GOD’S WORD FOR AUGUST 8 ~ ~ Genesis 1:1-2 ~ ~ “In the beginning God, (Elohim) created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God (Elohim) was moving over the surface of the waters.”

Dr. Tony Evans, “the Power of God’s Names” and “Praying Through the Names of God”

Elohim, You are the strong Creator God. In You I find all the components of everything You have ever created. Your great imagination gave the elephant its long trunk and the leopard its spots. By Your strong arm the ocean depths were first measured and the mountains rose. You chose what color the sky would be and how the earth would feed itself, even bringing life through death as a seed dies before towering into a tree.

In business circles today—especially in sales, marketing and advertising, “branding” has become a buzzword. Branding involves the conceptual formation of perspectives that reach beyond mere nomenclature and into the heart and identity of that which has been branded. Businesses pour millions of dollars into branding every year in hopes of convincing consumers that their products or services are valuable.

If someone steals your name, they steal your identification, ….who other people see you as.

This book explores the names of God, so understanding what’s in a name and the importance of names is critical to laying the foundation for identification with God’s names.

God’s names matter. Attached to each one is a set of character qualities, promises, and meanings. Unless you fully know and understand these things, you run the risk of not accessing or utilizing them in the way God has designed.

I want to introduce you to the very first name God reveals in Scripture—Elohim.

This name is found in Genesis, the book of beginnings, and we discover it in the very first verse (“In the beginning God, (Elohim) created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God (Elohim) was moving over the surface of the waters.”

That one line at the beginning of time reveals a deep character quality of God….Creator. It’s God’s introduction, His prelude. It’s the first impression of Himself that He offers to His creation. First impressions are often lasting impressions. Why did God choose to introduce Himself to us as Elohim, the strong Creator God? One of the primary reasons could be that He wants us to recognize that He is transcendent…that He is distinct from His creation. God isn’t amalgamated into His creation. He is not a tree, a river, or a butterfly, as some believe. Rather than being a part of His creation, God is above and outside of it.

Another reason is to let us know that He’s set apart from the constraints of time. When we read, “In the beginning God created,” we discern that God created the beginning, God created time. And since He created time, then He preceded time because He couldn’t have created something that already existed. If time didn’t begin until He created it, then He must have been present for it.

When you or I discuss the concept of time, we can’t fit God inside it because He exists outside of time. The only thing we’re aware of that is outside of time is eternity itself, so God is not limited by time, but lives in eternity. Time is a constraint with which we must contend, but it’s not a problem for God.

This is why the Bible uses the language of eternity when referring to God. In addition to that, Scripture also refers to God in the present tense. You and I have yesterday. We also have tomorrow. We have these because we’re subject to time. God has neither a yesterday nor a tomorrow. Everything for God is right now because He has no past and He has no future. He is the right now, ever-present God.

When we get to heaven, we’ll better understand what it means to be with the right-now God. We will experience what it’s like to have no night, no measuring clock for the day, and no passage of second, minutes or hours. We’ll know life without aging. All things will be now whether they are simultaneous or a billion years apart. Everything will forever be RIGHT NOW. The bottom line is simply that ELOHIM, the strong Creator God, is transcendent of time.

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