God is Powerful
And now we finally get to the "omni" words describing the attributes of God. Omni-Potent, which is having all power, also known as being Almighty. Omin-scient, which is the aspect of God having all knowledge, or being All knowing. And Omni-present, which describes the fact that God is everywhere and all over the place, including inside and outside of the known universe. These are the attributes that people first mention when you ask them about God, and therefore seem to be the ones that most people have a pretty good handle on.
God is Omnipotent
I had a very short career in the construction business, and I'll tell you why. My Dad got me a job with a small construction crew back in my college days. I was a laborer on this crew of guys that put down the pipes that are below the streets of housing developments. This involved all kinds of digging in all its various forms, including one of those big machines called a backhoe. On about the second day I worked for this crew we were digging a spot where several pipes were to come together, a kind of junction. But as we were watching the backhoe go at it, tearing up the earth, there was an unexpected and rather loud explosion, and by the particular sound it made we all knew that it was an electrical box that was buried probably years before and not properly labeled in the blueprints the crew was working from. The sparks went up about twenty feet in the air and those of us in the hole were up and out in a flash. I couldn't see very well for awhile because of how bright the flash was. But what I remember most was this old, hardened machine operator, Al, sitting perfectly still for about ten full minutes trying to figure out how that accident didn't kill him. It turned out that, as he hit the electrical junction box for an entire neighborhood, he had his hands and feet perfectly held by millimeters of rubber on his hands and feet and the seat he was sitting on. He said that if he had been leaning a little forward or reaching back or shifting his shoes only a little, he would have been fried to death by something like 250,000 volts of electricity. That was a very memorable experience with power.
Perhaps you have had a similar experience of power. Perhaps it was of nearly being hit by lightning, or of being bucked off of a horse, or of plugging something into the wrong outlet. It takes a lot of power to get an airplane up off of the ground and into the air. Many people every year are killed in accidents involving power. Raw power is something that governments regulate and people are very careful around. The experience I described above was really of only a little power. Now try to imagine what ALL power could be like.
God is said to be omnipotent, which means "having unlimited power, able to do anything." Omnipotent in God's case also has to do with the other types of power as well. God has all power of moral authority, He has all power over leaders and those in authority, and He extends His power over every kind of political and social system. The God of the Bible has all power over life and death. Deuteronomy 32:39 states, “See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand." God is described as the God above other gods, “O Sovereign LORD, you have begun to show to your servant your greatness and your strong hand. For what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do the deeds and mighty works you do?" In the psalms, God is exalted because of the power of His faithfulness, " O LORD God Almighty, who is like you? You are mighty, O LORD, and your faithfulness surrounds you(Psa. 89:8)."
And in the New Testament it is God's power that achieves the greatest act in all history, the Resurrection, "By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also(1Cor. 6:14)." And God's power is promised to be available to those of us who believe, "his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms(Eph 1:19-20).
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