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Olivia and Amy have started a podcast called "The Character of God." They discuss the importance of knowing and understanding God's character, both the attributes that we can take on and the attributes that belong to God alone. They emphasize the need to trust in God and recognize our own brokenness in order to fully grasp the gospel. They also highlight the danger of manipulating the gospel to fit personal preferences and the importance of revering God. The character of God, where everything good begins. Welcome to episode one of the character of God pod. My name is Olivia Humphreys, I live in the UK in the lovely Surrey countryside. I'm the co-founder of Charis Partners. I came to meet Amy first and foremost through prayer. Last year I prayed to be counseled by a pastor's wife and it wasn't until a handful of sessions that I learned that about Amy and we got chatting and this is what we do every single week. Not only are we now dear friends, but we are sisters in Christ. My name is Amy Deburg, I'm a biblical counselor and the one and only wife of my favorite preacher Spencer and I'm living in the Midwest, United States of America. I have long believed that the best starting place for counseling ourselves and others is in the character of God. This is why Liv and I get together. We get together to talk about the character of God. We're so glad that you're here to join us. Don't come along, grab a coffee or a tea if you're Liv and a friend, older or younger from any country you like, there is joy and meaning in God's character and you can expect to be surprised. Okay, so why are we doing this pod and what's the point in having this podcast because there are so many Christian podcasts out there. What is going to make the difference with this one? There are so many Liv and I was thinking about that, does the Lord really want us to do another podcast? Do we just need to make more noise out there on the internet, but it really isn't more noise. I really don't hear people talking about the character of God like I wish they would. Having devoted so much of my life to studying him and his attributes, I have been transformed. It is something that I can't help but want to share with everyone. You just feed that. So whenever we get together, you just feed my desire to know God more and you spur me on and it just gives me such an encouragement. So I'm so glad we're doing this. Me too. Me too. And I second that. I second all of that. When we say God's character, what do we actually mean by character? I like to think of the Bible as not being a book about someone else's dad. So easy to walk past someone else's voice if you don't know them. It's easy to ignore their interests, to not really have anything to do with them. And so much of Christianity, I see it everywhere, we live the Christian life just walking right past that voice. Because if you don't know someone, you don't know any reason to care about what they say. So the character of God is too big for a podcast. Even if we did a thousand podcasts live, as you know, one every day for the rest of our lives, we would not be able to exhaust the character of God. But the question is a good one and you have to start somewhere. So the answer to that is that God is all perfection and God is knowable and he has attributes that he has revealed to us in his word and those attributes can be known and not only can they be known, but they serve a purpose in our practical everyday lives. His communicable attributes, those are the ones that are transferable to us. So he has attributes that we can take on and some of those attributes would be that God is gracious, that God is merciful, God is love, God is wise, God is holy and he asks us to be those things too. And in 2 Peter 1, there's a promise that we can become partakers of the divine nature. So those are the communicable attributes. And then there are the non-communicable attributes, which means these belong to God only. We can't take these on, but because he has those as his attributes, it sets him on this transcendent plane where he's wholly other than we are. And of course, we need to rely on a God who is wholly other than we are. Some of those attributes are that he is omnipresent, omniscient, he is omnipotent. So he has all the power, he has all the wisdom, he has all the knowledge. And because of that, we have a place to go in our suffering, in our sin and our failures. We begin to try to take on these attributes of God that are communicable in the power of his spirit. And of course, it begins with the gospel. But in our suffering, we can run to a God who is so much greater than we are and unfathomable in all of his greatness, so that we're safe and secure. He's untouchable. And that makes us fearless the more we grow. JG Would you say that character is something that we've developed through getting to know God? And as a Christian, it's who we are because of our relationship with Christ? AC Exactly. That is the perfect question. And that is exactly where it is. Because to know God, you can't just know about him. There are plenty of theologians who know about God. If you look throughout