![]() “ He is not far from each one of us for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring’ ” (Acts 17: 27b- 28). As Paul said, addressing an Athenian audienc e and quoting from the Greek philosopher-poet Epimenides , In fact, His existence transcends creation. God can manifest His presence at specific times and in specific places-such as manifesting His glory in the t emple-but those special manifestations are not signs that God can be contained in creation. He is greater than the heavens and the earth so that neither can contain Him. God is not another object in the universe. How much less this temple which I have built!” (1 Kgs 8:27). “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. Why not? King Solomon gave part of the answer when he dedicated the Temple: There is nowhere you can go where God is not. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there (Ps 139:7-8). Īlthough there is no single verse that explicitly says “God is omnipresent,” that idea is implied by several verses. To say that God is omnipresent is to say that He is present to all creation. ![]() This means more than saying that God knows about all creation or can appear wherever He wishes or can affect all creation by His power. Instead, He is present everywhere at the same time. That means that, unlike creatures (or pagan gods and goddesses), God is not limited by physical space. Outside of his or her particular domain, the god was powerless.īy contrast, in Biblical thought, God is omnipresent. A god was in this tree or city, or only had power over that mountain or river. Thank You for being present in my life, and help me to experience Your presence to the full.The ancients thought their gods were limited to certain places. Prayer: Sovereign Lord, You are the omnipresent God. Our prayer only needs to be, “Thank You that if I am in Your agenda, there is no issue about this. Knowing that God is with us, we need not pray, “Lord, please be with us,” or “Please be with me as I do this.” God is omnipresent, so we already have the assurance that He will be with us. God’s omnipresence gives us the strength to walk boldly and courageously in this world, but He is experientially present when we are workers together with Him in His agenda. We are in His agenda, we have His active presence not only with us but in us. That is a promise we can count on: that when, as Christians, Though we may resist His leading, God will never leave us. When Moses interceded for Israel, God assured him, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Exodus 33:14). This verse is not about God’s omnipresence but His activity among them and with them. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way” (Exodus 33:3). For example, when the Israelites were wandering through the wilderness and were stubbornly refusing Him, God said to them, “Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. That is, we may live as though we are independent and detached from God. Though there is never a place where God is not present, we are able to withdraw experientially from His presence. Yet, from a biblical understanding, it is not that God is identified with everything and in everything, but simply that God is everywhere. Pantheism holds that God and the universe are identical and that God is in everything He has created. This does not mean He is in everything, which is a pantheistic belief. The omnipresence of God means that God is always present and there is no limit to His presence. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to You the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to You.” There is nowhere we can hideįrom God because God is everywhere-in the depths as well as in the heights. In Psalm 139:7-12, David rhetorically asks God, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there if I make my bed in the depths, You are there…. “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” -Matthew 28:20
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