Following is an excerpt from Lifeway's The God Anthology by Mark Batterson.
Every day we have fears, concerns, and demands that distract our lives and compete for our attention. Before long, we begin to filter God's character and nature through our experiences, creating a god in our image. So how do we define God based on . . . God . . . as He has revealed Himself to us in Scripture?
God is mystery
God is incomprehensible, but the mystery of God is revealed in Christ. There are some things we will always wonder about and question because God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and His ways are higher than our ways. One of the first things we learn about God is that we can't quite figure Him out. There is an element to His transcendent, omnipotent, omniscient character that remains a mystery to us. With God, dirt can become the medicine that heals and love can become the best weapon we can wield. In the mystery of God, we discover life in death and abundance in sacrifice.
God is holiness
The attribute of God's holiness gets to the core of the question, Who is God? In Exodus 3:14, God introduced Himself to Moses as "I AM WHO I AM." It's like God is saying, I AM the reason, I AM the author of this story and the main character. "I AM," in all its mysteriousness and vagueness, tells us one thing - He is distinct from anything we know. He is utterly and wholly different from all His creation. There is none like Him. He is not simply a bigger, better version of us. He is in a category all to Himself. We use a lot of words to describe God, but holiness is what we come to when we have used up all those words.
God is incomparability
In the beginning, God created us in His image, but we've been creating God in our image ever since. We cannot conceive of anything beyond our four dimensions of space time, so we conjure up a god who is a little bigger, a little better, a little stronger, and a little wiser than we are. However, God is incomparably wise, gracious, loving, and powerful. There is absolutely no comparison between God and us. He is not a little bit bigger, a little bit better, a little bit stronger, a little bit wiser; He is so much more than that.
God is mercy
Soon after God created humankind, we disobeyed His commands and separated ourselves from Him, incurring a debt we could not repay and earning for ourselves a most grievous punishment. But God didn't demand that we repay the debt. Jesus took upon Himself our punishment and pain in the greatest act of love and mercy the world would ever know. God wants to show us His mercy. What we have to do is learn to rest in it, not by human striving or even by our good works; it is simply by the grace of God that we are saved, and in that we can find a spiritual rest unlike any other rest we can experience.
God is jealousy
On Mount Sinai, God clearly and concisely revealed a shocking and seemingly base dimension of His character: "I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God" (Exodus 20:5). God is certainly not jealous of anything. But God is jealous for something. God is jealous for us. He is jealous for our love, our time, our devotion, and ultimately, our hearts. God infinitely loves us. His jealousy is an expression of His love. When we begin to understand who God is, we realize that His jealousy demands our faithfulness.
God is sovereignty
On one hand, it seems natural and easy to submit to His lordship. God loves us, cares for us, listens to us, and redeems us. He is good, faithful, and merciful. Who wouldn't want to submit to that kind of king? But if God is sovereign, why do bad things happen to good people? If God knows all and sees all, then why do we pray? When faced with these questions, we may find that it is more difficult to submit to His lordship and more natural to ask His actions to submit to our ideals of goodness and truth.
When we come to the end of every possible answer we can conceive, we are left with a choice. Do we believe that God is who He says He is? And do we believe that God is above everything and working through all things for our good and for His glory? God is far more wonderful and powerful and good and intimate than we ever dared dream.