YESTERDAY, TODAY AND FOREVER!
[NOTE: It is suggested that you first read the referenced article, posted October 13, 2007 — which is found below.]
The previous article “I AM” was originally written and published more than a year ago (citing something the Lord gave me a number of years prior). Since then I believe the Lord has given me even more insight on this topic, which I share here for the first time.
Many times I have heard preachers/teachers speak of God as “The Great I AM” and make the comment: “He is not the Great I Was or the Great I Will Be, but always the Great I AM.” That is very true; but what I share here goes even beyond that! He is always the I AM — past, present and future.
God created time as a part of the created natural world, even as He created gravity and all of the laws of physics as parts of His creation. God created time, but He Himself is not in time. He is the Creator, but not a part of creation! God is over all of His creation — and that includes time. The picture He gave me looks something like this:
********** G O D **********
past……….present……….future
In other words, God is simultaneously over the past, the present and the future. To see the past, He need only look down. Likewise, to see the future, He also needs to do no more than look down. Either of those are as simple to Him as looking down at the present!
If you think about it, this is in complete agreement with the doctrine that He is omni-present. Time in the created world is such that we experience the passing of it — and the past, present and future are different times. But God is present over all of these simultaneously.
Now consider the statement that “With God a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day.” God is the Almighty, with absolutely no limitations. Time is, to us, a limitation, but to Him there are no limitations. All things are possible with God!
Think about the words of the song, “Amazing Grace” that say, “When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun.” Time as we know it exists only in this created world, but not in heaven!
If you can accept this concept that God is above time — over it but not in it — then it should be easy to understand how it can be said that “He knows the end from the beginning.” Do we think that He has a divine crystal ball to discern the future? No, He sees it right now as clearly as He sees the present or the past! He is there — in your future, in my future — right now! This certainly adds to the reality that God is always I AM.
In light of this we can go beyond the commonly stated, “God is never I Was or I Will Be,” to the place where He says, “yesterday I AM” and not “yesterday I Was.” Likewise, “tomorrow I AM” and not “tomorrow I Will Be.”
Our God is the Alpha and Omega — the first and the last, the beginning and the end. However, let us not think He was the Alpha and will be the Omega. He is the Alpha and Omega right now, as you read this! He is the past and the future, as well as the present — all right now as you read this!
Much theological debate about the “foreknowledge of God” and “predestination” (based on that foreknowledge) could be ended once and for all by an understanding of this — which I sincerely believe to be a revelation from the Lord.
Remember, He Himself said, “I AM” and “This is My Name forever” (Exodus 3:14,15).