We have a very limited
ability to understand the mind of God. Words like omniscience, omnipresence
and omnipotence are easily defined but completely outside of our experience
and in the case of many people, stumbling blocks. What we can’t grasp,
we often deny. But listen to what God’s Word says about God.
Job 26:5-14
5 "The dead tremble,
those under the waters and those inhabiting them.
6 Sheol is naked before
Him, and Destruction has no covering.
7 He stretches out
the north over empty space; he hangs the earth on nothing.
8 He binds up the water
in His thick clouds, yet the clouds are not broken under it.
9 He covers the face
of His throne, and spreads His cloud over it.
10 He drew a circular
horizon on the face of the waters, at the boundary of light and darkness.
11 The pillars of heaven
tremble, and are astonished at His rebuke.
12 He stirs up the
sea with His power, and by His understanding He breaks up the storm.
13 By His Spirit He
adorned the heavens; his hand pierced the fleeing serpent.
14 Indeed these are
the mere edges of His ways, and how small a whisper we hear of Him!
But the thunder of His power who can understand?" (NKJ)
Indeed, what Job says about our God
are the "mere edges of His ways." Read on.
Isaiah 55:8-11
8 "For My thoughts
are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD.
9 "For as the heavens
are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and
My thoughts than your thoughts.
10 "For as the rain
comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water
the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to
the sower and bread to the eater,
11 So shall My word
be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but
it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing
for which I sent it. (NKJ)
Do you sense what God is teaching you?
We can’t get our mind around the breadth of God’s reality. "…so are
My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts."
When we try to reduce the ways of God to man’s understanding, we mistakenly
"limit God," something we should not do.
God's Omniscience is well defined throughout
the Holy Scriptures, but focus on the wonderful truth of the following
verses:
Psalms 139:1-10
1 O LORD, You have
searched me and known me.
2 You know my sitting
down and my rising up; you understand my thought afar off.
3 You comprehend my
path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 For there is not
a word on my tongue, but behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.
5 You have hedged me
behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is
too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it.
7 Where can I go from
Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?
8 If I ascend into
heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
9 If I take the wings
of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 Even there Your
hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. (NKJ)
Do you fully understand that God is
Omnipresent? Your every thought is before Him, constantly.
Jeremiah 23:23-24
23 "Am I a God near
at hand," says the LORD, "And not a God afar off?
24 Can anyone hide
himself in secret places, so I shall not see him?" says the LORD; "Do
I not fill heaven and earth?" says the LORD. (NKJ)
In the following verses, it says, God
will dwell with you if you have a humble and contrite heart. God's Omnipresence
is the foundation of your personal reality, either to your comfort or
to your pain. Over and over again, personal pride is held up as the
stumbling block and humility and contrition as the path to righteousness.
One path leads to eternal life, the other to eternal judgment. God is
present. Listen:
Isaiah 57:15-21
15 For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose
name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has
a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and
to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
16 For I will not contend
forever, nor will I always be angry; for the spirit would fail before
Me, and the souls which I have made.
17 For the iniquity
of his covetousness I was angry and struck him; I hid and was angry,
and he went on backsliding in the way of his heart.
18 I have seen his
ways, and will heal him; I will also lead him, and restore comforts
to him and to his mourners.
19 "I create the fruit
of the lips: peace, peace to him who is far off and to him who is near,"
says the LORD, "And I will heal him."
20 But the wicked are
like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire
and dirt.
21 "There is no peace,"
says my God, "for the wicked." (NKJ)
Now focus on:
Isaiah 55:11
11 So shall My
word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void,
but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing
for which I sent it. (NKJ)
God’s word went forth from His mouth and it shall not return void. The Bible is God’s word. If you fail in believing that, you fail to have any ability to discern
His message. Seek His Word as one dying of thirst, for in fact, at some
point His Word will be taken from you. If you have stored His Word in
your heart you will have followed one of His admonitions and will be
able to draw upon that strength, forever.
Listen:
Psalms 119:11
11 Your word I have
hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You! (NKJ)
The Bible says that His word shall
prosper "in the thing for which I sent it." In other words, He
knows this minute if you are a "chosen vessel," because He knows
if you have chosen to believe. If you believe then His word will enlighten
you. If not, you will consider it foolishness.
1 Corinthians
2:13-14
13 These things we
also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy
Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14 But the natural
man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (NKJ)
To "receive the things of the Spirit
of God" is to have Him and His Word dwell in you. That is Omnipresence
in its most personal sense. How can you have His Word dwell in you if
you do not read it? Again, go to the Word!
Listen to this parable and see if the
truth of it is immediately is clear to you.
Matthew 13:31-32
31 Another parable
He put forth to them, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard
seed, which a man took and sowed in his field,
32 "which indeed is
the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than
the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and
nest in its branches." (NKJ)
I would not suggest that the meaning
is singular, because interpretation of prophecy and parables is not
a personal matter, but a matter between you and the Holy Spirit. But
I would say that absent the Holy Spirit this parable and many like it
makes little difference in the thinking of the reader.
Allow me to offer you one possible
understanding. The magnificence of heaven can not be grasped this side
of experiencing it. My understanding, and I believe yours, is so minuscule
as to be "as tiny as a mustard seed." What heaven is really like
makes any definition we might attach to it, completely insufficient.
It is greater than we can envision.
So are the words, Omniscient, Omnipresent
and Omnipotent. They exceed our experience and even though we can define
them, our Lord is greater than our conceptual images and prognostications.
We simply believe and in doing so, use words like "awesome" in an attempt
to attribute magnificence beyond description.
Romans 11:33-36
33 Oh, the depth of
the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable
are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
34 "For who has known
the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?"
35 "Or who has first
given to Him and it shall be repaid to him?"
36 For of Him and through
Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen. (NKJ)
Then, in an effort to properly position ourselves in relation to our Lord and Savior, we beg for mercy,
while maintaining our faith in Jesus, our only means of salvation. Even
though my sins are as separate from me as the east is from the west,
I know I deserve judgment and so does King David in the following verses.
The fact that God loves me and you, even though our sins were as scarlet
when He called us, is a miracle that man can not understand.
Psalms 51:1-19
1 Have mercy upon me,
O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude
of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly
from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I acknowledge
my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
4 Against You, You
only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight-- that You may
be found just when You speak, and blameless when You judge.
5 Behold, I was brought
forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.
6 Behold, You desire
truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to
know wisdom.
7 Purge me with hyssop,
and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Make me to hear joy
and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice.
9 Hide Your face from
my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean
heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me away
from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the
joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit.
13 Then I will teach
transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You.
14 Deliver me from
bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing
aloud of Your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my
lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise.
16 For You do not desire
sacrifice, or else I would give it; you do not delight in burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of
God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart-- these, O God,
You will not despise.
18 Do good in Your
good pleasure to Zion; build the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then You shall be
pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and
whole burnt offering; then they shall offer bulls on Your altar. (NKJ)
There is no other god, but The God
of the universe, the One who says through His prophet;
Proverbs 30:4-5
4 Who has ascended
into heaven, or descended? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who
has bound the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends
of the earth? What is His name, and what is His Son's name, if you know?
5 Every word of God
is pure; he is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. (NKJ)
Listen to God's question and answer
it. "and what is His Son's name, if you know?"
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