MONDAY 1st
Genesis 18:1-15
Over the next two devotions we will continue where we left off on Saturday with some short devotions to continue looking at the attributes of God.
Omnipotent – God is all powerful.
In Genesis we have the account of when the LORD came to visit Abram and Sarai to inform them of the news that they were going to have a son. They were old in years and Sarai was considered barren, she laughed at the news as if it were nonsense. The LORD responded to her mocking laugh with ‘Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.’ (18:14)
Is anything too hard for the LORD? We get our answer a few chapters later in Genesis 21:1-7 ‘The LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me. And she said, Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.’
Is anything too hard for the LORD? Let us listen to what Jeremiah’s answer 32:17 ‘Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.’ He continues to say, ‘Your name is the LORD of hosts, great in counsel and mighty in deed.’
What Jeremiah is saying is this, If God has made the heavens and the earth, and stop and think about how vast it all is, how beautiful it is, and how magnificent it all is, and even how it all came about, out of nothing, then there cannot be anything that is too difficult for him to do. Now of course, God will never and can never do anything that is outside of what and who he is, as it says in Hebrews 6:18 it is impossible for God to lie.
We have two other well-known verses first in Matthew 19:26 ‘But Jesus looked at them and said, with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible’ and Luke 1:37 ‘For nothing will be impossible with God.’
What about in the circumstances of our lives? Our answer is that with God all things are possible, there is nothing that we can bring before God that he cannot do, but there is a caveat that we need to add, all things are possible, but not all things are permissible. We can ask amiss, and for God to do what we ask in these situations could have negative and devastating results for us, taking us outside of what is his perfect will for our lives. Therefore, in our asking not only in the impossible situations of our lives but in every area, we should always seek to ask according to or for the unfolding of his will. In the prayer that the Lord taught his disciples, he included the words, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ In asking this we are asking his will not only on earth but in our own lives. This is one reason why the theology of the word of faith movement / prosperity gospel is so dangerous, in that you are taught to name it and claim it or blab it and grab it. They teach that we should always be healthy and wealthy, and yes, health and wealth are all within the boundaries of Gods power, but not necessarily within the boundary of his will for our lives. Paul the apostle never went around telling the early Church to demand or to claim health and wealth, rather his own testimony was ‘I have learnt in whatever situation I am found in to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound in any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.’ (Philippians 4:12-13) See when it comes to the omnipotence of God, he can make his power known even in and through our weakness, as the apostle Paul taught in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 ‘But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.’
To close, consider some of the evidences in the Word of God where we see his awesome power at work, as a starter, consider the Hebrew lads in the fiery furnace, Daniel in the den of lions, what about his power on the cross and at the resurrection of Jesus. This is our God! What about in his pardoning grace, the power to forgive us, to pardon us and to cleanse us.
Great God of wonders! all thy ways
Display the attributes divine;
But countless acts of pardoning grace
Beyond thine other wonders shine:
Who is a pardoning God like thee?
Or who has grace so rich and free?
In wonder lost, with trembling joy
We take the pardon of our God;
Pardon for crimes of deepest dye,
A pardon bought with Jesus’s blood:
Who is a pardoning God like thee?
Or who has grace so rich and free?
Pardon-from an offended God!
Pardon-from sin of deepest dye!
Pardon-bestowed through Jesus’s blood!
Pardon-that brings the rebel nigh!
Who is a pardoning God like thee?
Or who has grace so rich and free?
0 may this strange, this matchless grace,
This God-like miracle of love,
Fill the wide earth with grateful praise,
As now it fills the choirs above!
Who is a pardoning God like thee?
Or who has grace so rich and free?
Samuel Davies CCLI788682