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Note: The nature of God is beyond our figuring out. We need help if we are going to begin to understand who God is and how we can relate to Him. It takes God to know God. This is why He gives us His many names that describe who He is. We need these many names to get a true picture of the nature of God. Over the next few Fridays, we will look at the different names of God in the scriptures. The first name we will talk about is El Shaddai, God Almighty.
“When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty.’ Serve me faithfully and live a blameless life. I will make a covenant with you, by which I will guarantee to give you countless descendants.” – Genesis 17:1-2 (ESV).
Names are a big deal to us today, but back in biblical times, they were even more critical. Names meant something; they sent a message about identity. There are many different names for God in Scripture because God can’t be summarized or captured with one name. One of them is El Shaddai, typically translated into English as “God Almighty.”
The first mention of EL Shaddai in Scripture occurs in Genesis 17:1. “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty.’ Serve me faithfully and live a blameless life.” Abram needed to know that God was El Shaddai. He needed to know nothing was impossible for Him because His promise seemed impossible. It had been twenty-four years since God’s call to Abraham. He had promised to make him into a great nation, but after more than two decades, when Abraham was a year shy of living a century, he still had no son from Sarah’s womb.
What Abraham could not see was how El Shaddai would faithfully uphold His covenantal promises to the generations that flowed from his bloodline. Isaac blessed Jacob with the same blessing and promise God spoke to Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham. Jacob would be the next generation carrying the blessing, and he would experience that promise a few years later in Genesis 35. “Then God said, I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will be among your descendants” (Genesis 35:11).
The message of this story is simple: Nothing is impossible for El Shaddai, “God Almighty.” As we continue to read the Bible’s story, we see that from Abram comes Isaac, then Jacob, then the people of Israel, then Jesus the Savior, and from Abraham’s spiritual descendants through Jesus comes the church (Romans 4-5), which today spans the globe. Nothing is impossible for El Shaddai.
God is still El Shaddai today. He’s still mighty. He can provide, make good on His promises, and keep His covenant.
Discussion Questions:
- How have you seen God be almighty in your life?
- In what areas of your life are you tempted to believe that God is not El Shaddai? In other words, where are you taking things into your own hands rather than trusting God?