Tracing the Amazing Wonders of the Personhood of God, Pt 3
Study Guide, October 26, 2025
Pastor Clay Olsen
So, how are you feeling today, emotionally, that is? Seems like an odd way to start a sermon, right? Or, I prefer to call our message times ‘Family Bible Studies.’ Still, why would asking about ‘emotional feelings’ in our journey of looking into the wonders of the Personhood of God be so important?
This was remarkable…[image of emotions wheel] It’s called a Wheel of Emotions…with joy, sadness, love, fear…and so on. And it shows when certain emotions are combined they then make another emotion, like healthy Fear plus Surprise equals ‘Awe’. And Serenity plus Interest equals Optimism. And Trust plus Acceptance equals Admiration…and so on. Pretty cool! I actually found a list of 183 different emotions, feelings, and moods. I think that it was called an ‘exhaustive list of emotions’…I felt exhausted after just reading it!1
But back to the question: Why do we feel at all? Why are we emotional beings? “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Gen 1:26,27 NASB Now, one of the main components of God’s image, which is mostly over-looked of course, is the ‘holy moral image’ of God. And that is what was lost in the Fall, but is then rebirthed at conversion. We are reborn into union with God’s own holy moral image, in relation to sharing in God’s nature. That wonderful reality is what the Apostle Peter reveals to us in 2 Pet. 1:4 – “And because of His glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share His divine nature.” NLT It is God’s own nature that we now share that give us what Paul calls the ‘new nature’ or ‘new man’, as it is called in Eph 4:22-24. And it is part of the gift of our salvation. Plus, this is what secures us in our ‘position’ as sons and daughters of God. And, of course, we are expected to then put into practice this holy moral living, out of the new holy moral nature which we have been given in our position in Christ.
But the other components of this ‘Image of God’ are ‘mind, will, and emotions.’ And we point this out because, as we earlier pointed out, so many people, including Born-again people, tend to respond to God and relate to God on the mental and volitional level, but are greatly deficient in relating to God on this ‘emotional’ level. And in doing so, not only are they not fully honoring and pleasing their God, but they are also forfeiting much serenity and happiness throughout their Christian lives! Even part of Jesus’ high priestly prayer included His deep desire that His people would experience more and more of His ‘joy’ in them. “But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves.” Jn.17:13 And as we previously pointed out, it is crucial to understand that part of the strength that God is supplying to us, to handle and work out and experience a sense of victory over the hardships of this life, is by experiencing the very strength of ‘His joy’ that He is trying to share with His people!
But…and here’s the key…you can’t share Jesus’ joy if you are not experiencing the very Person and Personhood of Jesus, in order to share His joy. For His Personhood includes not only the mind of God, and the volition or will of God, but also the ‘emotions’ of God. In other words, God wants His children to experience this journey of life through experiencing the life of their God. And in order to experience God in your life you not only need to look at life through the mind of God (the Word of God), and make choices in your life based upon the will of God, but we also need to feel the things that God feels about this life and about your own life. You will need to look more to God and relate more to God and think more about God as your ‘God who feels’…your ‘God who cares’…your ‘God who loves’…your ‘God who rejoices’…and on and on.
This is a major part of your contentment in Christ. Plus, embedded in the essentials of contentment is something that we shared with our Life Groups. It goes like this:
The Secret of Contentment is:
A confident, settled heart-felt trust in the moment-by-moment love and care of God;
And a surrendered will to my Father’s will and plans that He has for my life;
And a committed belief in the truth that God is daily leading and guiding and providing, and is fully in control of my life in every task or circumstance…regardless of my present understanding or experience…
Knowing that earth at best is a battlefield; Heaven at the least is joy beyond measure; and that the Lord Jesus Christ is my Savior, who has said to me: “I have redeemed you and you are Mine. I have called you by My name. You are precious in My sight, and I love you.” (Isa. 43:1-4)
This is why we keep repeating the word ‘experience’ so much, because there is a common disconnection between what many Christians profess to believe about God and what they are actually experiencing in their behavior and day to day lives. Why, even the names of God reveal more about God than just His power and authority and rule and such. For example: One of the most remarkable encounters with a person and the Personhood of God was with an Egyptian woman…Hagar. Hagar was trying to get back to Egypt after much strife and turmoil in her daily life. And then in her distress and struggle God came to her: “Now the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from and where are you going?” And after the Lord consoles, comforts, and assures her of His plan for her and for the son she would have, she says this: “Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are (El Roi) a ‘God who sees’; for she said, “Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?” Gen 16:7, 8, 13
By the way, this is another Pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ…a Theophany. And in this Hebrew name of ‘El Roi’ is the revelation that God is the ‘God who sees.’ And the reason He is the ‘God who sees’ is because He is the ‘God who cares’…He cares for hurting people. He is as the Psalmist said: “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.” “The Lord is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion.” And – “The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The Lord is good to all; He has compassion on all He has made…The Lord is trustworthy in all He promises
and faithful in all He does. The Lord upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.” (Ps 103:8; 116:5; 145:8-9, 13-14 NIV)
Be certain of this: Whenever you are hurting, for any reason and over any situation or circumstance, know that your God is your ‘El Roi’…your God who sees…your God who cares…your God who is full of compassion for you, wherever you are and for whatever you are going through, just like with Hagar. He is a very emotional Person; He is our emotional God.
