August 19 I Thursday

Psalms 103-104

1 Corinthians 2

“How lovely is Your dwelling-place, LORD Almighty!”  

—Psalm 84:1

The omnipresence of God is an incommunicable attribute of God, where God is always present and there is no limit to His presence. Although God is everywhere, it does not mean He is in everything. That is the belief of Pantheism, where god and the universe are identical; hence, god is in everything that he created in nature. The omnipresence of God is not that He is identified with or in everything, but that He is everywhere. 

      While God is everywhere, we also need to recognize that God has a specific location where He resides. In 1 Kings 8:30, Solomon pleas as He dedicates the temple, “Hear from heaven, Your dwelling place....” God has a dwelling place. In fact, Jesus tells His disciples, “My Father’s house has many rooms…” (John 14:2), describing the home of God. Additionally, when Jesus taught His disciples how to pray, He said, “Our Father which art in heaven…” (Matthew 6:9, KJV). Did we catch that Jesus was not praying, “Our Father, which art omnipresent…”? God has a location where He resides. But where is heaven? We do not know.

      Although God’s home is in heaven, David writes in Psalm 139:7-8, “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.” As David considers where he could hide from God, the answer is nowhere. Because God is everywhere, even in the depths as well as the heights, there is no hiding place away from Him.

      The message of God’s omnipresence is that there is never a place where God is not present. Yet, the experiential presence of God is dependent on the obedience of His people. After the Israelites were disobedient, God said to Moses, “Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people....” God was not talking about His omnipresence, but about His activity amongst and with them. Later, Moses pleaded and God rescinded saying, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Exodus 33:3,14).

      In the New Testament, at the end of Jesus’s Great Commission, He said, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). This is something we can count on, more than any Old Testament prophet, that when we are in God’s agenda, we can be confident that we have His active presence even when He is present in all places.

Prayer: Dear Lord God, there is nowhere I can go in this world to hide from You. Thank You for being actively present with me as I follow Your agenda. Amen!