Author's Preface
1. Accepting Or Uniting
   
2. Who Is A Christian?
   
3. "Why Don't You Leave The Church of Christ?"
   
4. The Iniquity Of The Fathers
   
5. Our Judicial System
   
6. "You Are My People Now"
   
7. Serving "Otherwise Than As Prescribed"
   
8. Does Baptize Really Mean To Immerse
   
9. Our Relationship Through Baptism
   
10. Those Gospel Meetings
    
11. A Prelude To Worship
    
12. Worshipping In Spirit And Truth
    
13. The Forbidden Prayer
    
14. "I Didn't Hear Nobody Pray"
    
15. Communion Prayers
    
16. Communion With Bread, Wine, And Money
    
17. Thursday Is The Lord's Day Too!
    
18. Not Forsaking The Assembly
    
19. Acts 20:7 One More Time
    
20. Our Father Who Art Where?
    
21. Does Nature Reveal God's Love
    
22. Copyrighted: All Rights Reserved
    
23. Don't Pour Water On Them
    
24. The Remaining Restriction For Women
    
25. Some Questions About Revelation
    
26. Must One Fully Repent Before Baptism?
    
27. Nicodemus In Context
    
28. Our Respected Myths Of Religion
    
29. Hook's Points: A Potpourri
    

All of us know where God is, do we not? Jesus taught us to pray, "Our Father who art in heaven." "Thus says the Lord: 'Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool'" (Isa. 66:1). These, along with other similar passages, identify his location clearly, don't they? Or do they?

The essence of God is beyond our finite imagination and comprehension. The concepts that we form about God's omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience are all related to our own nature, experiences, and surroundings. So our imagery of him may be no more that a faint clue to his real nature.

God is not perceived through human senses, for "No one has ever seen God; only the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known." (John 1:18). "God is a spirit," and "A spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have" (John 4:24; Lk. 24:39). He is invisible (Col. 1:15).

In order to accommodate man's limitations, God is often portrayed in Scripture as having human qualities. Identifying him as being like a man, he is said to have thoughts, mind, will, emotions, voice, body, hands, eyes, ears, and definite location. Such anthropomorphisms, or humanizations, aid man in relating to God, but they all accommodate our inability to comprehend the essence of an infinite Spirit.

If God is in heaven, then where is heaven? Is he always up there in the sky? If we lift up hands to God in prayer, in which direction do we lift them? On this tilting, spinning planet, praying people would be lifting their hands in all directions of the vast sphere surrounding us. From their different earthly locations they would be looking in opposite directions; yet all would be correct in their simplicity. Does our deity hover the earth in some corporate form like a stationary satellite? Or is He not also in the frozen boulder on the highest mountain as well as in the molten core of the most distant star?

God is the selfexisting source of all that exists. Just as there is no past or future, as man conceives them, with the I Am, there is no location of him either. His nature permeates all that exists. The elements of the expansive universe are the mind, thoughts, or words of God realized, crystallized, materialized, or made to be truth. He is intelligence that needs no neurological, electrical impulses or symbols of language like we in physical bodies employ in communicating.

Can we know the thoughts, mind, and will of God? Yes, but only in infinitesimal bits. When we discover the composition of water, as an example, we have discovered his thought. When we learn more in any scientific study of physics, psychiatry, botany, biology, mathematics, chemistry, or any other field, we have learned more of God's thoughts and will. Some of the nature of God is in each atom. Take God from the elements, and they would cease to exist. "In him all things hold together," for he is "upholding the universe by the word of his power" (Col. 1:6; Heb. 1:6). He is impervious to water, heat, and other elemental conditions for he is in them all. Could we understand all this, we would be as God. Doesn't this relate to the temptation of Eve?

All peoples have been able to know some of the nature of God. Paul declares that he has always been evident, "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made" (Rom. 1:19f). The divine nature is to be discerned in each element. Jesus' body was made of the very elements which he himself had created as the eternal Word, and thus the Word became flesh (John 1:14).

We do not look to a temple, a mountain, or a location in the sky to find God. Although he is "in heaven" and "beyond the azure blue," he is not limited there. He is much more intimate, for "in him we live and move and have our being." We are his offspring (Acts 17:2629). Paul included the pagans in that declaration. Life was breathed (inspired) into Adam, an animation with the Spirit of God himself which continues in each human being. Even the lower forms of life must have received their animation from the Source of life also. His spiritual endowment in us is corrupted by our misdirection, but God is eager to regenerate it, give it immortality, and receive it back as a part of his Presence.

According to Paul, God still has plans for the entire spoiled creation, both animate and inanimate, even though we cannot comprehend his promise: "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God." (Rom. 8:19f).