the New Testament, you see the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes. If anyone knew what the Bible said about God, it was them. They had to know the law, and they had to be able to quote that. But if you see Jesus talking to them, there is no relationship there. First and foremost, to answer your question, Jesus came to introduce us to the Father. And if you look in Matthew 22, you see the Pharisees asking, what is the great commandment? They're coming in. They want answers. They want to test God. Give us proof. This is all about knowledge. This is about us knowing more than you. They say, what is? And Jesus says, the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And another is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. So the answer is love. And that is a relational word. And it says all the law and the prophets rely on this. That's what Jesus says. All the law and the prophets rely on this. That's what's so amazing about that. Wow, that is amazing. And so I guess it's also in order to walk by faith and not fight, you need to be developing that personal relationship. Once you see God, then you'll also see your problems for what they are. You'll be able to, in your prayer, communicate with him. But also it gives life perspective, everything perspective. Once we know and we start building that personal relationship with God. One other question, I guess one thing I'd say from building relationships with anyone, what is one major component part of building a relationship? It's trust. So a question has got to be, because as Christians, we're called to trust. You know, the question is, whom will we trust? God or ourselves, right? In terms of that choice, because it is a choice, how do we know we are trusting God right? That's a great question. And you're absolutely right to talk about it in that way. And that is why you have to start with who God is. If you think about the gospel, how do we even know that we are receiving the true gospel? How do we even know that we need the gospel? And how do we know we're believing what the Bible says about Jesus for the right reason? You have to know first and foremost that God is God and he is holy and you are not. And that relationship is broken. So when you ask somebody, talk about being saved, you say, what are you being saved from? You know, and you'll have people say things like from hell or from my sin or from myself. Why are any of those things a concern? Because hell is what it is, because it's the wrath of God on sinners. So do I need to be saved from myself and my sin and hell? Yes, but really, in essence, I need to be saved from God because I have offended a holy God. So if we don't at least know something about who he is, we don't even have a launching point for understanding why we need the gospel. But your question is to talk about the relationship with Christ and the gospel. Maybe you can talk about that a little bit, what you had to understand about God in order to come to Christ. I think as well, just you explaining the core of the gospel is to be saved from God by God, to be saved from the wrath of God. I didn't know that. A huge part of me actually coming to Christ was learning to fear God. You remember earlier on in our sessions, it was like, meet God. Every single person in the prophet, whoever they were who met God in the Bible, would be on their face, on the floor, you know. And so that was a huge part of the beginning of our biblical counseling. And that fear, there's a reason why the Bible then says, the beginning of wisdom is fear, to fear God. That for me, you know, I think there's so many issues with heretic talking and trying to manipulate the gospel to suit people, rather than actually honoring the holy God and what really the gospel is. And that is so dangerous because we can't be manipulating the gospel to suit the palette of people when really we need to be offended. We need to learn where we stand. And that is not in our own convictions and our trusting ourselves. We need to start by getting right with God. And there's so many ways in which we have violated, you know, the holy covenant, the holy relationship with God. So that was a huge part for me. And then trusting Christ through that, looking through the gospel, seeing the incredible, not only miracles, but his character, his mercy. You run to Christ and find shelter in him. And that for me was huge. And is to this day as I read the gospels. Right. Oh, that's so good. And so absolutely necessary. I cringe at the corruption of the church worldwide, but especially in America. What a joke. The so-called church on many platforms has been turned into a platform for, like you said, self-pleasing, whatever it is that you think you're looking for. Pack Christ onto that. Well, when you look at the transcendence of God, Psalm 145, three, great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. And his greatness is unsearchable. God is unsearchable and his greatness is unsearchable. If I see that over and over again, and I put myself in the place of having to see who he is day in and day out, it makes me see myself rightly. That's why it is devastating to the church that