EVERYWHERE, EVERY MOMENT GOD IS ETERNAL!

Dear God Seekers!

In the span of 3 summertime hours I talked to three repair people: a kind handyman (concerning the broken door with a tendency to leak), an enthusiastic air-conditioner man (regarding water oozing  out of a crevice not meant for water-oozing), and a sympathetic dental receptionist (due to possible early stages of a toothache)! Allow me to also mention, with a sigh, that our riding lawn mower has been back and forth to the repair shop three times in less than four weeks because of great clouds of blue-black smoke billowing around upon ignition! (Never fear, the push mower is working wonderfully…)

Really, doesn’t everything wear out? Doesn’t everything break? (Forget what you’ve heard about cockroaches and polyester surviving nuclear fallout. Forget the energizer bunny!) Doesn’t every thing wind down? Doesn’t everything have an end? Doesn’t everything die here on earth? YES! At least, all created things…

BUT, HALLELUJAH! PRAISE HIS NAME! FROM EVERLASTING TO EVERLASTING, HE IS GOD…He is the Eternal, UNBREAKABLE God! HIS KINGDOM WILL NEVER END!

Along side my world of broken equipment, did I also mention an achy aging body? Well, I certainly should have because, after all, I AM an achy aging grandmother of four beautiful grandchildren, the oldest an energetic five just entering kindergarten and the youngest barely 3 months just entering the world.

I look at each of those bouncy bodies, the fresh faces and eager eyes. I see how they clearly resemble their parents (and, yes, their grandparents and even great-grandparents!). I marvel again at the miracle of a fertilized egg, the nine months or so of pregnancy, and the explosive sounds upon their arrival. What a precious beginning they all had and how dependent they continue to be.

As mind-boggling as our God of future eternity is, somehow thinking of Him without a beginning stretches my “pea brain” even more. People have beginnings – babies! Plants have beginnings – seeds and sprouts! Stories have beginnings – words, thoughts, and introductions! In fact the Bible even has a beginning, yet when we open those pages God is already there. IN THE BEGINNING, GOD…

We’d all agree everything created DOES have a beginning point. That’s as far as our minds can go…BUT GOD IS NOT LIKE US! HE IS THE HOLY, UNCREATED ONE! Oh, how hard to fathom such a thing…

Our sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, most holy, unchanging infinite Creator God is THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA, WHO IS, AND WHO WAS, AND IS TO COME, THE ALMIGHTY!

 

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EVERYWHERE, EVERY MOMENT GOD IS ETERNAL!

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Merriam-Webster Online
ETERNAL
1 a : having infinite duration : EVERLASTING <http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/everlasting> <eternal damnation> b : of or relating to eternity  c : characterized by abiding fellowship with God <good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? -- Mark 10:17
2 a : continued without intermission : PERPETUAL <http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/perpetual> <an eternal flame> b : seemingly endless <eternal delays>

ATTRIBUTES OF GOD CHART
ETERNAL - NO BEGINNING AND END - NOT CONFINED TO TIME

Thesaurus.com

ETERNAL
Synonyms -
Abiding, ageless, always, amaranthine, boundless, ceaseless, constant, continual, continued, continuous, dateless, deathless, enduring, everlasting, forever, illimitable, immeorial, immortal, immutable, imperishable, incessant, indefinite, indestructible, infinite, interminable, lasting, never-ending, perdurable, perennial, permanent, persistent, relentless, termless, timeless, unborken, unceasing, undying, unending, unfading, uninterrupted, unremitting, without end

Antonyms –
Brief, ending, ephemeral, finite, fleeting, mortal, temporary, terminable
 

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The Bible says:

Deut. 33:26,27 – There is no one like the God of Jerusalem, who rides on the heavens to help you and on the clouds in his majesty. The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He will drive out your enemy before you, saying, “Destroy him.”

Psalm 90:1,2 – Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Isaiah 26:4,40:28, 63:16 – Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord, is the Rock eternal…Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom…I, God, make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.

Lamentations 5:19 – You, O Lord, reign forever; your throne endures from generation to generation.

Daniel 4:34b – Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion.

Acts 15:17b,18 – The Lord…does these things that have been known for ages.

1 Timothy 1:17 – Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Jude 24, 25 – To Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy - to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

Revelation 1:8 – I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

 

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WORDS OF WISDOM –

Precepts-Austin.com -Eternity of God means much more than is commonly thought. It includes three ideas:

(a) The nature of God is without beginning or end

(b) God is free from all succession of time

(c) God contains within Himself the cause of time
How does the eternity of God affect one’s life? For all of us as human beings, life is full of surprises. We never know exactly what lies around the corner, but while we do not know what the future holds, as believers in Christ, we do know Him who holds the future and for Whom nothing is a surprise. Since nothing ever surprises God, no problem I face slips up on the Lord who sees the future as clearly as the present.