And note this: By God coming to Hagar, He is showing you and me that He is the God who comes to us in our affliction and in our sorrow and in our pain. Whatever you are feeling, God feels it deeper still. Whatever ‘care’ you are carrying, God cares deeper still. Whatever joy you are enjoying, God enjoys it deeper still. He is the God who feels’ what you feel, and He is there with you and will go through it with you and help you in many ways…some we will understand, and some we won’t, but we can know, like with Hagar…God sees, and He comes to help. God always sees us and always comes to help us.
So, again, when we think about God, we often think of His power, His wisdom, His holiness…and such. And we are in awe and rejoice in each of these wonderful attributes. But as we are seeing, God wants us to also be…could we say, in light of the soon coming ‘Rapture’…God wants us to also be ‘caught up’ with the amazing emotions of our ‘God who feels’ so that we can be emotionally ‘caught up’ with our God, day by day. You see, we are to be ‘caught up’ or ‘raptured’ in our walk with God long before we are actually ‘caught up’ or ‘raptured’ in our going home to live with God.
Speaking of names that reveal more of Personhood of God, how about this one – Jehovah Mekaddishkem? (juh-Ho-vah mek-KAH-dish-KIM) That’s a mouthful, right? But that’s a name God gives Himself – ‘The Lord Who Sanctifies’. We see it in Exo. 31:12 – “…that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you.” And also in 1 Thess. 5:23,24 – “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And again in Heb.13:12 – “Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate.” What we are seeing is that God Himself sets us apart as His chosen people, a royal priesthood, holy unto God, a people of His very own. He cleanses our sin and helps us grow and mature and follow Him throughout this life and all the way Home.
This is another example of how believers often overlook the emotions that are behind the works of God, especially in connection with a word like ‘Sanctification.’ ‘Sanctification’ may sound rather ‘stoic’, but it’s just the opposite. The reason God is our ‘Jehovah Mekaddishkem’, the Lord Who Sanctifies, is because He is the our ‘Jehovah Shalom’, or, ‘The Lord is Peace.’ Our God loves peace. His original creation was a world at peace, peace between God and mankind, peace between the animal kingdom, peace in the angelic kingdom…But when sin invaded in the world, all of that peace was broken, and spiritual warfare became rampant. But sin did not stop God’s plans nor defeat God’s desire to share His peace with a people for His own possession. The Creator chose to also become our Savior. “For by Him (Christ) all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross…” Col 1:17-20
God made a way that the penalty of our sins could be removed, and the peace restored between us and our Prince of Peace, our Jehovah Shalom. There is a very emotional word we use to describe what Jesus did in order to regain this peace with all who would believe and become His Born-again children. We refer to the work of the Cross as ‘The Passion of Christ.’ Passion is about as deep of an emotional word as there is. And it both describes and implies amazing things about our emotional God.
The word ‘passion’ originates from the Latin word ‘passio’, meaning ‘suffering’ or ‘enduring.’ This then led to the meaning of passion being the “sufferings of Christ”. And over time, the meaning expanded from suffering and emotion to its modern sense of strong enthusiasm, which developed because it was a state of being controlled by an emotion. We often think of ‘passion’ in its usual sense of strong love or controlling desire. But historically it carried that concept of ‘suffering’…yet linked to purpose, as in suffering due to love.
Jesus was also called what? Notice: “He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” Isa. 53:3-6 NASB
Even in this ‘Gospel of Isaiah’, as its often called, we see our Lord described in terms of deep emotion… ‘Man of Sorrows’… ‘Suffering Servant.’ Jesus suffered because of His love…it was a ‘suffering love’ for us. But again, the entire work of our redemption was as deeply emotional for our God as it was mental and volitional. And just another reason for us to think about and to relate to our God on as deep of mental, volitional, and emotional level as we can. Every belief about God that we have has a corresponding emotion attached to it. And that emotion is intended to move us to then think about our God and to relate to our God not only mentally, but emotionally…just the way our God thinks about and relates to us!
Back to our premise of this line of study…a walk with God that does not include an emotional component in your beliefs and your behavior is not only a deficient and an unbalanced walk with God, but it is a walk that misses out on one of the most motivating parts of worship and fellowship and service with and for God, our emotional experience of God. We call our beliefs the ‘Fundamentals of the Faith’, but what is so sadly overlooked is that every ‘Fundamental of the Faith’ has a corresponding ‘Feeling of the Faith’ as well. And why would you want to leave the ‘Fun’ out of ‘Fundamental’ anyway?
We’ll continue this ‘fun’ later on…
- Thoughtcatalog.com/January -nelson/2020/04/list-of-emotions