I Love God Thou Art in the Heavens and the Earth by the Outstretch Arm
Apr 25, 2022
"Oh God, M Art My God"
Bones Truths of God Applied in Our Lives
Past TIM GALBRAITH
Read Time: 8 minutes
Annually nosotros read the book of Psalms from January to March in our daily readings. Each year I am amazed afresh past the Psalmist's ability to take basic truths about God, and interpret them into powerful statements to govern his personal thoughts and feelings every bit he struggles with 24-hour interval-to-twenty-four hours issues.
For example, in Psalm 118 he describes existence surrounded by his enemies, as a swarm of bees on the attack. Nosotros would normally panic. But the Psalmist proclaims this bones truth: "The LORD is on my side; I volition non fear: what can human do unto me?" (Psa 118:six). Sadly, and likewise often, we do fear. We get anxious, and lie awake in the dark hours, too stressed to slumber. Contrast this with David as he flees from Absalom: "I laid me downward and slept; I awaked; for the LORD sustained me." (Psa 3:5). Then, think of the total confusion and anxiety this experience would have bred in us. And what about Psalm 31? Here David shares the weight of his isolation:
I am forgotten as a expressionless man out of mind: I am similar a broken vessel. For I take heard the slander of many: fear was on every side: while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life. (Psa 31:12-xiii).
Notwithstanding, in the following verse, he confidently responds with this basic truth: "But, I trusted in thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my God" (v. 14). Notice how David personalizes this relationship: "my God." Fifty-v times the Psalms elevator our relationship to this level of intimacy with this same expression "my God." And in many other passages this intimacy is reinforced. Psalm 18:2 overflows with it:
"The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I volition trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my loftier belfry."
David reminds us how important it is to ponder the daily implications of living our basic beliefs. What practical steps can we take to apply these? To assist us practise this in Hyderabad, Republic of india, our ecclesia formulated its nowadays statement of faith, or "Confession of Faith," so that each statement includes a articulate implication for u.s.a. to work on. For example, Clauses six and 7 read:
Clause 6: We believe that God, in His kindness, conceived a plan of restoration which, without setting aside His just and necessary law of sin and death, could save faithful man beings from devastation, and fill the earth, with sinless immortal people. Nosotros therefore believe we should praise God for that kindness, that despite our sin He cares enough to call u.s. to be His, and we believe that we should exist like that, showing a kindness that seeks to restore relationships despite anybody's unworthiness.
Clause 7: We believe that He initiated this program by making promises to Adam, Abraham and David, and afterwards elaborated it in greater detail through the prophets. Nosotros therefore believe that we should be sincere to the promises we make.
Omniscient
There is a definite event to every belief and bones truth, which should impact our life in every manner. This should cause the states to reflect on the supernatural attributes that found our basic definition of God: that He is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. It is essential for us to translate these academic descriptions of God into personal applications. Firstly, God is omniscient, or all knowing. Therefore, Job's exclamation, "He knows the way that I have" (Chore 23:x ESV), is true for Chore and us. Chore did not know the path that God was taking (v. viii) or even the path God had marked out for him (v. 9), just Chore all the same best-selling "God knows my style" (v. x). Furthermore, we tin can exist sure God knows what He is doing. Job radiates this assurance in verses xiii-14 when he declares: "He performeth the thing that is appointed for me." In contrast, we cannot work out or cover the ways of God. Even Job could not. And even the wisdom of the wise author of Ecclesiastes could not: So I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot discover out the work that is washed under the sunday…. though a wise man think to know it, even so shall he not be able to find it. (Ecc viii:17).
We tin exist certain God knows what He is doing.
Though we cannot fathom God'south ways, it is reassuring to know He can fathom united states of america: "O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me… and art acquainted with all my means." (Psa 139:1-3). How grateful we are that this cognition is with Him, for He is the one with the power to lead us along the path to His Kingdom. Even if we knew the path which lies ahead in His providence, we could not, with man strength, walk the Kingdom road. But, as Paul reminds us, He knows and can perform. (Rom four:21). "For it is God that works in you, both to will and to exercise of his good pleasure." (Phil. two:13). With certainty, God knows the way that we take. Every mile, and every millimeter. If we tread the path He maps out for us, we shall come forth as gilded (Job 23:10). God is omniscient; therefore, God knows.
Omnipotent
Secondly, God is omnipotent, or all-powerful. Not only as an abstract principle, but in the practical realities of the daily lives of His people. The simple matter of fertility in two old women illustrates this for us in Genesis 18:12-14 and Luke one:36-37. As does the conception in a virgin maid in Luke 1:34-35. God'southward rhetorical question to Abraham declares this obviously: "Is any thing too difficult for the LORD?" (Gen 18:xiv).
When Jeremiah purchased a field that was over-run by the enemy, surely the world laughed, and the seller gleefully counted the coins. But Jeremiah's purchase, impractical as it appeared, was a testimony to God'south ability to continue His word. Thus, he prays: "Ah Lord God! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth past thy smashing power and stretched out arm, and there is goose egg too hard for thee." (Jer 32:17). God is all-powerful to remove the obstacles that might cake the mode to the Kingdom. What temporal riches impede our progress along this Kingdom Road? Are they cloth things, prestige, or respectability in the optics of a godless world? In that location are too many obstacles for mankind to gain salvation, but Jesus assured his disciples and u.s. when he said, "with men this is incommunicable; but with God all things are possible." (Matt 19:26).
All things are possible! Even forgiveness of those sins for which we feel we could never forgive ourselves. "If our middle condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things." (ane John iii:xx). It is God lonely who tin encompass the human heart, whether it is "desperately sick" (Jer 17:9-10 ESV) or sincerely seeking Him (Acts xv:7-8). God "knoweth all things" and can do all things.
