Notes of Faith April 26, 2025
Introducing the NIV Application Bible—a Bible based on the bestselling NIV Application Commentary series and designed to help you connect Scripture to your everyday life. With insightful notes, articles and real-world application, it bridges the world of the Bible and contemporary times. Whether you’re new to the Bible or a longtime reader, this resource is here to help you grow in faith and live God’s truth daily.
Here are two of the 52 total Character of God articles included in the NIV Application Bible that explore different aspects of God's character and what they mean for our lives today.
Character of God: God is Love
But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved. — Ephesians 2:4-5
To anyone who questions whether God truly loves them, Paul can point to a very concrete proof: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God did not love us because we were lovely or perfect or worthy. No, we were sinners, dead in our transgressions (Eph 2:1). God did not love people because we deserved it, and this shows the amazing measure of God’s love.
God’s love is central to His nature.
God lacks nothing, and yet He chose in love to create the universe. This act was selfless, directed out from Himself to His creation. God’s love led Him not only to watch that creation curiously from afar, but also to be involved with it. God upholds the workings of the universe by His loving providential hand.
God’s love led Him even further. When human beings, whom He formed in His image, fell into sin, God did not abandon or destroy them. Rather, He bound Himself to them even more closely. In love, He took on human flesh and came to dwell among people. God the Son emptied Himself of the glories and benefits of Heaven and lived as a man. He allowed Himself to be arrested and crucified to open the way for eternal life for all believers. God did not do this because He had to; He did it because of love. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us to take away our sin and make us children of God.
APPLICATION
While none of us can love like God, as God’s image-bearers we can imitate God’s love in our world. God’s loving nature is one of His “communicable” attributes — one that we ourselves can share in and demonstrate. When we practice the kind of selfless love Christ demonstrated, we glorify God and point others to Him. No Christian testimony is complete without a deep offering of love.
Character of God: God is Truth
I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. — John 14:6
Scripture teaches that God is truth. When the Son of God became a human in Jesus, He came “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Speaking to Thomas at the Last Supper, Jesus announced that He was “the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6).
Everything Jesus spoke was the truth. His words were not only His own; He spoke what the Father desired (John 12:49). Therefore, because we know that God is trustworthy and that God and Jesus are full of truth, we can be assured that no word of Christ will fail. In the same way, we can trust the words of the Bible. If God is truth, then His words in the Bible are true. There are no lies, mistakes, or guesses in God’s Word. Scripture is founded in God’s supreme wisdom and knowledge.
The completely truthful nature of God means that God is in fact the very foundation of truth. Nothing outside of God’s design is true, and there is and there is nowhere else truth can be found. Saint Augustine wrote that wherever truth is found, it belongs to God: All truth is God’s truth. This means that all things in creation that humans discover as facts belong to God. Nothing is outside of God’s domain.
APPLICATION
In today’s world, it can be difficult to know what is true. So many voices clamor for our attention and claim to have the right answer, the true answer. Truth is so important to our society and in relationships. It is necessary for trust. It is necessary for justice. So, how do we pick through the lies and find the truth? In order to know truth, we must know God. When we immerse ourselves in His Word and cultivate a relationship with Him through prayer, we will find that we can discern the truth from lies because we will become transformed into a person more and more like Jesus (Romans 12:2). As we remain in Him, we will know the truth and the truth will set us free (John 8:31-32).
Excerpted with permission from NIV Application Bible, copyright Zondervan.
I have this commentary series, although it is not my first go to, it is designed to give historical understanding and application for today. I have not seen this Bible, written in the same style, it should give help to understanding and application for the one who reads it. I pray that whatever Bible you use that you are reading it today!
Pastor Dale