God tells us what he is like
When Moses asked to know God more deeply, God described his own character. He is compassionate and gracious, patient, full of mercy and truth, and ready to forgive. This is not a picture of a distant force or an unpredictable ruler. God wants people to know that his mercy is real.
Yet the same passage says God does not treat wrongdoing as unimportant. His compassion is never careless, and his justice is never cruel. Both belong to who he is. That can be a comfort when life feels unfair, because evil does not have the final word with God.
And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.
Holy and just
God is holy, meaning he is utterly pure and set apart from sin. Isaiah saw this when he was given a vision of the Lord and heard heaven declare God’s holiness in Isaiah 6:3. God’s holiness helps explain why sin matters. Lies, exploitation, hatred, and violence oppose the good character of the One who made us.
Still, holiness is not coldness. Scripture joins God’s righteous rule with mercy and truth. He cares about what is right, especially where people are harmed or ignored. His judgement is part of his commitment to set things right, not a sign that he takes pleasure in human failure (Psalm 89:14).
Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face.
Loving and merciful
The Bible says that God is love in 1 John 4:8. That does not mean love is whatever people happen to feel or prefer. God’s love is active, faithful, and costly. He seeks the good of those he loves, even when that means confronting what destroys them.
The cross is Christianity’s central sign of that love. Paul explains that Christ died for us while we were still sinners, not after we had made ourselves worthy (Romans 5:8). God’s mercy is not earned by impressive spiritual effort. It is received with trust and repentance, a change of heart that turns towards him.
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Faithful and unchanging
People can be inconsistent. We make promises and forget them, love conditionally, or change when circumstances become difficult. God is not like that. James says there is no shifting shadow in him, and Hebrews says Jesus Christ remains the same (James 1:17; Hebrews 13:8).
This does not mean every day will feel easy or that every prayer receives the answer we hoped for. It means God’s character is dependable in every season. His promises, wisdom, mercy, and justice do not weaken when life is hard.
Jesus shows us the Father
If you want to know what God is like, look carefully at Jesus. Jesus told Philip that seeing him was seeing the Father (John 14:9). In Jesus, we see God welcome outsiders, heal the suffering, speak truth to hypocrisy, forgive sinners, and give himself for the world.
No short list can capture all that God is. But Scripture gives a coherent picture: God is perfectly holy and deeply loving, completely just and wonderfully merciful. Read one of the Gospels slowly, perhaps John, and notice what Jesus says and does. It is one of the best places to keep learning God’s character.