For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. John 5:26 (NIV)

Sometimes we forget that God is completely different from us. I don’t have anything to do with the air I breathe every day; God made it. I don’t make my heart beat at just the right pace; I don’t have a clue how it knows how often to beat. And I have nothing to do with the gravity that is provided for my own use and enjoyment … and keeps me from floating out into space. I did nothing to create nor to provide any of these things, yet I need all of them in order to exist in this world.

God is not like me. He doesn’t require anything outside of his being to sustain himself. In Exodus Chapter 3, we read that God commissioned Moses to lead his people out of Egypt and to the Promised Land. He did this by speaking to Moses from a burning bush. The first step, according to God, was for Moses to tell Pharaoh to let his people go. So Moses, a little hesitant to accept the mission, asked who he should say had sent him. God replied, “This is what you are to say…: ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14 NIV). In other words, tell them the self-existing God has sent you.

God is the one who holds the universe together by his great character and very being. When God created the world he did it simply by speaking it into existence. And we depend on what God has created for our sustenance and existence.

Today, I’m thankful for God and His one and only Son, Jesus Christ. I’m grateful they have provided everything we need to live in this world.

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. Hebrews 1:3 9 (NIV)