Entering Into God’s Presence Knowing God Through His Nature & Character

Intelligent (A Personal Attribute of God’s Nature) To Study and Ponder

* Intelligence is defined as the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills (Online Dictionary) - Greek sunetos –intelligent, prudent, wise, understanding, discerning.
- Hebrew biyn (bene) –to be discerning, intelligent, discreet, have understanding

• God is an omniscient God, his knowledge is exact, complete, real, total. But God is not a merely a gigantic repository of data and information.He is not a mechanized computer system. He is a person and as such he has all the capacities of an extraordinary intellect. God thinks, imagines, plans, reasons, analyzes, remembers, etc. In other words, God’s intellect is dynamic; he works his ideas. He says,“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9

• Thoughts are much more than just data. God thinks! “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Jer 29:11. God’s thinking and planning is a dynamic intellectual process. This reality gives genuine meaning to prayer, for through prayer we can enter into authentic dialogue with God. “I looked for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land. I searched for someone to stand in the gap in the wall so I wouldn’t have to destroy the land, but I found no one. So now I will pour out my fury on them...” Eze 22:30-31a. God wanted to interact with an intercessor so that his plans of judgment could be changed to plans of mercy. How tragic that God did not find anyone to dialogue with him on behalf of the nation.

• With great passion, God reaches out to a wayward people, “O my people, what have I done to you? What have I done to make you tired of me? Answer me!” Mic 6:3. God was urging them... as He urges us... “Turn to me. Speak to me. Come and dialogue with me! I want to be intimate with you. I want to relate to you. Please respond!” The people did not respond then.

• Everywhere in creation there is evidence of God’s intelligence. He has chosen to give us revelation about himself in the things he has made. (Romans 1:20) NB the complexity of DNA, Fibonacci sequence/patterns etc. (https://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/fibonacci-sequence.html)

  • Meditate more on God’s incomparable intelligence, evident over and over in scripture:-

  • -  God invites people to engage with his thinking:“Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD”

    Isa 1:18 (NRSV). “Set forth your case, says the LORD, bring your proofs” Isa 41:21 (NRSV)

  • -  Luke 2:52 Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people.

  • -  Paul highlights difference between human wisdom/intelligence and God’s:-1Co 1:18-25

  • -  Isaiah 29:14 “.. the intelligence of the intelligent will disappear."

  • -  Isaiah 40:12-28 No one can measure the depths of his understanding v.28

  • -  The Lord reveals His omnipotence to Job. Job ch.38 – 42:3

  • -  God's perfect knowledge of man is evident in Psa 139.

  • -  Isaiah 2:17 - Human pride will be humbled, and human arrogance will be brought down.

  • -  Romans 11: 33-36 “Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! v.33

    • Human theories and models bring revelation of God’s intelligence:-
    - Modalities - God hears, sees, acts (Tactile/Kinesthetic) – strengths in all 3 modalities
    - Brain dominance theory (Left brain/ Right brain strengths) – God of the detail and order

    (10 commandments; laws and statutes of Moses; etc.), God of the big picture (holistic/ creative), seeing the need for Christ to be incarnate and come as Emmanuel.

- Convergent/ Divergent – Alpha and Omega; author and finisher of our faith - Howard Gardner’s “Nine Intelligences”:-

i) Linguistic – God is the Word – (see God is the Word meditation)
ii) Math/logical – God of order (Gen 6:15-21; building instructions for Noah's ark,

tabernacle; temple etc.)
iii) Musical – God is our song – Zephaniah 3:17
iv) Bodily kinesthetic – Jesus came as man and walked amongst us – Carpenter/potter v) Spatial – potter Is 64:8
vi) Interpersonal – God of relationship
vii) Intrapersonal – Jesus taking time alone with the Father (Luke 9:36; John 6:22)
viii) Naturalist – creator of the universe (Gen 1)
ix) Existential (?) - The answer to every question. (Job)

• Have we thought of God as a machine that we have available to use when we want to ... lived as if we could turn God on and off at our convenience – now we need him, now we don’t? Perhaps we have not been aware that God is genuinely a person, with thoughts and concerns, who is pursuing us, wanting to engage with us, longing to reason with us and enter into a dialogue with us. Let us see him for who he is, and today enter into his presence in awe.

Memory/Meditation
Lower Grades: The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows

weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. Isaiah 40:28b (NLT) Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people. Luke 2:52 (NLT)

Middle Grades: “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9 (NLT)

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Ephesians 3:20 (NLT)

Upper Grades: Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! For who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice? And who has given him so much that he needs to pay it back? For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen. Romans 11: 33-36 (NLT)

Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. Isaiah 40:28 (NLT)