In the story of Jesus "cleansing the Temple", we find a picture of God who defends His children and makes a way for them to connect with Him through prayer.  And through prayer, we find a Father that wants us to come to Him as we are...but who wants to give us His Spirit to make us "heaven and earth people".

God Himself took time to cease working and enjoy new creation.
He set up a day of rest for His children after rescuing them from slavery in Egypt.
In Jesus we see a picture of our God as the Lord of the Sabbath.  In Jesus we can rest and enjoy New Creation...satisfied instead of striving.

In John 4 Jesus has a scandalous interaction with a Samaritan woman at a well.  We see a picture of God breaking through gender, racial, and religious barriers to offer His life-giving Spirit to all those who will walk in the truth.

In the encounter between Nicodemus and Jesus in John 3 we see a picture of God as loving humanity and welcoming them into the light of full and eternal life.  We find that Jesus is confronting Nicodemus' legalistic religion with the love and acceptance of the Father.  Finally, we see that by the Spirit we have been given the right (ie - power) to become children of God and no longer need to feel the need to prove ourselves to man or God.

In the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4 we see a picture of our God who wants to see idolatry (and temptation) overcome.  And in Jesus we see his faithfulness to God to do just that!  Through our union with Jesus, we, too, are able to know the God that Jesus knows and keep God on the throne instead of anything or anyone else.

When Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, it not only connected him to the larger narrative of the Gospel throughout Israel's history, it also firmly rooted him in and WITH humanity.  In looking at this first major event in the ministry of Jesus, we see a picture of God WITH us in the muck and mire of life and it shows again the love of God for us.

What we think God is like has practical implications in our everyday lives whether we realize it or not.  To get a clear picture of God, we simply need to look to Jesus.

After trying to find their identity and provision in anything but God, "nevertheless" God tells His children that hope is coming into their darkness and despair.  In Isaiah 9 we see that their hope is the coming of a son...the true King of Israel.
Knowing now that the true King of this world is Jesus, we find hope and our identity in living in the ever expanding kingdom of Jesus.

In Jeremiah 29-33 we find a God who calls His people to invest and to be a light in the midst of exile and pain.  They can do so because their hope is in the God who will restore.
But when we look further, we see that restoration and a return to the land God had promised comes when the covenant is fulfilled by Jesus.
We, too, can invest and be light in the midst of exile and pain because we know that Jesus has come and fulfilled the covenant and will some day restore and redeem the earth...that we can inherit the new heaven and new earth.

In this season of Advent we remember that our hope for spiritual and physical healing is found in Jesus.  Looking back to Isaiah 53 we learn that the mighty warrior God of Isaiah actually becomes the suffering servant who provides healing and the shalom of God for the returning exiles.