God's Essence - Omniscience
Omniscience means that God is all-knowing. God is infinitely wise; He has perfect knowledge, total wisdom and understanding (Psalm 147:4, 5; Ephesians 3:10). By His wisdom, He created the universe (Proverbs 3:19; Jeremiah 51:15). God knows perfectly and eternally all that is knowable, whether actual or merely possible (Hebrews 4:13; 1 John 3:20). In other words, God knows not only all that ever will happen, but also all that ever could happen but will not occur. Never has there been a time when He did not know all that is knowable (Acts 15:18). There is no limit to His knowledge. Psalm 139 gives us a view of God’s detailed knowledge of each one of us. Nothing is hidden from God. He knows all our secrets (Psalm 44:21).
Psalm 33:13-15 says, “The Lord looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of [mankind]; from His dwelling place He looks out On all the inhabitants of the earth, He who fashions the hearts of them all, He who understands all their works.” God never learns anything because He has always known all things. He knows the end from the beginning and everything in between (Isaiah 46:9, 10). The Bible, God’s revelation to mankind, contains all that He wants us to know (Romans 11:33).
Every detail of history and all creation is known by God at all times and always has been known by Him from eternity past. Therefore, the future is as clear to God as the past. There never is a time in your life when God is not thinking, concentrating, and focusing on you. Jeremiah 1:5 tells us that God knew us before we were born: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” God has you in mind at all times and wants nothing but the very best for you (Jeremiah 29:11; Nahum 1:7). Psalm 139:1-4 says, “O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, You know it all.”
God knows every thought, decision, and action we will have in life (Acts 15:8), but He never interferes with our volition. Our free will is truly free. Although God does not interfere with our volition, He controls circumstances beyond our control for our benefit. The story of Esther is a great example of that. Knowing that God is omniscient in all His actions, we should never second-guess God. We must trust that His knowledge coupled with His love means He always has our best interest in mind (Matthew 10:29, 30). One of the main themes of the book of Job is that God knew all about Job’s situation and He would provide deliverance.
God understands you perfectly at all times, even better than you understand yourself. As we learn from 1 Samuel 16:7, “the Lord looks at the heart.” God's Immutability combined with His omniscience means that, even though God knows everything about us (Matthew 6:8; 1 John 3:20), our sins, failures, flaws, mistakes, and even our rejection of Him do not change God’s love for us or His plan for our lives (Proverbs 15:3). His plan is always available to us. All we must do is “renovate our thinking” as stated in Romans 12:2,3, and follow 2 Peter 3:18, which says, “Grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Memory verse: “'For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope'” ( Jeremiah 29:11).