Journal Ps 89-91 (all references are from the ESV; changes in punctuation are mine)
Scripture: “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you have formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” Ps 90:1-2
Observation: Every doctrine that Christians embrace, comes from a foundation of understanding: The Attributes of God. This is one…
Analysis: God is Eternal.
The Holy Spirit inspired writers of the Old and New Testaments, and our historical fathers that has come before, seems to have always understood this.
All the Attributes, both Incommunicable and Communicable, are important to have knowledge about—if only to understand God’s hand in our world and especially the Gospel.
One of the functional misapplications that I can fall victim to is restricting God to Time. What I mean by that is talking, thinking, communicating, imagining, etc. that God is only concerned with my here and now. This “restriction on God” in all my considerations (spoken and unspoken) hampers every understanding I might have about the Trinity and, in effect, creates a false god.
This is a common example: “The Holy Spirit is testing me so that He can see how I will respond.” How false this is and yet, it is common for everyone to succumb to.
His Eternalness sees my beginning to my End; I imagine all at a glance although, not being Eternal myself I really don’t know how He does it (Eternalness is one of the Incommunicable Attributes of God).
I rejoice and worship His Love, Mercy, and Grace, because I kind of know a bit of what these are about (examples of the Communicable Attributes of God). Being Eternal (with all the imagined implications of that), not so much—I have ZERO frame of reference besides the definition of the word.
What does this mean, then?
I am under the conviction that it requires me to examine how I talk, what I say, how I think, etc. Using the example above, “The Holy Spirit is testing me so that He can see how I will respond…”, the immediate observation is, “Oops, He already knows how I will respond, that that isn’t true. If so, then is my perception of the entire “testing” process in error?”
This reflection and application if God’s Eternalness in my thinking is a part of “renewing my mind.” (Ro 12:2) Do I find that I keep my mouth shut more? Yep. Think before I speak? Yep. Practice prayer and praise with particular attention on “speaking truth (biblical facts, analytical facts). Yesiree, Bob.
The Psalmist gets it. In fact, the Attributes of God is so understood that it isn’t even a struggle in their minds.
I want to have the mental reflexes of the Psalmist.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, the more I learn, the more I change. It is not the gathering of knowledge that You advocate, it is learning your Word and what is behind it, SO that I will change. You brought the principles of learning in Ps 119, deep examples in the mighty men of God of the Bible, and more recent examples in the fathers of the Faith. Help me not to be caught up in the “impulse du jour” of modern Christianity and look to the faithful past. AMEN