Bacon, Eggs and God

Existence

So how does Scripture declare God’s existence?

God Declares His Existence Through His Creation

The existence of God is revealed to us through the physical world around us. You do not have to travel very far to see and experience the amazing, multi-faceted glories of the physical world in which you live.

The more you take time to use your senses, the more places you visit, or the more you try to understand how things operate and how created things interconnect and depend on one another, the more aware you become. Just when you think you have seen it all, something even more amazing surprises you.

Scripture is very clear that all of these physical glories are intentionally designed to point you to God (see Psalm 19 and Romans 1.) All of the things you can taste, touch, smell, and see are designed not only to enlighten you as to God’s existence, but to astonish with his glory.

God Declares His Existence Through His Providence

Scripture has three fundamental elements to it:

1. God tells you what he is going to do (Prophecy)
2. Then he tells how he did it (Narrative)
3. Finally he interprets what he has done (Doctrine)

The only way the Scriptures can move in this way is if the author behind the story has absolute control over every location, event, person, and thing. There is not any luck, fate, or chance. There are no fortunate moments where uncontrolled circumstances intersect and result in something positive.

If you study not only biblical history but the move of human history in general, you will not be confronted with the theology of chance but rather with the theology of God’s providence. Of course, from street level it can often look like chaos reigns, with fate and chance interspersed, but from the helicopter level you are confronted with a story that moves according to the will of someone greater than any of us, no matter how great or powerful we may be (see Daniel 4:34-35).

God Declares His Existence Through His Grace

There is no explanation for the blessings we all experience, even in this broken world, other than the fact that there exists a God of awesome and generous grace. He graces us with his patience, he graces us with his provision, he graces us with strength, he graces us with wisdom, he graces us with moral awareness, he graces us with mercy, and the list goes on and on.

His grace is not only seen in his willingness to let his justice tarry for another day so that we would all have another opportunity to confess our rebellion and run to his mercy (see 2 Peter 3:9), but it’s also seen in what we experience every day (see Matthew 5:43-45). We don’t deserve the warmth of the sun, the life-giving rain, the luxurious taste of a good meal, the sweetness of a human kiss, the awesome beauty of a mountain range, the sound of well-crafted music, the ability to paint beauty onto a canvas or write an engaging story, or to harness a bacteria and make it work for good.

These all exist and bless our lives because behind life exists a God of amazing grace. You just can’t live one single day of your life without being blessed by his grace in some form.

If you are able to see the obvious and understand it in a way that alters how you think about yourself and how you live your life, you can rest assured that the grace of God has visited you.

It takes eye-opening grace to see, accept, and understand the core declaration of Scripture: that God exists and rules in power, holiness, wisdom, and grace. Knowing God begins with the operation of his grace and our acknowledgment that we need it. Without that grace, there is no argument powerful enough to convince you of his existence. Without that grace, we are left to look at a glorious display and not see the one who created and controls it.

May we never take the miracle of that grace for granted!