God - ... you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house , a holy priesthood

What the Bible Says About... the Scriptures, God, Mankind, Satan, Salvation, the Christian Life, the Church, and Future Things

Select Scriptures About God, and Father

"In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name." (Matthew 6:9)

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world." (1 John 4:7-14)

"Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith." (Romans 3:29-30)

"For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:3-4)

Select Scriptures about God, the Son

"For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time" (1 Timothy 2:5-6)

"God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high," (Hebrews 1:1-3)

"For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this." (Isaiah 9:6-7)

Select Scriptures about God the Holy Spirit

"But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." (Acts 1:8)

"If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you." (John 14:15-17)

"I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come." (John 16:12-13)

God and Three in One

There is only one God and Creator of all.

He made the heavens and earth and all that is therein in only six days. On the seventh day He rested. He is the one triune God, of three distinct Persons: God the Father; God the Son; and God the Holy Spirit. These three make up the Trinity and the Godhead.

God the Father
God the Father is the first Person of the Trinity and Creator of all. He is supreme over all without beginning or end, and He knows the end from the beginning for mankind. He is able to be in all places at one time. He is invincible. He is all-powerful. He is all-knowing, and all authority comes from Him. Even Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit work in obedience to His will.

He is perfect. He is holy. He is just and righteous in all His ways, the Judge of heaven and earth. He is divine, and He is worthy of worship and praise. God is love. He is good and continually offers His goodness to mankind. He does not desire that anyone would perish but that all would be saved, thus offering His saving goodness to all who will believe. He is the Father of all those who accept His goodness through faith in His Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ, the Lord.

God the Son
God the Son is the second Person of the Trinity and the King of the Kingdom of God without beginning or end. He created all things with the Father and all things were created for Him. He will also serve, along with His Father, as Judge over creation. He is coequal with His Father in authority and power. He is the key to the Father’s saving plan for mankind. God the Father sent Him as a man to live among us in order to represent Him perfectly to us and also to fully satisfy the Father’s requirement for our salvation.

He was born of a virgin and lived among us without sin before freely surrendering to a cruel crucifixion, dying on a cross, bearing the sins of the whole world. His shed blood and death became the complete payment for sin on behalf of all those who truly believe on Him alone for salvation. He was resurrected by His Father through the power of the Holy Spirit on the third day, and was seen alive by more than five hundred witnesses for forty days. He ascended to His Father, where He is now seated at His right hand on behalf of all those who are His. He overcame death and the grave and holds the keys to eternal life.

As a man, Jesus Christ experienced life as we do, overcoming all things. Now He can feel our weaknesses, and He is personally acquainted with our struggles and sorrows. He is able to help us with great grace, having been where we are. Now He lives to make intercession for us. By Him, whoever is willing will be redeemed, restored, and reconciled to God now and will receive eternal life to come.

It is through Him alone and by His name that all His followers may communicate to their Heavenly Father. His name is above every name, and there is salvation in no other. He is the Head of the Church, which is His body in the earth today. He is preparing a place of eternal bliss for us to live with Him, and He will return to resurrect His body out of the world at a day and hour known only to His Father.

God the Holy Spirit
God the Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity, one with the Father and Jesus Christ the Son. He created all things together with the Father and the Son. He was God’s primary agent in the world from the beginning of God’s redemptive work with man. Early on, He worked in and through the lives of individuals chosen by God to partially represent His interests in the world until Jesus Christ should come and represent Him wholly and completely.

The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. He is our Comforter, Teacher, and Guide. He is the Interpreter of scripture for us. The fruits of the Holy Spirit reveal the character of the Godhead, and they are manifested through us as we permit the Spirit to have His way in our lives. These fruits are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

The Holy Spirit is the Father’s last representative sent from heaven to rescue willing humanity before His final judgment. God sent Him by an unprecedented outpouring at the start of the New Covenant Church, fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus and coinciding with a Jewish festival called Pentecost.

The Holy Spirit makes the believer a new creature in Christ as a part of the salvation experience and continually resides in all those who are truly born again. Thus everyone in Jesus Christ is born of His Spirit, by which we are also sealed until the day of redemption. Jesus said, “You must be born again” to see the kingdom of God. But there is also another endowment of the Spirit called the “baptism of the Holy Spirit.”