Even though "the word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14), Paul tells us that in that state, "in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell" (Col. 1:19), and the Hebrews were told that "he reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature" (Heb.1:3). Regenerated ones share in this, "for in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness of life in him" (Col. 2:9f). This fullness of life includes body with soul and spirit, with the indwelling deity.

While Jesus was in the flesh, Philip requested, "Show us the Father." Jesus responded, "He who has seen me has seen the Father." Deity accommodated man's lack of perception by taking a fleshly nature to house his divinity on earth at a point in time. And he gave physical demonstrations of miracles including the resurrection to demonstrate the unseen fullness of deity that he possessed.

Concerning his disciples, Jesus prayed "that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me" (John 17:21f). Usually we quote those words in urging unity among disciples, and that is proper. But the real focus is on our sharing the very glory and nature of the one deity. Not only are we one with other believers, but we are one with our Creator whose very essence is in us.

"In him was life," and "I am the Life" reveal the source of life breathed into all mankind through Adam. Then the believer is given a regenerated, fuller life, but we still do not enjoy the fullness of deity. We advance from one degree of glory to another as we respond to the encouragement to be filled with the Spirit. We may enjoy the indwelling Presence while not perfectly filled by him. When Jesus urged, "Abide in me, and I in you" (John 15:4), he surely wanted us to know of his inward presence even though it would not empower us with all the nature of deity in the flesh. Even his glory and power were limited voluntarily while he was in his humiliation as the Son of Man.

Jesus also prayed, "and now, Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made" (John 17:5). He ascended back to that glorious state and has promised to come for us to receive us into that glory also. That leads us to think of our resurrection.

Our transfer from our earthly life in God to the heavenly is also described in metaphors relating to the physical. The resurrection is pictured as a reconstitution and immortalizing of our physical bodies. That employs our physical senses which are our only understandable point of reference. We have no way to comprehend the infinite state or action of the spirit.

This physical approach raises many questions. At what age or in what state will the body be raised and immortalized? For me, will it be my youthful body, or a mature one, or as I am now in old age? Most of us would not want a body just like the one we now have. We would want features that we never possessed in our earthly life. The person born without limbs, for instance, would wanT additional features. Will my younger brother who died at the age of two be raised as an infant and be forever such? Will he be given memory, knowledge, and speech which he never had? Since there will be no marrying or giving in marriage, will we have male and female features? Will an immortal body need a digestive system? The questions are innumerable.

I am not able to imagine a physical circumstance of eternal bliss. All fleshly pleasures soon become a boredom and weariness. And when it comes to those mansions (a misunderstood promise!), if each of us has one, then each of us will live alone. Who looks forward to living alone eternally? All such questions arise from our lack of perception of spiritual things.

"Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable" (1 Cor. 15:50). So we will be changed into a spiritual body. However, a spiritual body, as we think of a body, is a contradiction of terms. How puzzling our earthly concepts are!

God breathed life into us. It degenerated, but through Christ may be regenerated. In raising our bodies it will be breathed into us again. But breathing is a metaphor relating to our physical bodies.

"I will come again and will take you to myself" (John 14:3) is a sure promise. Ever in him and he in us, the veil limiting comprehension of the spiritual will be dropped. "Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). What a revelation! At last we will see/comprehend deity! We will be like him! We will see his glorified state and share his glory! Sharing the nature of the I AM, the Truth, and the Life, we shall no longer be limited in thought, space, and time. The Son shall have set us free!

Perhaps, I have wandered too far from my topic of locating God. However, it seems to me that a consideration of his nature and of our relationship to him are essential to any discussion of where to find him.

How can Satan fit into this picture? If God is omnipresent, where is Satan? I have trouble here, as with so many other points, vague but long held. Perhaps Satan is more metaphorical than I have thought. Here is a suggested answer to my question.

Man was created with limited capacity to think. Although he has some of the nature of divinity, the fullness of deity is not in us. That leaves room for ignorance, deception, and selfwill-things opposite to the essence of the Creator. Satan is a personification of all that is contrary to the mind of God. Those things in us are characterized as the work of Satanic power. In making us vulnerable to those alienating conditions, God also made himself vulnerable to loss by his selflimitation. In our inability to know all truth and to be completely filled with the nature of divinity in our present existence, we cannot be in fellowship with God by our own doing.

This is where grace enters the picture. We believe and accept him who is the fullness of divinity. He lives in us, making us fit for his presence by crediting his merit and divinity to our account. He accepts us as though we were perfect and glorious now, and He will make it real later. But through those who do not seek immortality, God suffers a loss for making himself vulnerable.

Where is God? Mystery remains. Although he is without definite location, he permeates all. I can talk to him as one beside me or within my consciousness. And I hope that this little treatise has made you more aware of his Presence.

Mystified and in awe, I can still cry out with Paul: "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 'For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?' 'Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?' For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever. Amen" (Rom. 11:33f).