Class #1 Introduction to "The Character of God equals the Character of Jesus" June 17, 2007

In this first class we identified that the crucial issue among the nations of the earth is NOT, "Does God exist?" The crucial issue that our race deals with in our many nations is: "What exactly is God like?" A vast majority of the people of the earth believe in some sort of god. Atheists are in short supply when you are talking the total population of the earth.

To answer this question we turned directly to 5 verses to support the theology that Jesus was God who became a human. Neither Buddha, Ghandi nor Muhammad made this claim. The uniqueness of Jesus is stunning. In John 14:9 Jesus claims:

"If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father!"

Then we looked at 4 supporting verses:

• "When he looks at Me, he sees the one who sent me." John 12:45
• "In the past God spoke to our forefatherrs through the prophets... The Son is the ... exact representation of his being...." Hebrews 1:3
• "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form..." Colossians 2:9
• "He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God...." Colossians 1:15
  

Lastly we talked about identifying or remembering events from our own personal history with God where He "came through" and provided a job, or protected us from harm, or provided relationships/friendship, or money to pay the bills or any number of other active interventions on our behalf.

We talked about committing our Top 3 items to memory so that when the latest fear, depressive thought, or struggle occurs we could fall back on these events to strengthen our faith to press in and trust God! And, because we know God's character by looking at Jesus' character, we can intensely trust that He is good!