He's Got Your Back

He’s Got Your Back

A man decided to write a book about churches around the country. He started in San Francisco and headed east. Going to a large church, he began taking photographs and making notes. He noticed a golden telephone on the wall in the fellowship room with a sign above it that read $10,000 per minute.

Curious, he found the Pastor and questioned him about it. The Pastor told him it was a direct line to Heaven and if he pays the price he can talk to God. The man thanked the Pastor and left. He moved on and visited churches in Seattle, Dallas, Denver, St. Louis, and Chicago, finding more phones with the same signs and the same answers from the Pastor.

Finally he arrived in Indiana. Upon entering a church in Lafayette, he saw the usual golden telephone. But THIS time the sign above it read 35 cents per minute. Fascinated, he talked to the Pastor, telling about all the other golden phones he had seen in other churches in other cities, about how he had been told it was a direct line to Heaven and how he could talk to God for $10,000 per minute, but here the charge was only 35 cents per minute. How can this be?

The Pastor smiled and replied, “Son, you’re in Indiana now…it’s a local call.”

That’s a funny story, but it makes a person think. Is God located right here in Indiana and that’s why it’s a long distance call from anywhere else? I don’t think so. God is “Omnipresent”. That’s one of those $1.95 words that means God is “present everywhere at the same time”. Another definition of “Omnipresence” is that we are surrounded by God’s presence. That is what the Psalmist is referring to when he asks the questions in verse 7, “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.”

God is everywhere. There is no place you or I can go that God is not there and has not been there, waiting for us to arrive. Remember Jonah? He tried to flee the presence of the Lord. The Lord goes, “Psst, hey Jonah, You can run, but you can’t hide.” “If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.”

It does not matter where you run to, how fast you run to get there, if you go under the cover of darkness, how many twists and turns you make, how you cover your tracks, IT DOESN’T MATTER, God is always there with you.

One of my favorite sayings is, “We are never alone, because I can take God with me and leave Him there with you.” God is everywhere, and He is always with us. God is here with us today. He will be in your car with you as you’re driving home (kind of makes you think, doesn’t it?). He will be with you at your job. He’ll be with you at the dinner table, on the golf course, in the garden, at the grocery store, at the beauty shop, out in the fields, when you’re happy, sad, at all times, and in all situations. God is everywhere and He is always with us.

Another $1.95 word is “Omniscience”, which means God is “all knowing”. God not only is with us all the time; He also knows everything about us. We are an open book before God. And God is a thorough investigator. “O Lord, you have searched me and known me.” God knows everything about us. There is nothing that is hidden from God.

He knows everything we do: “You know when I sit down and when I rise up.”

He knows everything we think: “you discern my thoughts from far away.”

He knows everywhere we go: “You search out my path and my lying down,

and are acquainted with all my ways.”

He knows everything we say: “Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord,

you know it completely.”

God knows the hairs of your head, your future, your past. Here’s another saying for you: Character is what you have when no one’s watching. But just remember God’s watching. He knows what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. I know that makes many of you feel uncomfortable. Maybe the thought of God knowing your secrets makes you squirm in your seat a little. And maybe you’re wondering who turned up the heat in this place. On the one hand the fact that God knows all things is really scary, but on the other hand it’s very comforting.