Doctrine of God

If God is really so good, surely mission must be the easiest work in the world. Simply hold out Jesus in his gospel, and people should come flocking.

The following message by Michael Reeves was given at the 2022 Puritan Conference.

The Father is the lover, the Son is the beloved. The Bible is awash with talk of the Father’s love for the Son, but while the Son clearly does love the Father, hardly anything is said about it.

The Lord’s Prayer isn’t just a set liturgy or guide to prayer. It is an offering where Jesus extends to us the very keys of heaven that he himself possesses. He invites us to come to the Father as he does, to know the Father as he does—and on the very same terms. As he leads us to his Father, we discover that the goal of prayer is not that we get something from God, but that we get God himself.

Those who bask in the sunshine of this loving and generous God are the happiest Christians and the happiest missionaries. Seeing in Jesus what our God is really like causes us to shine like him.

God is our Shepherd. This truth is not for mere intellectual assent, nor a kind of badge to hang on our own board of orthodoxy. To know the one who is Shepherd is a precious reality from which the believer draws strength, comfort, and life.

When we see the radiance of the sun, we meet warmth, and light, and life. Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God. A God who does not need to take from us, but loves to give and give himself.

Go deep into who God is. Don’t fear the hard topics of theology but approach it as a worshipful son or daughter of the Father. If your eyes are open, what you see will only make your heart burst with the glory of who God is.

God’s mission in creation and redemption is to bring men and women into the fellowship that Father, Son, and Spirit have always shared.

The following are 30 quotes from Daniel Hames and Michael Reeves’ new book God Shines Forth: How the Nature of God Shapes and Drives the Mission of the Church