In Sunday School, we have been going through the different attributes of God with the goal of getting to know Him better. Here are some of the attributes we are studying: Transcendence, Immanence, Eternity, Infinity, Immutability, Omniscience, Omnipresence, Omnipotence, Holiness, Justice, Love, Mercy, Grace, Goodness, and Truth. We haven’t gotten far through our study, but I already have a favorite one. To me, immanence is the most special!
According to Wikipedia, Immanence comes from a Latin words that means “to remain within”. The point is that God is actively involved in His creation and particularly in our lives. For example, this verse illustrates it perfectly:
KJV: Luke 12:7. But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.
We talked through Transcendence, which is how God’s ways are above our ways. He works on a different plane than we do. When he answers prayers, He does it in His own way, in ways we would not expect. Yet, that suggests that God created us in the beginning and went off on His own way. Without His immanence, God would be nothing more than the source of our existence. With His immanence, He is our survival, our all in all.
We talked through eternity and infinity as we learned that God is boundless. Again, if God existed forever before He created us, what’s to say He wouldn’t go back to living without us? No, God created us to be actively involved with us every step of the way. All of His boundlessness is now entangled with us.
Next week, we are planning to talk about God’s immutability. That is the fact that He never changes. The key to His not changing is that He will react the same when circumstances are the same, but when circumstances change, so does he. At times, we may think God changes, but really what changed was either ourselves or situations external to God. God simply responds in an always consistent manner with His personality. The cool part is that that means we can count on God’s immanence. Once we were created, God will always and ever be actively involved in His creation, in our lives.
The practical side of God’s immanence is that God is always available to us. When we have a need, God is never away or busy doing something else. When we pray, He not only hears the prayer, but he knows the situation more intimately than we could imagine.
If this post accomplished one thing, it has helped me think about God’s immutability, and I hope it has done the same for you. Please take a moment today to thank and praise Him for His immutability, for being there for us.
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