the fear of God has been dismissed. What a joke. In some so-called gospel presentations, you don't have enough money because you don't have enough faith. Like God is some trite, puny little genie who's actually under our control, so that when I muster up enough of my faith and rub that lamp, oh, he comes out and then he'll bless me. So he's got the power of blessing, but he doesn't have the power of transcendence. That is a breakdown in the knowledge of God that makes someone not fear God. And if you don't spend time knowing him, that fear and that trust, as you talked about earlier, won't grow. It's so necessary. And the relational part of it is absolutely important. That's why I love what Jesus said in the parable of the prodigal son, when he talks about the sinner. Describe that sinner in the absolute worst possible thing we can imagine. I don't know. Have you ever been to a pig farm? Yeah. Like, do you have pigs? I have a pet pig growing up. Her name is Gloria. If you want to come back. I never cease to be amazed at the things I've learned that happened over there in jolly old England. You don't know about Gloria. I can't believe it. I know you have a dog named Angela. No, Sue. Angela. Sorry, I knew it was a normal woman's name. Angela will be the next pet. So anyway, pigs. There's nothing worse than the smell of a pig farm. I'm sure your pig was clean. But you see this guy and he is eating the food of the pig. That's how poor and destitute and broken down and lonely and sad he is. Why? Because he took the blessings of God and not the relationship of God. And he ran. And then when he realized who his God was, he sat back and he said, my my father certainly would at least let me join in with the servant. I'd have a place to eat and a place to live. And he saw himself rightly, you know, in the light of who God is. We see him and then we see ourselves. That is the natural consequence of it. Like you mentioned earlier, anyone who met God face to face, they they were undone. Humbled. Right? Right. And you can't help it. Not what we need. Exactly what we need, Liv. We have to purposefully put ourselves in that position, because if we don't, then then before you know it, we're all puffed up. That's why knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. And the end of that story is so beautiful because it is relational, where he comes cowering back to his father and the father runs to meet him. I can't not cry whenever I hear about that. The father runs to meet him. This is our God who has the power to withhold blessing. He has the power to show wrath. He has all wisdom and knowledge and he runs to the sinner who comes repentant to Christ and is longing for a relationship with him. Obedience is secondary. Obedience is always important, but obedience doesn't do a thing to save you. Obedience just does. I love you, dad. I love you, my heavenly father, and this is how I show you. And it makes a mockery of God if you don't. Yeah, and the obedience comes actually after faith, right? It's faith, and obedience is a byproduct of that faith, actually an expression of it. As we're speaking about the character and attributes of God, how many times I've been in situations, my whole life was built on self-strategy, on self-salvation. And that got me into so much trouble, danger. And I think the question is, we're speaking about one of the most important topics you could ever, ever talk about and learn around. But I didn't actually talk about this until I met you. No one else was speaking about it. No one was pointing me here. Left with my own Bible, I was getting lost. And actually now when I read it from the point of view of I'm sitting with my father, I'm learning from him. I'm praying as I go. What is every single day, every single moment, what's most important? Staying safe in my comfort zone and not self-extending or honoring God, come what may. You know, that's really the epitome of building your relationship with him because that's relational. You know, you're not going to want to dishonor someone that you respect and love so much, right? You know, that's the difference. That's why I see strong, faithful Christians. That's the core of it, what you're speaking about here. I think this is the essential conversation to have. Am I a creature of the moment stuck in my self-strategy, in the flakiness of the self-help industry, which is right? Or am I going to stand firm on the rock that is Christ and learn the truth, truth about God? That's what I love about our conversations and, you know, learning and becoming confident in God is the ultimate, the ultimate relationship that every other relationship flows from. I love it too. I love it more than I can say. I love it more than you love it. And you probably hate it in comparison to how much I love talking to you about your future. That wasn't necessary. It's not a competition, but just to say I'm overjoyed. And I just want to drop in here a little note to anybody who's listening. If you don't have a relationship, a good, awesome relational relationship, that probably should be edited. If you don't have a deep and growing friendship with another woman of a different age, you need to