God’s Omnipresence

Knowing God is life eternal. It is also the great difference between a life of holiness and a life of sin, between a life filled with spiritual peace and a life like the troubled waves of the sea that cannot rest (Isa. 57:20–21).

An important part of the life-giving knowledge of God is the knowledge of his omnipresence. As the omnipresent one, God transcends all limitations of place and space. Distance and place have no meaning for him. He is everywhere, the God who fills all things and yet is not contained by them. He speaks of this in Jeremiah 23:23–24: “Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.”

What a truth for our lives! What could have greater power for holiness, humility, and godly fear than the knowledge that God is present wherever we go and whatever we do?

Many think that they can hide their wicked deeds. And indeed they do hide them from other men behind closed doors, under darkness, and by secrecy. But God knows what they do. He is there even as they do their wickedness: “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good” (Prov. 15:3).

How foolish, then, for anyone to think he has escaped detection in sin because there were no witnesses. How foolish we are when, like Israel at Mt. Sinai, we sin in the very presence of God. He is always present, a witness to every deed, word, and thought. He is the omnipresent Judge.

Yet it is a comfort, too—for those who repent and believe—to know that God is everywhere. He is present for them in a very special sense. He is nigh unto those who are of a broken heart and a contrite spirit, to those who call upon him in truth (Ps. 34:18; Ps. 145:18). He is present as their Father and Savior. He hears their cries, sees their broken hearts, and heals and saves them.

God is near his people, too, in their trials and temptations: “In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old” (Isa. 63:9). It is no different today.

In Christ, God is near to his people. Christ is Immanuel, God with us, a saving revelation of God’s omnipresence. In Christ and through him, God is forever with us as our God, Savior, and Father.

Are you aware of God’s omnipresence? Does the knowledge of his presence turn you from sin and produce in you sanctification of heart and life? Do you say, “No matter where my way leads, ‘even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me’” (Ps. 139:10)?

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This excerpt was taken from 'Part 1: God and His Word' in Doctrine according to Godliness.