Growing in our faith and learning to love the Lord more, all starts with knowing God more. If we can grow in our knowledge of God, then we can come to love him more and more with each passing day. 

And that's a big part of why we study theology. But I know that studying theology can also be overwhelming and daunting. Which is why we are going through this series on Practical Theology for Homemakers. You can find part 1 in case you missed it: Why Theology Matters for Homemakers. 

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Last week we started discussing the importance of the attributes of God and took a look at three of them. Today we are going to look at a few more and then find out why this is so important to our daily lives. Let's jump in! 

God is Self-Sufficient & Eternal

As finite human beings, we can't just keep going on and on. We need to stop and rest, and eat, and store up energy to keep going. God is different. He can keep going on forever, he is self-sufficient and eternally preserving. 

"The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything." - Acts 17:24-25

God is not dependent on anyone or anything. We however, are dependent on God with each breathe that we take and the entire world depends on Him sustaining it minute by minute, second by second. 

The important lesson for us: We are not self-sufficient. We may go through seasons or periods where we feel proud of ourselves and that we are working hard and making things happen. Other times we are depressed and living in survival mode. In either case, God should be the one getting the glory. 

He is the one that enables us to achieve anything and he's the one sustaining us in the rough and hard seasons. We are fully depending on God and we would do good to remember that! 

Unmasking Self-Sufficiency

What are the marks of self-sufficiency in the life of the believer? How can we know when we have stopped replying on God and others? When we deny our need for God, self-sufficiency reveals itself in the following ways: 

Prayerlessness. Our self-reliance causes us to cease approaching God with petition, praise, confession, or thanksgiving. Because we credit ourselves as the ultimate provider, we cease conversation with our true provider.

Forgetfullness. Like Israel in the Old Testament, we forget the past undeniable provision of God. Like Israel, we trust our current and future needs to the idol of self, which we have adopted from the surrounding culture. 

Anger in trial. When difficulties force us to come face-t0-face with our limits, we feel anger at our exposed need. We are unable to count our trails as joy (James 1:2), seeing them as a verdict on our weakness instead of opportunity to learn reliance on God. 

Lack of conviction of personal sin. We grow increasingly unable to acknowledge our personal need for forgiveness. When we hear a sermon or read a passage of Scripture, we hear it as a general admonition instead of a personal one." - None Like Him, pages 63-64

God is Ever-Present

God is all around us, in every corner of the world at every second. He is omnipresent which simply means he is present everywhere. God is always watching. 

He's watching and he's there when we suffer, when we walk through a trial,