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Eternal

             Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:2)

It is beyond us to imagine well a being who is immaterial or eternal because we are material and very temporal. Between the two, however, I think we struggle more with the eternal part. After all, we converse with people we’ve never seen via telephones and computer. But even the stories we’ve heard about people who live hundreds of years had a beginning, and at least a means by which their lives can be ended. Eternal is either badly explored or it boggles the mind, or both. That’s precisely why we must dare to consider it.

Why does God’s eternality matter? One reason is that if He either came into existence or could be caused to cease to exist, something greater than God must exist to bring Him about. If He ceases to exist, He will be unable to fulfill His promises or carry out His plans. His goodness would be limited to His life. In short, He would be a useless and pathetic god.

But because He has always and will always exist, He is able to fulfill His promises in a way that is not only perfect but everlasting. He has also been “around the block a few times,” meaning that there’s nothing in our lives that He hasn’t seen and addressed many times. Contrary to our egos, we’re not special, different, or the exception to the rules. He has billions of case-studies over thousands of years. We can trust that He has a good idea for how to handle the situations we face.

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