“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord. (Rev. 1:8a).
In our previous lesson, we learned that true happiness can only come when we submit to God’s rule in our lives, when we recognize Him as God and live in His kingdom through faith in Jesus Christ. But how can we really experience joy in the Lord if we don’t know that much about Him? For the next several days then, we will study attributes of our great God.
When two people are in love, the more they know about each other the more happiness they feel when that person is near. If ultimate love and happiness come from the Lord, we should want to know Him intimately. As the bride of Christ, you should desire to know Him as much as you can. Sadly, many in the church choose to know as little about God as possible. They have no desire to study His Word. They refuse to study the plethora of books that have been written by godly men and women, exploring the many attributes of God. They only partially listen to sermons as they appear to be more captivated by the clock on the wall than by the words of the pastor.
If you resemble this type of person even slightly, if you are not driven by a desire to know the Lord more deeply and taste the joy that comes from a deeper relationship with Him, pray that He will give you the grace and the desire to spend time in study, worship, and prayer in order to know Him.
Unlike us, God has always existed. He reveals Himself as the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. Unlike us, God cannot die. He is the very essence of existence. While we are totally dependent on God for our lives, God is independent because He is self-existent. This is what He meant when He told Moses that His name is “I AM.” When we say He is self-existent, this does not mean He is self-created. Were He self-created, there would be a time before His creation. But God has always been.
Because God is eternal and self-existent, we can rely on Him through all things. Anyone who has experienced the death of a loved one can testify to the feelings of pain and loss that accompany death, but we will never feel pain or loss with God because He will always be with us.
List several ways God’s eternality affects your life. How does knowing that God is self-existent and eternal change your conception of Him? Think about how God’s self existence makes you dependent on Him, and commit to recognizing this fact more in your everyday life.