Sometimes, we get the inaccurate idea that we can hide from God. This daily devotional looks at how a godly person realizes how God is sovereign.
Nuggets
- We may think God does not see our sins, but we cannot hide from Him.
- God is our provider.
- God is our Sovereign God.
- God has given us laws and commandments under which to live. He doesn’t do this to limit us.
While we are to honor our hometown, we are to bring the gospel to it so mankind can be saved.
To read devotions in the Redo for Godliness series, click the appropriate button below.
Devotions in The Character of One Who Fears God series
Sometimes, we forget God is omnipresent. Then we blow through the omnipotent and omniscience parts.
• Omnipotent means God is all-powerful.
• Omnipresent means God is everywhere.
• Omniscience means God is all-knowing.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
We’re looking at Hannam’s The Happiness of Possessing a Conscience Void of Offence (sic). I liked this sermon because it is Christian different way of looking at character.
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In this section, Hannam is telling us how we can’t hide. Let’s take a look
Let's Put It into Context #1
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
Let's Put It into Context #2
We’ve talked about the fear of the Lord many times. In the Old Testament, the fear of the Lord means awe, reverence and love, not terror.
Glossary
It changed in the New Testament. Godliness, equated with the Old Testament term fear of the Lord, is reverence in thought, feeling, and conduct that is promoted by walking in His Spirit and obeying God’s laws and commandments to produce a moral likeness of God.
The moral likeness is our character. Our character is our thoughts, feelings, and actions all added together.
In other words, all of us is to be like God.
We Can’t Hide from God
“And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Heb. 4: 13 ESV)
We may think God does not see our sins, but we cannot hide from Him.
Hannam wrote, “He knoweth that the eye of God is upon his heart (Hebrews 4:13), he therefore studies to approve himself to God.”
It would be useless for us to try to hide from God. He is our Creator. That means He knows us intimately.
Stowell picked up on that thought. He wrote, “Now, if God made us, and not we ourselves, if the faculties of our mind, if the energies of our heart, if the wondrous proportions of our body, are all from Him, then can we ever be separate from God? can we ever cease to have that relationship to Him that the creature has to the Creator, the relationship that a child has to a parent? A parent has a claim upon a child as long as it lives. We have to do, then, with a God of love as our Creator.”
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Worldview people think they can separate themselves from God. They think they can have authority over their own lives.
They would be wrong.
God is the foundation of life. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations” (Jer. 1: 5 ESV).
We cannot live outside of God. He made us and keeps us.
What I keep coming back to is Adam and Eve hiding in the garden. They had never done it before, but when sin came into the picture, they immediately wanted to take cover.
It didn’t work. God knew.
We Can’t Hide from God’s Provision
God is our provider.
Providence is God’s acts of meeting the needs of His creation. We know that providence is one of His attributes. God’s Providence is His care of us because of His loving nature to provide.
God’s promises are scattered in Scripture. He has promised to provide for our needs. “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4: 19 ESV).
God wants us to rely totally on Him. He doesn’t want us looking to others to supply our needs. But we do have to use what He gives us with moderation.
Our focus should be on spiritual things, not things this world has to offer. The greatest priority is on our spiritual condition, not our physical condition.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
We Can’t Hide from Our Ruler
God is our Sovereign God.
We’ve talked about God being sovereign. God’s sovereignty means He has supreme power, giving Him control over all things without accountability to a higher power.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Patterson explained the practical meaning to us. He wrote, “He is our Creator, Proprietor, Governor, Benefactor, and Judge, and therefore has claims upon us manifold and mighty.”
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God isn’t selective in who He calls for salvation. “… but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Heb. 4: 13 ESV). He calls all of mankind.
We know that we are watched by God. “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good” (Prov. 15: 3 ESV),
We Can’t Hide from God’s Laws
God has given us laws and commandments under which to live. He doesn’t do this to limit us.
The laws and commandments show us Who God is. They show us His character.
When we disobey them, God will correct us. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (II Tim. 3: 16 ESV).
The correction is done out of love. God wants us to be the best that we can be — like Him.
Hiding in Our Hometown
“Paul replied, ‘I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no obscure city. I beg you, permit me to speak to the people’” (Ac. 21: 39 ESV)
While we are to honor our hometown, we are to bring the gospel to it so mankind can be saved.
Hannam wrote, “Nor will he be deterred by any regard to ease, or interest, or fear; inquiring only, “What is duty?” (Acts 21:39).”
Hmmm. At the onset, I couldn’t see the connection between what Hannam said and the verse.
It sounds like Tarsus was a little more well known than my hometown. Burn noted that, “Paul might well be proud of his birthplace, for historically, geographically, intellectually, and commercially it was ‘no mean city.’”
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Burn questioned what we owe our hometown. It not only has provided us with a means to make a living, but it has also provided a society in which we can practice our trade in the company of others.
We need to know our birthplace for what it really is. Its history is important.
I remember when I was young and a group of people cleaned up this overgrown area in the cemetery. They found Mother Jones’ grave.
Related Links
Before, we didn’t know the history. After, a life characterized by service was celebrated.
Burn felt we should immerse ourselves in the activities of the city. These include its government and economic endeavors. It also includes intellectual and humanitarian institutions.
Most of all, Burn felt we should promote the religion of the city. Our church must support the needs of our cities.
One way to do that is to support our children. By raising them in the church, we will increase their chances of becoming strong disciples.
Making the Connections
The most important thing we shouldn’t hide from is Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer. Stowell made a great observation. He wrote,
“He did not become simply the Son of man, but the Son of men — the Son of mankind. He did not take the nature of one race, or of one people, or of one colour, or of one clime; but He took upon Him the seed of Abraham: He took upon Him our nature and became the Son of man, so that none can claim Him exclusively, and say, ‘He did not die for you’; nor can any one say, ‘He died for me alone.’ He is the Saviour of all men, and especially of them that belong ‘to the household of faith.’ If any of you perish, you perish, not as heathen, [but] as professed and baptized Christians; and how this will turn into a source of remorse and ‘the worm that never dies,’ if you perish with the name of Christian, with the Cross of Christ, upon your brow! See to it, ‘for to whom much is given, of him shall be much required.’”
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I know. That “If any of you perish, you perish, not as heathen, [but] as professed and baptized Christians; and how this will turn into a source of remorse and ‘the worm that never dies,’ if you perish with the name of Christian, with the Cross of Christ, upon your brow!” is scary.
That ties in with Matthew 7: 21. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 7: 22 ESV).
We can’t hide from God. We can’t rewrite His laws.
We have to follow God. Period.
How Do We Apply This?
We have to reconcile with God, our sanctifier. We have to come forward and give our lives to God — and then we have to live like it.
Father God. We confess You as our Sovereign God. We believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We commit to v In Your sight, working out our salvation. Amen.
What do you think?
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