do that. It is so rewarding for me to watch your faith live and to see you growing and to learn from you as you're learning from God. As you talk about him, it spurs me on to greater faithfulness. I think that people are kind of losing that in this generation. I don't mind saying it. I'm 53 and I'm a grandma now. And I absolutely love that, you know, we have this sort of a spiritual mother and daughter, but also great friend relationship in Christ. It really is the best. And so that's why we encourage you to find somebody else out there and bring them along and study the attributes of God with them and dive deep into his character. And you will still just be amazed at what you experience there. And would you say it's a fast route to change? I'll tell you something, without the soundboard and not only accountability, but the encouragement, I would be lost on my own. I really would. And on my own. Have you heard of the saying, you clutch at straws? Is that English? I was referring to that time when I accidentally said, in English, we say what I meant in American vernacular. Can we pause for a second? Because early days when we were meeting, I'm always trying to say these phrases in American vernacular. And I wonder, oh, no, have I offended? Have I offended my UK friend? And I always have to check and say, you know, did I say it wrong or whatever? But anyway, clutching at straws. Clutching at straws. No, honestly, you should never actually offend. It's the words that we have in the UK that we, for example, we didn't even know were certain swear words, which I'm not going to say. But that was a paradigm shift. But what I was saying about clutching at straws, without the relationship, the accountability, the support, you know, just to also share as you go the struggles you have to ask questions without that engaging conversation, you are on your own, even though through prayer, obviously, you build a relationship with God. But like the world, my tendency is to clutch at straws and to view things very myopically. And what you've helped me to do is take a big old step back to look at who God is and ask every single challenge I've had. The question is, who is God in this situation? And I was like, what? I've never asked that before. I didn't know to ask that. And every single time, whatever the challenge is, and sometimes I get stuck in a rut. But just having a friend who will go, hey, you remember that question? You know what it is? Who is God to you in this situation? Just takes you out of the getting stuck in the problem, can take a step back. And every single time without fail, and maybe a few nudges and a bit of help, I gain different perspective. And the peace that surpasses understanding comes flooding in. And I get really in a completely different frame of mind and can actually ground myself. That is, I mean, it's been a lifesaver. And we've been through a lot, you know, already in our relationship, there's been challenges left, right and center, and not between us, but things that have naturally happened. And that, you know, has really been such a comfort. And praise God. Right? Yes, praise God. And what is cool about that is I get to watch you go through those challenges. And you've watched me go through those challenges. And you have reminded me the same thing that we're asking, who is God? Who is God? And not just who is God, but who are you God, there is a big difference, because I can say, who is God in my situation, which is great, that'll give me the information I need to know about his character to trust him. But to say, who are you, God, in my situation, I have to a know and have a growing knowledge of his attributes, his characteristics, who he is, what we call his perfection, I have to know his will, his ways, his work, and all of it builds on itself. So I do have to know that and then B, then I can take what I know about him into my situation. And if I turn that into a prayer relationally, and we've talked about this so many times where I say, God, who are you in my situation, then I don't respond to the situation, I respond to who God is in my situation, and then the Holy Spirit responds to my situation through me. You can't miss that step. And we've talked about this from the beginning, God, my heart, my actions, it always has to be in that order. You can't start with your actions, because your actions don't give you enough information to be victorious. You can't have a relationship with answers. I can't start with my heart, because first of all, my heart will deceive me, and it sees things wrongly. The Bible speaks to that, saying the heart is deceitful above all else, desperately wicked, who can know it? Even our hearts transformed in Christ, we waver back and forth in the flesh. So to ask why, that's not the right question either. You can't start with the heart. You have to have a place for your heart to believe. You have to have truth for your heart to hold on to, and it has to be in relationship, because that's how we were made. That's why you can't take a broken person, put them in a padded cell, and give them science books to understand who they are, and where they belong, and how they should respond to things. So the hows and the whys really need to be replaced by the who. Wow, this is essential, and so comforting, because you've got who God is, and then your relationship with him. Those two proper come together. I just want to quote from the Bible, I've got to bring in Isaiah, if you don't mind. I love Isaiah. Chapter 51, such a powerful chapter, but in particular, I think verses 12 through probably all the way through 20, but a few things here. He says, I am he who comforts you. Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, the son of man who was made like grass, and have forgotten the Lord, your maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, and you fear continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor, when he sets himself to destroy, and where is the wrath of the oppressor? He who is bowed down shall speedily be released. He shall not die and go down to the pit, neither shall his bread be lacking. I am the Lord, your God, who stirs up the sea, so that its waves roar. The Lord of hosts is his name, and I have put my words in your mouth, and covered you in the shadow of my hand, establishing the heavens, and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion, you are my people. So you look at that, just that's purely 12 to 16 there. To look and trust in God with a confidence and a radiance. He is saying, I have established the heavens, I have laid down the foundations of the earth. If God tells you you're his, why would you freak out? In fact, freaking out is by being godless. Godless people have rightly so. You're going to live in fear, and you're going to freak out because you don't know God, and you don't know his character and his attributes. So if you're trusting in yourself, you have reason. And anything other than God, you have reason to be disturbed and not having any hope. So I wanted to share that because there's so much to share here. But I just love Isaiah for that very reason. He introduces God in such a powerful way. Almost nothing more needs to be said. Really, if you take that scripture and you walk through each one of those things that it says about who God is, who man is, it changes everything. This is why we can take anything that anybody's dealing with in counseling, and we can present that thing before the character of God first and see it very plainly in the light of who God is. It's his light. By his light do we see light. With him is the fountain of life. When we take something like anxiety or the secondary things that are there because anxiety has been there so long that it turned into something secondary like OCD or something like that, this need to control, those kind of things, you can almost always say this person is starving for a big God. One by one, I have seen people transformed, and I've seen myself transformed. I'll be in a moment of absolute fear and anxiety over something ridiculous, and I'll touch myself, and I'll say, counselor, counsel thyself. You have to honestly, when it's you, you can't see it. You have to tell yourself, what would I tell somebody else? I would say, God, who are you in my situation? According to Isaiah, who is God in our situation? Everything that you said about him there, pull any of those things out, and you can address your own anxiety in the character of God. How would you explain from a counseling, biblical counseling point of view, why it's so important to be dependent on God? Yeah, I mean, I just think about myself. Where's the first place I go when I have a problem, or I'm concerned, or I'm afraid, or whatever it is, feeling anxious? Do I call a friend? Do I turn on the TV and shut it out? Do I scroll on my Instagram? Do I open self-help books? Do I go to therapy? Do I need a person? Do I eat a lot? Am I a workaholic? What do I do when I'm struggling? You are created in the image of God. A part of you is meant to have an eternal God and an infinite God satisfy you. Outside of that, there's no hope of help. So any of those things that we talked about, those are all addressing it at the physical level. So you're starting with action. Or I can just rely on myself and start with my heart and control everything. I'm worried. I'll just keep worrying, and my worry feeds my control, and my control grows, and my control grows. And the more I control, the more I realize that I just need more control and more control. Everything else you try, you need more of it, and it never does anything. But with God's character, you're absolutely satisfied with one glimpse, and yet there's this realization that there's so much more of Him. There's an unending fountain of life in God's character. That one drop of it can fill you, overflow you, and give you so much more satisfaction that you have some left over to share with others. The people that are going to be the most victorious in life, they won't get burned out in ministry. They can survive in terrible marriages. They can keep working for an unreasonable boss. They can be mistreated and suffer terrible, terrible things. If, like Augustine said, God is your greatest good, and if all your other goods, I'm summarizing here, are depleted, you always have God who is your greatest