God Is Eternal (and other devotionals)

God Has No Beginning and No End

(excerpts from A. W. Tozer's "He Dwelt Among Us")

God had no beginning, because "beginning" is a creature word and means that someone was working on something. God started to work on it; He worked awhile and finished it. And it had a beginning and a "finish", and that is a creature word. But God is not a creature. God is the Creator; so you never can say that God had a beginning. God could not receive anything from anybody, because God had all there was. Get back of it all, to where God was, and discover that God is the uncaused one.

As the uncaused one, God is absolutely self-sufficient in Himself and needs nothing from anyone. God's self-sufficiency simply means that He needs nothing outside of Himself. For God to suffer a need of any kind would disqualify Him from being God.

I am concerned with what the Bible calls "before the foundation of the world," so I will point out further that God does not need His creation. If He needed anything, He would not be omnipotent. If God needed strength, He would not be omnipotent; and if He was not omnipotent, He could not be God. And if He needed counsel, He could not be sovereign, because He therefore would not have His sovereignty. And if He needed wisdom, He could not be omniscient; and if He needed support, He could not be self-existent. God has to be utterly uncreated and self-existent. That is God.

God once lived and dwelt and loved and existed without support, without help and without creation.

Space and Time

God created everything and everything has its purpose. If you examine creation around us, everything is dependent on everything else. Nothing stands on its own. Only God stands on His own. Everything is interrelated and subject to everything around it.

God created all the matter that is around us, but matter cannot stand alone. It needed some place to occupy, so God created what we call space; all matter is stored in some space.

Then God created time in which to make room for motion. Motion is dependent upon time, which is really the sequence of motion. Motion unfolds itself in sequential order. God created that order, and it is within the scope of time that things change. There is not anything in creation that is not necessary. This is the marvelous and wonderful wisdom of God.

Laws of the Universe

God Himself established the laws of all creation. These laws govern the way things behave. Nothing is left to chance, nor does anything carry out independent tasks without regard to everything else in the world. Everything in the universe operates like a well-oiled machine. Law governs time, space and matter, and that is about all there is to it.

God created life in order that life might be conscious of all of this - time, space, motion and matter.

Then God created spirit, in order that there might be creatures conscious of Him. He organized the whole business and called it cosmos; and the result is the world around us today.

That, I know, is a simplistic way of stating the whole business, and to state it more in depth would take a series of complicated books explaining everything about our universe. Even then, it would fall short of really explaining that which God has done in the world around us, and the beginning of human thought.

["Time" is only for creation. God is not within "time." Only we are in need of "time". There is no "time" in eternity. Eternity is always and forever - without time.]

~A. W. Tozer~

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Christ has a yoke for our necks--as well as a crown for our heads!

(Matthew Henry)

"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Matthew 11:28-29

We are here invited to Christ as our Priest, Prince, and Prophet, to be saved--and, in order to that, to be ruled and taught by Him.

First, we must come to Christ as our great high-priest Priest and repose ourselves in Him for salvation.

Second, we must come to Him as our Prince or Ruler, and submit ourselves to Him, "Take My yoke upon you." This must go along with the former, for Christ is exalted to be both a Prince and a Savior (Acts5:31). The rest He promises is a release from the drudgery of sin--not from the service of God. Christ has a yoke for our necks--as well as a crown for our heads--and this yoke He requires that we should take upon us.

Third, we must come to Him as our Prophet or Teacher, and set ourselves to learn from Him. We must learn of Him to be "Meek and and humble in heart"--to mortify our pride and passion, which render us so unlike to Him. We must so learn of Christ, for He is both Teacher and Lesson, Guide and Way!