“Does not our heart burn when we hear God say, ‘My name is, I AM WHO I AM?’ The absoluteness of God’s existence enthralls the mind: God’s never beginning, never-ending, never becoming, never improving, simply and absolutely there—to be dealt with on His terms or not at all.
Let this sink in: God—the God who holds you in being this very moment—never had a beginning. Ponder it. Do you remember the first time you thought about this as a child or young teenager? Let that speechless wonder rise.
God never had a beginning! ‘I AM’ has sent me to you. And one who never had a beginning, but always was and is and will be, defines all things. Whether we want Him to be there or not, He is there. We do not negotiate what we want for reality.
God defines reality. When we come into existence, we stand before a God who made us and owns us. We have absolutely no choice in this matter. We do not choose to be. And when we are, we do not choose that God be.
No ranting and raving, no sophisticated doubt or skepticism, has any effect on the existence of God. He simply and absolutely is. ‘Tell them I AM has sent you.’ If we don’t like it, we can change, to our joy, or we can resist, to our destruction.
But one thing remains absolutely unassailed: God is. He was there before we came. He will be there after we are gone. And therefore what matters in life above all things is this God. We cannot escape the simple and obvious truth that God must be the main thing in life.
Life has to do with God because all the universe has to do with God, and the universe has to do with God because every atom and every emotion and every soul of every angelic, demonic, and human being belongs to God, who absolutely is.
He created all that is, He sustains everything in being, He directs the course of all events, because ‘from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever’ (Rom. 11:36). May God inflame in you a passion for His centrality and supremacy in your life.
May it be so that when you are dead and gone the people you love and serve will say, ‘This one knew God. This one loved God and lived for the glory of God and showed us God day after day. This one, as the apostle said, was filled with all the fullness of God’ (Eph. 3:19).”
–John Piper, Calvin and His Passion For The Majesty of God, (Wheaton: Crossway, 2009), 12-13.
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