good. What else do you need? The problem is people have idols. So all those other things that you're looking to, you're taking those things and you're saying, my hope is in them. My hope is in my control, or my hope is in the next gratification and the two plus two. And that's what we do when we lean on our own understanding. We lean on our own hunch. That's what I do without having the guidance as well. And the counsel and the power of Christian relationships help me not only to understand the Word of God, which is the role of a pastor, right? Without that guidance and help to interpret it, I lean on my own hunches. Trials in life, whatever the current Caesar is, okay, whatever that may be, whatever's coming through your newsfeed, whatever the current tragedy is, you know, whatever the world offers, we are actually prone to go by what we see, to rely on the ideas, the institutions that the world presents, which are actually a part of creating the problem in the first place, right? And so if we're not having conversations like this, yeah, we're lost, we're lost. And that's what I've done my whole life, you know, and what you're talking about here takes me out of that soup of confusion and gives me perspective, which without knowing who God is, I can't make sense of anything. So all of a sudden, it's only true Christians who have a building relationship with God, who actually can grasp what's going on, you know, and gain perspective instead of actually becoming more confused. And well, you can see the consequences of that in the world today. And you look at the Son of God, the only one who is perfect, sinless, right? And you know, that's why when you look at what Christ did for us, it hits right at the conscience, changes your heart, changed mine. Absolutely. And I think it could be possible that someone could be hearing our podcast and not know the gospel. And it's really great for us to be able to explain exactly what that is. God, who is holy, has a perfect standard. He included His law in the Bible so we could know how far off we are from ever fulfilling His standard. Then knowing that we could never fulfill His standard, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, so that He could fulfill God's perfect, holy standard in our place. He lived a sinless life. And then there's this matter of God's wrath, because we're still deserving. Someone had to take that in our place. So Jesus, being man in our place, being human in our place, took our punishment. Jesus, being God, was able then to bear the full weight of the wrath of God and rise from the dead. His resurrection and His ascension means that His life is now our life. And John 14 talks about that. And if you want to meditate on the most relational, Trinitarian passage in all of scripture, in my opinion, of course there are more, but open John 14 and meditate on what is said there. You will be absolutely comforted and thrown away. But if you have not yet placed your faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior who took your place, today's the day for you to come to Christ. All you have to do is say, Do I believe this? If you don't believe it, keep reading. Read the Gospels. Read the Gospel of John. See what Jesus did for you. Keep reading until you believe. And talk to the Lord. He's everywhere and He can hear you. And say, I want to believe. Help my unbelief. And then place your faith in Christ who did everything for you. And then jump in head first into this most glorious journey that we are so blessed to be on. In an eternal and infinite deep dive into a measureless God. Get to know Him. You will never, ever, ever look back and you'll wonder why it took you so long to get there. Amen. And we'll be discussing this more. So much that we'll be speaking about each week. And that I personally have not only taken from our counseling sessions, but you know, as you said at the beginning, there's always something to learn. And whatever life throws at us, we have the Word of God. And we have the incredible opportunity to share with one another and learn. And by looking to who God is through God, my heart, my actions, as you've been teaching me, and to share that with others as we go. So I think it's been awesome to have this conversation and share this with whoever wants to listen. I love it. I'm so glad. It's such a privilege and a joy to do this with you, Liv. And we want to invite all of you. Come back. Bring a friend and join us every Friday morning. We can't wait to see what God is going to do. We're just so glad you're along with us. I don't know. Do you guys have compass over there? Or is that something ordinary? No, we have compass. You put butter on those? Or how does that work? You put whatever you like on them. Thank you for joining us today. We would like to thank our sponsors, Karis Partners, and our hearty thank you to the man behind the impressive voice, David Cavanagh. You're welcome. If you found our podcast resource helpful for counseling or encouraging others, we encourage you to donate. We won't say when. But click the link and you'll find that on Instagram app or YouTube. God bless.
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