Note: This blog is part of a Thanksgiving series of blogs highlighting attributes of God for which I am thankful.

Try to wrap your mind around one word for just thirty seconds. Here it is: eternal.

God is eternal.

Eternal never ends. That means even if you lived as long as Methuselah (969 years to be exact), you wouldn’t live as long as God.

But what’s more, is that eternal never started! Even if you never died, you wouldn’t live as long as God. He had a head start. Actually, He didn’t start. He always was.

Mind-boggling, isn’t it?

But it’s also wonderful.

Because God is eternal…

• He is an unfailing refuge. “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms…” (Deuteronomy 33:27). No source of refuge is as complete or as unfailing as God. People come, and people go. God remains.
• He is a perfect resting place. “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God” (Psalm 90:1–2). Again, He is always there.
• He has limitless power. “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead…” (Romans 1:20).
• He gives rewards that last infinitely longer than our suffering. “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17).
• He can give eternal life. “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:15–16).

And what is eternal life? It begins as a gift for those who receive Christ: “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

But that’s just the beginning. Because my God is eternal, I can know Him…and continue growing in my knowledge of Him through all eternity. “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3).

Eternal—limitless, unbounded, never beginning or ending but always being.

I’m thankful I know and serve an eternal God.

What are you thankful for today about God that begins with the letter E?