Omnipresent
Thirdly, God is omnipresent, or nowadays in all places at all times. How eloquently David writes of this in Psalm 139:7-thirteen. Wherever the path of His providing takes us we tin can be sure that "even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy correct hand shall concur me." (v. ten). This is true fifty-fifty if He leads us into the wilderness. And in that place, we tin there cry with Hagar, "Thou God seest me." (Gen 16:13). How desperately we need God'south attendance and the ways of His providing. Just in Him can "we live, and move, and accept our being." (Acts 17:28). He does non need us, "every bit though he needed whatsoever affair" (five. 25), for "Every beast of the woods is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills… for the world is mine and all the fullness thereof." (Psa 50:ten-12).
We need the certain ballast of religion that God truly surrounds us
But how badly we need Him every mean solar day of our life! All is His and all is at His control. Have we translated His omniscience to "He knows the way that I accept"? Does His omnipotence truly teach us each 24-hour interval "there is aught besides hard for thee"? Does His omnipresence clinch u.s. that "1000 God seest me"? God the provider, He who maps out the ways of providence of each solar day and nighttime for His beloved is ever present with all cognition and all power at His command. With this guarantee we can with loving resignation say, "He knows the way that I take," and "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." (Psa 17:15).
To achieve the same sense of security as David, as nosotros wake each morning to face another day, nosotros demand the certain anchor of organized religion that God truly surrounds us, and is working all-powerfully in u.s.a., knowing the states, and present with united states of america.
God Is… Lite, Good, Dearest
If nosotros want to appreciate God's attributes in the same way as David, Task, or Jeremiah, the starting time stride of our journey is to recognize that "God is." Paul reminds us of this when he declares, "He that comes to God must believe that He is." (Heb xi:6). A God who "is non" can provide united states of america with nix. Yahweh alone is the eternal one, who was, and is, and is to come. Whether past, nowadays or future, He is the "I am." The God who exists when no others practice. In contrast, Baal could non reply his worshippers because Baal did not exist. "They take mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, simply they see not; they accept ears, but they hear not; neither is at that place whatsoever jiff in their mouths." (Psa 135:sixteen-17).
Our God alone is the God who "is," and who can both meet and hear. The Psalmist writes "He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not encounter?" (Psa 94:9). And so, we share the same relief of David as he sings: "The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry." (Psa 34:15).
The wonderful thing virtually the attribute of being is that it tells us that at that place is more to follow. "God is" is the prefix for a whole range of other characteristics, and bones truths.
John reveals one example when he tells us "God is light." (ane John i:five). To sympathize the depth of this basic truth, we must remind ourselves of the genetics principle of Genesis 1:eleven and of its outworking in the spiritual realm every bit a sort of spiritual genetics. "Each bearing seed after its kind" was the vital principle God put into all that He fabricated. Past this, we know a lemon tree won't produce mangoes, or a thorn bush apples, or a human female parent a babe lizard. How much security that gives usa!
When our loved ones deliver their offspring, we only have to enquire: "a boy or a girl?", not, is it a calf, or a piglet, or a baby goanna (cadger). The law of genetics was put there by a loving Begetter in Genesis one:11, and information technology has been there ever since. Now, what is applicable to all creation, is also true of God. If God "is low-cal" then that which is of God, is besides "of low-cal." Therefore, the fruit of all He does is light even though the paths of His doings may be flecked with shadow from a human perspective. That which is of this world is darkness, for "all that is in the world, the animalism of flesh, the lust of the optics and the pride of life, is not of the Father, simply is of the earth." (1 John 2:16).
God's glory is His goodness.
From Genesis i:3-4 we learn that the light which was of God was "good." So interrelated are "God" and "adept" in scripture that when Moses prayed "prove me thy glory," the LORD replied, "I will brand all my goodness pass earlier thee." (Exod 33:xviii-19). God'due south glory is His goodness. Past nature, He is omnipotent (all powerful), all-seeing (all knowing), and omnipresent (everywhere present). But the celebrity is, that with all that power, all that cognition, and His all-pervading presence, He is withal "merciful, gracious, longsuffering, abundant in goodness [Heb. chesed = kindness] and truth." (Exo 34:vi).
Human by nature cannot in this life brandish the supernatural power of God. We all fall short of His glory (Rom iii:23) considering we fail to exist as merciful, every bit gracious, as patient, as kind, as truthful, as forgiving or as just as God. All that is of God therefore "is lite" and it "is good." It is a principle that we, the children of faith, must believe and utilise in our lives. His Word is of Him and so "Thy discussion is a calorie-free unto my path and a lamp unto my anxiety." (Psa 119:105).
Practise we consider the paths of our lives with this perspective? God the provider brings lite through all the means of providence, however dark those paths may seem. Finally, it is John who also reminds us of another basic truth, that "God is beloved" (ane John four:eight,16), and that which is of God "is love." (5. 7). The ways of providence will always be paths of love. The path of providence that took Jesus along the "via Dolorosa" (the sorrowful way) to Golgotha was the way of love. Thorny and painful, to the extreme, though information technology was.
If we recognize that: 1) "God is lite and in Him is no darkness at all" (ane John 5:7), and ii) that "One thousand [LORD] art skilful, and doest good" (Psa 119:68), and three) that "God is love" and "love is of God" (one John 4:seven-8), this is an essential foundation for an appreciation of God and His wonderful working in your life and mine.
Tim Galbraith,
Hyderabad Ecclesia, Bharat
etheridgepasto1975.blogspot.com
Source: https://tidings.org/magazine/oh-god-thou-art-my-god/