The baptism of the Holy Spirit has been available to believers since Pentecost, but many faithful believers have yet to receive it. This is generally due to the fact that it is confused with the initial indwelling of the Holy Spirit that happens at the time of the new birth.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is an endowment of spiritual gifting and power, given so that we may more effectively demonstrate and testify of the One in whom we have believed. Even Jesus, who always possessed the Holy Spirit, having always been one with Him, was given an anointing of the Spirit from His Father immediately after His Baptism in water, before His ministry of dynamite power.

The Spirit of God is here to glorify the Father and the Son, not to glorify any man. The baptism of the Spirit does not make any one believer superior to another, but it is essential to the members of His body for becoming the fullness of Jesus Christ.

His baptism is an important part of spiritual maturity, yet many believers still shy away from it because it may also be associated with the strange gift of tongues – one of many often abused and misunderstood gifts of the Spirit. Unfortunately, the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues have been so misunderstood and/or abused throughout the church age, beginning with the New Testament church at Corinth, that many faithful believers have distanced themselves far from them. They sadly miss some of the greatest experiences of salvation. The gifts of the Spirit still await us today.

When the Spirit of God is neglected, the church suffers from spiritual lack. When He is received but misused, the church suffers from spiritual confusion. But when He is received and permitted to operate through Spirit-led leadership, the church benefits from being built up into the full measure of the stature of Jesus Christ.

The Bible says that Jesus had the Spirit without measure, clearly indicating that the Spirit is given to everyone else by measure. Also, the apostle Paul taught that each believer is given a specific part or particular gift of the Spirit. No individual can have the full measure of God’s Spirit that Jesus had. That measure is only available through the collective members of His body as the local church matures. Our conviction is that the complete fullness of God’s Spirit will be revealed through maturing local churches in anticipation of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. We believe the scripture shows that God is going to bring His church around the world to this kind of blessed maturity and fullness soon - before our Lord returns for her!

A Word About the Trinity - God is three persons in one
Some believers attack the doctrine of God being three divine Persons in One because they assume it was something born out of Roman Catholicism; and they hate Roman Catholicism.

It is true that the first official counsel among the founders of pagan Christianity was to settle the argument on the Trinity; however, Roman Catholicism did not invent the doctrine, nor do they own it. The fact that God is three Persons in One is one of the clearest Bible truths put forth in all scripture; even a babe in Christ can see it. It is also a very important truth. How confusing God would be if He had not made that truth emphatically clear.

The Roman Catholics also established early on that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a virgin. Well, that certainly is a Bible truth not to be doubted. It is clearly set forth in the scripture, and even a babe in Christ can see it. Does the Catholic religion own that Bible truth just because they established it early on and because they make such a big deal about it? Absolutely not! They do not own a single truth in the Bible. Nobody does. Truth is truth, and it stands alone.

We should remember that the greatest deceivers speak a lot of truth along with their lies. It is by speaking some truth that a deceiver is able to draw his prey into his clutches. There are other truths believed in Roman Catholicism, but those truths do not make their religion acceptable to God, nor does their association with some truth make that truth untrue.

It is important – very important to every believer's life of liberty in Jesus Christ – that we not hate pagan Christianity more than we love truth. Count me among those who mortally hate religion, but my life and belief is based upon truth, regardless of how religious dogma sees it. Our belief in truth does not associate us with any religious form, organization, or institution simply because they may also espouse to that same truth.

I have put down a few verses to substantiate the argument of the Trinity; better yet, I searched the web to find a site where this argument is thoroughly explained. This is for your benefit. I do not endorse the whole web sight where this is found, but if you have problems believing the simple truth of the Trinity, this can help.  Simply click here.

Believe me. No one hates pagan Christianity more than I hate it; but my love for God far exceeds my hatred for those institutions which despise the truth. There are nearly 70 scriptures that clearly put forth God as being three in One.   Here are just a few. May the Lord bless you as you read them.

Select Scriptures about God as Three in One

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!" (Deuteronomy 6:4)

"Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are." (John 17:11)

"I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:" (John 17:20-22)

"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen. ." (Matthew 28:19-20)

Jesus said, "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter [Spirit], that he may abide with you forever." (John 14:16)

"Therefore [Jesus] being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear." (Acts 2:33)

"For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word [Jesus], and the Holy Spirit; and these three are One." (I John 5:7)

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. (2 Corinthians 13:14)

"He [Father] will glorify Me [Son], for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. "A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me, because I go to the Father." (John 16:14-16)

"These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you." (John 14:25-26)

"But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!" Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ." (Galatians 4:4-7)

"But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning." (John 15:26-27)

"elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied." (I Peter 1:2)

When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. (Matthew 3:16)