NIV)
Thinking about when the Bible was written, consider how God recognizes no boundaries such as regarding….
Foreigners: The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 19:34, NIV)
Women: What Zelophehad’s daughters are saying is right. You must certainly give them property as an inheritance among their father’s relatives and give their father’s inheritance to them. (Numbers 27:7, NIV)
Children: But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.(Luke 18:16, ESV)
God is very much engaged even when his name is never even mentioned once, such as in the books of Esther and Song of Solomon.
I have barely scratched the surface. In my companion post, “Memoir,” I explore the Bible as God’s memoir - about and from and by him. Addressed to us.
His memoir, but directed to us - because we really matter to him.