I was talking with a friend the other day about how easy it is to live our life compartmentally. For instance, on Sundays we can enter the compartment of going to church and worshiping God. But the rest of the week we might ease out of church-mode and enter compartments that deny God’s presence and His commands.

The prophet Jeremiah, in a strongly worded message condemning false teachers, proclaimed the following truths about God:

• He is “close at hand” (23:23). God is present in the daily events of our lives—all of them.

• He is “far away at the same time” (v.23). God is both transcendent (existing beyond the limitations of our material world) and immanent (existing in and sustaining our universe).

God declares that He is “everywhere in all the heavens and earth” (v.24). He can’t be contained by any compartments we try to lamely create. He’s there, and He knows our actions and the words we say (v.31).

In his book The Knowledge of the Holy, A. W. Tozer wrote, “The Scriptures teach that God is infinite. This means that His being knows no limits. Therefore there can be no limit to His presence; He is omnipresent. In His infinitude He surrounds the finite creation and contains it. There is no place beyond Him for anything to be. God is our environment as the sea is to the fish and the air to the bird.”

I love that thought—God is our environment. We live each moment accompanied by Him. Every moment is filled with Him. And we can’t deny His presence in any place or decision in our life, for He is “everywhere” (v.24).

No compartment can contain God. Let’s live today in the comfort and conviction of His presence, for He is “close at hand” (v.23).