What are God’s traits? When we discuss the attributes of God, we’re trying to answer questions like “What’s God like?” or “Who is God?” An attribute of God is something genuine about Him. While fully understanding who God is is impossible for us as humans, God does make Himself known in various ways and through what He reveals about Himself in His creation and the Bible, we can start to wrap our minds around our incredible God and Creator.

God is unlike anyone or anything we could imagine or know. He’s unique, one of a kind, and without comparison. Even describing Him with mere words don’t capture who He is. Our words simply cannot do justice to describe God. Still, God has attributes that we can know, even just in part, and He’s given us His Word as a means to understand Himself. Here’s a list of God’s attributes.

God is self-existing.

Colossians 1:17 tells us that God is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together. Psalm 147:5 reminds us that the Lord is great and rich in power, with understanding beyond measure. With God being self-existent, that He was created by nothing and has always existed, is maybe one of the most complex attributes of God for believers to understand. Due to our limitations, grasping the nature of God’s limitlessness is like holding onto water as it flows down a river.

To admit that there’s One who lies beyond us and exists outside of all our categories requires a great deal of humility, more than most people possess, so we save face by thinking that God is on our level or at least down to where we can manage Him. The name Jehovah is used almost 6,800 times in the Bible, the personal covenant name of Israel’s God. The King James version of the Bible translates it to Lord God. Not only does this speak to God’s strength, but it also speaks to God’s goodness and sovereignty.

The root of this name means “self-existing,” or one who never came into being and one who always will be. When Moses asked God, “Who shall I tell Pharoah has sent me?” God said, “I am that I am.” Yahwehor Jehovah is the most sacred name to Jewish scribes, and many won’t even pronounce the name. When possible, they’ll use another name.

God never changes.

God doesn’t change, as we’re told in Malachi 3:6, and who He is never changed. His characteristics are the same from before the beginning of time into eternity. His character never changes, and He never gets worse or better. His plans don’t change, and neither do His promises. This knowledge should be a source of incredible joy for believers. What all this means is that God is dependable. Our trust in Him is confident because we know that He cannot and will not change. His purposes are unfailing, and His promises are undisputable.

It’s because the God who promised us eternal life is absolute that we may rest knowing that nothing, not hardship, trouble, persecution, hardship, or famine, shall separate us from Jesus’ love. It’s because Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever that neither demons nor angels or the present nor the future will be able to separate us from God’s love that is in Jesus Christ.

God has no needs.

As limited beings, we have incredible needs, which, if left unfulfilled, result in death. However, God has never once needed anything. He is perfectly complete within His being. In God, self-sufficiency means that God possesses abundant riches of wisdom, being, power, and goodness in and of Himself. Because He possesses these riches in the love and knowledge of the Father, Son and Holy Spirt, God is the happy and blessed God. Because God is self-sufficient, we can go to Him to satisfy our needs and never have to worry about drying up His well of peace, goodness, grace, and mercy.

God is all-powerful.

Omnipotent means to have infinite power. God is powerful and able to do anything He wills without any effort on His part. It’s critical to note the “anything He wills” part of that statement because God can’t do anything contrary or contradictory to His nature. God’s omnipotence means that He can do all that He desires to do. When He plans something, it’ll happen. If He proposes something, it’ll happen, and nothing can stop His plan. When God stretches out His hand to do something, no one can turn it back. God’s decisions always align with His character, and He has the power to do whatever He decides to do.

God is always everywhere.

To be omnipresent is to be in all places at all times. Still, it’s vital to understand that for God, to be in a place isn’t the same way we’re in a place. God’s being is entirely different from physical matter. He exists on a plane that’s unique from the one readily available to the five senses. Nevertheless, God is with us, and the fullness of His presence is all around us, as we read in Psalm 137. This knowledge should bring profound comfort to believers who struggle with sorrow and loneliness. Genuinely, God is always near us, closer than our thoughts. The realization that we’re never alone calms the raging sea of our lives and brings peace to our souls.

God is wise.

Wisdom is more than just intelligence and knowledge. A sage person is someone who understands all the facts and makes the best decision. A wise person uses their mind, heart, and soul together with competence and skill. However, even the wisest man on earth would never come close to being as wise as God. He is infinitely, consistently and perfectly wise. The fact that God can never be more wise means He’s always doing the wisest thing in our lives. No plan we could make for our lives could be better than God’s plan that He’s already crafting and carrying out for us. We may not recognize His ways today, but we can trust that because God is noticeably wise, He’s truly working all things out in the best possible way.

Of course, the glory of God is inseparable from His other attributes, so God is eternally glorious. His beauty and radiance emanate from all that He is and does. Isaiah 43:7 reminds us that God created man for His glory, so our purpose and existence is to glorify Him, as we’re created in His image to do the good work He’s prepared us to do. Inevitably, man will attempt to find glory in other things, and when those things fail to satisfy us, we must humble ourselves and turn our eyes back to the One who’s worthy of glory.