Do you sometimes forget who God is?

13 In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you 14 to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.”

1 Timothy 6: 13-16 NIV

Have you ever looked at the sky, or thought about space, and remembered that there is an infinity of space out there? It very well seems to go on forever and ever and ever and ever… ‘Boundless’ is a good word for it.

Have you ever tried to imagine “the beginning?” You might go back to the beginning of history, but there was something before that. And then, there was something before that. And something before that!

The same is true for our God. For example, when was God ‘born?’ Whether or not you believe in the scripture regarding God’s eternal presence, can you set a time when there was no God? And if you do, what was there before?

Living on this beautiful – but boundaried – earth, it is very easy to forget that we hang in the balance of a solar system, a galaxy, a universe. We see birth, the beginning, and death, the end, and the start of a project and the ending of the same, and the passing of the years… We see things with a beginning and an end. Yet there is so much out there which has no beginning and no end. It’s difficult to comprehend. God himself has no beginning and no end. There’s no birth or death certificate for him. He always was and always will be.

In 1 Timothy, chapter 6, Paul reminds Timothy of who God is. Paul is in the middle of charging Timothy with a challenge – to keep the command that Paul is giving him – until Christ returns again, the advent of which will be in God’s time, he says, when he bursts out with the reminder. He describes God this way:

God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.

Like living on a boundaried earth, where it is so easy to forget the infinity of space around us, it is so easy to think of God as a boundaried God. We might say a quick grace before eating, or send up a prayer about the amount of gasoline we have left in our tank versus the distance we have to go – and I think God cares about that – but does that acknowledge the true nature of God? The King of kings, the Lord of lords, the immortal?

Sometimes, we need that reminder that we are in the presence of a being we can barely describe. Our God is beyond our comprehension. He has abilities and knowledge and love that exceed what our finite minds understand. As Paul reminded Timothy of the kind of God they were serving, take time to remember that very same God. Close your eyes and contemplate no beginning, no end. Think about eternity. And then, remember the work that you do is for the Eternal One. Don’t get stuck in this finite earthly existence, where human creations like the dollar are the goal. No, remember you are loved by an unending being and that living in the nature of that being is the real goal.

May the Lord God open your mind’s eye to a little bit more of his nature!