https://youtu.be/2X0NoseF4iA
A.W. Tozer once said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” That line hangs over this entire teaching like a spotlight. Because how we picture God shapes how we pray, how we suffer, how we love, and how
we live.
Paul’s words in Colossians 1 don’t give us an abstract philosophy of God. They give us a face. A name. A person. If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus.
If you’ve seen Jesus, you’ve seen God.
God Is Like Jesus
Paul says Jesus is “the image of the invisible God.” Not a rough sketch. Not a partial glimpse. An exact representation. Jesus is not a created being or a moral teacher who points toward God. He is God,
eternal, full, complete.
That matters because many of us quietly assume God is harsher than Jesus. More distant. More disappointed. Colossians won’t allow that. God doesn’t act one way in heaven and another way in Christ. There is no split personality in the Trinity.
Jesus is God’s self-portrait.
God Is Near
The incarnation means God didn’t shout instructions from a distance. He moved into the neighborhood. Jesus arrived as an ordinary baby, not floating above
the manger, not insulated from human weakness. He pitched his tent among us.
God didn’t love humanity from afar. He got close enough to be misunderstood, rejected, and crucified.
God didn’t keep His distance—He closed it.
God Is Holy
Then come the moments that make people fall to their knees. A miraculous catch of fish. A storm silenced with a word. Suddenly Peter isn’t just impressed—he’s undone. “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man.”
Here’s the
strange pattern Scripture shows again and again: when the danger passes, fear increases. Not because God is cruel, but because holiness exposes us. The closer we get to God, the clearer we see ourselves.
Holiness isn’t God being touchy or severe. It’s God being utterly other—and therefore utterly real.
Grace comforts us; holiness undoes us.
God Is Gentle and Humble
And yet—this holy God says, “Come to me.” When Jesus describes his own heart, he doesn’t say
“strict,” “demanding,” or “disappointed.” He says “gentle and humble.”
This is not weakness. It’s strength under control. It’s authority that stoops. The heart of God—the motivational center of who He is—is not irritation toward sinners but compassion for the weary.
If you are exhausted, burdened, or ashamed, Jesus does not stiffen when you approach. He opens his arms.
The holiest being in the universe is the safest.
God Is Creator and
Sustainer
All things were created through Jesus and for Jesus. And not only that—“in him all things hold together.” Every atom, every breath, every unseen force continues because Christ sustains it.
This means your life is not hanging by a thread. It’s held. Even when it feels like things are coming apart, they are not slipping through God’s fingers.
The One who made it all is holding it all.
God Is Making Peace
Finally, Paul brings it
home. We were not just lost—we were alienated. Not slightly off track, but enemies in our minds. And God didn’t wait for us to climb out of the hole. He came down into it.
Peace was made not by denial, not by pretending sin didn’t matter, but by the blood of the cross. Reconciliation required surrender. A kind of death. Repentance is not God humiliating us—it’s the only way back to life.
God doesn’t demand surrender as a condition for love. Surrender is what returning to love
feels like.
Peace cost God everything—and offers us everything.
Why This Matters
If God is like Jesus, then fear-based faith has no future. If God is near, holiness is not rejection but invitation. If God is gentle, repentance is not despair but hope. And if God is holding all things together, then even now—especially now—you are not beyond redemption.
So the real question isn’t just What do we believe about God?
It’s this:
What kind of
life grows out of the God we imagine?
Because the clearer we see Him, the more freely we trust Him.
