“In Him We Live and Move and Have Our Being"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…

"In Him We Live and Move and Have Our Being"

   

   We frequently reference Acts 17:28 in these messages, usually in passing.  Let us today pause along the way of such wonder and seek to catch a a brighter glimmer of the glory that shines from the Apostle Paul's declaration...

   "In Him we live and move and have our being."

   Our Lord pervades the entirety of our existence (Acts 17:28).  This is truth.  This is fact.  This is reality.  "Man's goings are of the Lord" (Proverbs 20:24).  Our awareness of such wonder, even among the most devout believers, does not begin to comprehend how much God saturates our lives.  I for one do not know what it means that we "live and move and have our being" in God.  I just know that we do.  I furthermore believe that we must establish this nearly incomprehensible verity as a belief, a conviction, and a growing certainty that our lives teem with the pointed and involved presence of the Creator and Sustainer of our being.  "Whither shall I flee from Thy Spirit?  Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence… Thou art there" (Psalm 139:7; 8).  

   Of such wonder, we can know some.  We can know more.  But we can never know all.  "We walk by faith, not by sight" (II Corinthians 5:7).  Personally, I have pondered, considered, discussed, preached, and written about Acts 17:28 for nearly four decades.  I have been illuminated, encouraged, challenged, filled, thrilled, and fulfilled by its surpassing glory.  As I write these words, however, I feel like a blind man groping in near darkness.  After nearly forty years of craning my neck to gaze upon the summit of Paul's pronouncement, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have never seen anything more than the base of this infinite mountain of Reality.  I suspect it will always be this way, in this life for certain, and even in eternity we will forever grow in the awareness of how much our existence teems with the God of whom Solomon marveled, "The Heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee!" (I Kings 8:27).

   We do not have to understand God's Truth in order to be influenced and enlivened by it.  Indeed, whenever Acts 17:28 yet again drives me to my face in the awareness of blindness, I nevertheless arise in the knowledge of having been illuminated.  I may not understand in conceptual terms any more of what it means that "in Him we live and move and have our being."  But I do know that pondering and affirming the wonder does something to open my eyes a bit more to see, and my heart a bit more to love, trust, and worship.  That is most certainly enough, and perhaps understanding that some things of our Lord are nearly beyond understanding may serve as the brightest Light of all.

"The King of kings, and Lord of lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and power everlasting."

(I Timothy 6:15-16)

Weekly Memory Verse

  Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.

(I Corinthians 10:31)

  

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