Growing in our faith and learning to love the Lord more, all starts with knowing God more. If we can grow in our knowledge of God, then we can come to love him more and more with each passing day. 

And that’s a big part of why we study theology. But I know that studying theology can also be overwhelming and daunting. Which is why we are going through this series on Practical Theology for Homemakers. You can find part 1 in case you missed it: Why Theology Matters for Homemakers. 

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Last week we started discussing the importance of the attributes of God and took a look at three of them. Today we are going to look at a few more and then find out why this is so important to our daily lives. Let’s jump in! 

God is Self-Sufficient & Eternal

As finite human beings, we can’t just keep going on and on. We need to stop and rest, and eat, and store up energy to keep going. God is different. He can keep going on forever, he is self-sufficient and eternally preserving. 

“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” – Acts 17:24-25

God is not dependent on anyone or anything. We however, are dependent on God with each breathe that we take and the entire world depends on Him sustaining it minute by minute, second by second. 

The important lesson for us: We are not self-sufficient. We may go through seasons or periods where we feel proud of ourselves and that we are working hard and making things happen. Other times we are depressed and living in survival mode. In either case, God should be the one getting the glory. 

He is the one that enables us to achieve anything and he’s the one sustaining us in the rough and hard seasons. We are fully depending on God and we would do good to remember that! 

Unmasking Self-Sufficiency

What are the marks of self-sufficiency in the life of the believer? How can we know when we have stopped replying on God and others? When we deny our need for God, self-sufficiency reveals itself in the following ways: 

• Prayerlessness. Our self-reliance causes us to cease approaching God with petition, praise, confession, or thanksgiving. Because we credit ourselves as the ultimate provider, we cease conversation with our true provider.
• Forgetfullness. Like Israel in the Old Testament, we forget the past undeniable provision of God. Like Israel, we trust our current and future needs to the idol of self, which we have adopted from the surrounding culture. 
• Anger in trial. When difficulties force us to come face-t0-face with our limits, we feel anger at our exposed need. We are unable to count our trails as joy (James 1:2), seeing them as a verdict on our weakness instead of opportunity to learn reliance on God. 
• Lack of conviction of personal sin. We grow increasingly unable to acknowledge our personal need for forgiveness. When we hear a sermon or read a passage of Scripture, we hear it as a general admonition instead of a personal one.” – None Like Him, pages 63-64

God is Ever-Present

God is all around us, in every corner of the world at every second. He is omnipresent which simply means he is present everywhere. God is always watching. 

He’s watching and he’s there when we suffer, when we walk through a trial, and he is present for each and every sin we commit. Nothing can escape his gaze which becomes important as we get to our last point today. 

God is all Knowing

Our God is a god of infinite knowledge. This is what we call omniscient. He is not only ever present in every moment, but he is also all knowledgeable. This obviously makes sense if God is the creator of all things.

We think we know a lot with the internet today, but in reality, we know nothing. So we have to trust that God has a plan above all else. We have to trust that God knows what is best for us and that he will lead us well. We trust because he is our creator and knows all things! 

God is all powerful

This is starting to lead us to the important theology we must understand. But first, we know that God is all powerful which is what we call omnipotent. 

If God is ever present and all knowing, it goes together that he is all powerful. He has created all things, knows all things, and has the power to create and sustain all things. There is NO limit to God’s strength, his power, or his wisdom. 

And once again this all just leads us back to our dependence on God. We are dependent on him wholly and fully and until we grasp this in our daily life, we will continually be trying to wrestle power for ourselves and feeling overwhelmed each and every day. 

“The truth of God’s limitless power would be absolutely terrifying were it not paired with the truth of his limitless goodness. He is no evil dictator. He who holds all power is benevolent to his core. This is why we can trust that he is able to work all things for our good. We daily witness the devastating effects of power misused by humans, and of power in natural disasters and disease wreaking havoc in a fallen world. But one day, Jesus will split the sky in power, uttering a final,  ‘Peace, be still.’ Until that day, may we be strong in the Lord, armed and ready to use every ounce of our God-given strength for good.” – None Like Him, pages 135

God is Sovereign

We’ve been looking at the different aspects of God’s character but a very important lesson that this leads us to, and the one to remember, is that God is sovereign. This means that God is in control of all things – he’s always present, he’s all knowledgable, and he is all powerful. Therefor, God is sovereign over the universe and everything that happens inside and out of it. 

“Having taken our time discovering the multilayered perfections of God, we are at last ready to see him crowned and ruling, as we might not have been at the beginning. We are ready to meditate on his sovereignty. The idea of God’s infinite rule is not only difficult to grasp, it is difficult to trust, unless we have first spent time considering other aspects of his nature. It would be out of order to present to you a God of infinite authority without first pointing to his omnipotence. While God’s omnipotence asserts that there are no limits on his ability to act, God’s sovereignty asserts that there are not limits on his authority to act. So also his omniscience, omnipresence, eternality, and immutability single him out as not just capable of ruling, but as imminently qualified to rule. Every attribute we have considered thus far has been moving us toward this inevitable conclusion: the most right and logical place for God to inhabit is a throne.”  – None Like Him, pages 140

We slowly start to elevate our view of God. He is not simply our heavenly father, he is also our Kind and Lord. He is ruling over the cosmos on his throne above. Our God is huge and immeasurable and there are no words to describe him. My awe and fear or God grows day by day. 

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” – Psalm 111:10

And this is what leads us to why it’s so important to dive into theology. To study these attributes of God. We study these attributes, we take time working our theological ideas, because it helps shape our view of the world and our view of God. 

It makes a difference in how we approach God. It makes a difference in how we teach our children. It makes a difference in how we craft our home and where we spend our time. 

It can sometimes feel like we are in the weeds studying big words like immutable, omnipotent, and sovereign but at the end of the day, it makes a huge impact on our faith as we grow and learn to know God more and more.  

Join me for a Meal Planning Challenge! 

Meal planning is something that has gotten out of control in my home! As we head into a new season, I’m ready to reign in my grocery budget, make things easy and simple, and start eating healthier!! Join Jason, myself, and the team at PrepDish as we prepare to do a 21 Day Meal Prep Challenge!