Charles Spurgeon - God was, when nothing else was. He was God when the earth was not a world but a chaos. If God himself were of yesterday, he would not be a suitable refuge for mortals. The eternal existence of God is here mentioned to set forth, by contrast, the brevity of human life. (from his Treasury of David)… Man’s thoughts are for a time, and his ways but for a season; God is eternal: when he thinks his thoughts abide for ever, and when he acts his ways are everlasting. (From sermon “Christ’s Prayers for Believers”)

Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.
Isaac Watts

A young pastor and author - I am learning that my tradition includes the rabbis and reformers and revolutionaries and monks and nuns and pastors and writers and philosophers and artists and every person everywhere who has asked big questions of a big God.

Warren Wiersbe - There is a difference between being immortal and being eternal. Man is immortal—that is, his soul will never die; but God is eternal—He has neither beginning nor ending…Through faith in Jesus Christ, we become a part of eternity and possess eternal life.

Elisha Hoffman (1887)
What a fellowship, what a joy divine, leaning on the everlasting arms;
What a blessedness, what a peace is mine, leaning on the everlasting arms.
Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarm!

Henry Morris (Former Director of the Institute for Creation Research) - To the skeptical question as to who made God, the only answer that satisfies all the facts of both science and human reason is that God is "from everlasting." He is the Creator of time as well as space and all things that exist in time and space. This is beyond our mental comprehension, but there is no other rational explanation for our existence, and it is surely compatible with the intuitions of our spiritual comprehension. God satisfies the heart regardless of difficulties conjured in the mind.

Norm Geisler - The Bible declares that God is eternal. He was before time, and he created time. Hence, he cannot be a part of time, though he can relate to time as its Creator in the way a cause relates to its effect…The theological grounds for God’s eternality are found in several other attributes. For example, immutability implies eternality, for an immutable being cannot change. But whatever is in time changes. Hence, God cannot be in time.

Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord…
Our God, You reign forever. Our Hope, our Strong Deliverer.
You are the Everlasting God, the Everlasting God.
You do not faint. You won’t grow weary.
You’re the Defender of the Weak. You comfort those in need.
You lift us up on wings like eagles.
Chris Tomlin

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I don’t know about you but I tend to think of Jesus, the Son, as having a beginning. After all, the sons that we know of come to a family through physical birth or adoption! In actuality Jesus, the only begotten Son, has always been wholly God, wholly uncreated, wholly sovereign, and wholly everywhere, every moment!

From W. E. Vine - We can only rightly understand the term “the only begotten” when used of the Son, in the sense of unoriginated relationship…The Christ did not BECOME, but necessarily and eternally is the Son. He, a Person, possesses every attribute of pure Godhood…It expresses both His eternal union with the Father…and the intimacy and love between them, the Son sharing all the Father’s counsels and enjoying all His affections.

Stop with me and think about Jesus along with one fellow God Seeker as he expresses his thoughts:

Can you imagine how these attributes were when they appeared in flesh? No wonder John exclaims in his first letter 'the life appeared, we have seen it and testify to it and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us'

I always imagine John bursting with the reality of his experience because his gospel account begins in similar vein. 'I (we) have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, FULL of grace and truth (and I dare say holiness)

One day in a completeness we have not yet experienced our certain hope is that we will be with Him for ever.  This is our inheritance or should I say He is our inheritance.

As my son would say ' how cool is that?'

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Almighty Ancient of Days, to Thee, great One in Three, eternal praises be, may we in glory see. AND… to eternity love and adore.  Yes, Everlasting, Ever-loving God!
AMEN

Safe and secure in HIS ETERNAL arms,
Sue

P.S. Ponderings alone or with others:
1. Does the unfathomable description in this communiqué of our eternal, everlasting Triune God -  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - without beginning or end, leave your head spinning, your skin tingling? Which seems harder for you to grasp – no beginning or no end? Why?

2. Does His knowledge of and presence in all of time, before you and after you, make you feel more secure? Why? Does His inability to be surprised bolster your courage? Even tsunamis? Wars? Cancer? World hunger? Straying children? Job challenges? Flat tires?

3. Have you ever truly realized that this Omniscient, Eternal God, the Creator and Great Lover of your Soul, has ALWAYS known you, your name, your whole being, all of your yesterdays, today, and tomorrows, all your choices, good and bad, since before the foundations of the earth? How can this change the way you talk about your past highs and lows? How can it change the way you speak about the mystery of the future?

4. Do you understand it? Does He expect you to? What response do you sense He desires from you concerning this specific attribute?

5. From before the foundations of the earth, He had lovingly planned for the Son, God Incarnate, God “with skin on” to demonstrate HIS GREAT LOVE dying on the CROSS for us.  In light of all the attributes covered so far in the communiqués (incomprehensible, knowable, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, holy, infinite, eternal) does the cross seem more or less logical or illogical to you? Is that good or bad?


FYI - Another website for meditation and contemplation from a friend attending Black Friar’s Catholic University in Oxford, United Kingdom:
http://www.universalis.com/20070218/lauds.htm