Being Content and understanding God's Sovereign

God’s Sovereign
What do you think of these quotes?

One of the hardest lessons to learn comes from our stubborn refusal to refrain from interfering in other people’s lives. It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur providence, that is, interfering with God’s plan for others. Oswald Chambers

Faith recognizes the fact that God is in control of my life. Whether I believe it or not, it’s a fact that God is in control of the world. If I don’t believe it, I”m just robbing myself of the enjoyment of the fact. Paul Little

Within the broad field of God’s sovereign, permissive will the deadly conflict of good and evil continues with increasing fury. God will yet have His way [but] as responsible beings, we must make our choice in the present moral situation.” A.W. Tozer (1897-1963), from The knowledge of the Holy

I want to look into God’s sovereign,hidden will which I viewed as God’s “ultimate” will. This facet of God’s will comes out of the recognition of God’s sovereignty and the other aspects of God’s nature. This expression of God’s will focuses on the fact that God sovereignly ordains everything that comes to pass. In other words, there is nothing that happens that is outside of God’s sovereign will. His sovereign will does not imply that God causes everything to happen. This aspect of God’s will acknowledges the fact that even when God passively permits things to happen, He choose to permit them, because He always has the power and right to intervene. God can always decide to either permit or stop the actions and events of this world. Therefore, as He allows things to happen, He has “willed” them in this sense of the word. God’s will acknowledges that while we have the power and ability to disobey God’s commands, we do not have the right to do so. Therefore, there is no excuse for our sin, and we cannot claim that by choosing to sin we are simply fulfilling God’s sovereign decree or will.

God’s Word are backed by His authority as the supreme and sovereign in all situations. The circumstances surrounding our lives are no accident: they may be the work of evil, but that evil is held firmly within the mighty hand of our sovereign God.

Proverbs 16:9 We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps.

Proverbs 20:24 A man’s steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand his own way?

Proverbs 21:1 The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.

Jeremiah 10:23 I know, O LORD, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps.

All of the Old Testament verses are summarized by Paul in Romans 8:28-29 “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.”

God rules over all things and controls all things. ‘Providence” means God’s faithful, moment-by-moment control over everything He has made to ensure that everything He has created are going according to His will. He is active in every detail of it. He’s active at every moment. He doesn’t stand back and let things happen because He decides to intervene if something or someone is not going according to His will. He governs the world moment-by-moment through providence, so that everything that happens, every detail of our life occurs by God’s divine providence or by God’s express permission. He is in control of everything. Even the bad things that happen to us are circumscribed by a loving providence and God promises to use them all for our and HIS ultimate good.

For an example, in Exodus 4: 11 God told Moses: “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him dumb or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?” Stated that simply and directly, the idea sounds repulsive. Why would he make a man dumb, deaf, or blind? Yet again and again in Scripture we see that there is far more to God’s sovereign plan than our finite minds can comprehend. Take me for an example, I was born deaf. God knew me before the conception. That’s eternal. God created my inmost being and knitted me together in my mother’s womb. This is what the LORD says— “He who made you, Who formed you in the womb, and Who will help you and that before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.

With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God. I was DEAF before I was born so God knew that while my body was being formed. Therefore, time should be eternal because God’s time is eternal.

The truth is in the biblical fact that our God good causes and/or allow sickness and suffering. Job is a classic case of this truth, as well as Jesus Christ on the cross. God’s purposes could be many and one of them could be for the good of the person enduring it, as in the case of both. Or it can be for punishment, as in Leviticus 26:15,16; Deuteronomy 28:61; Psalm 107:17,17; 2 Kings 5:27; Micah 6:13; Acts 5:4-6, 9-10; 13:11; and 1 Corinthians 11:30.

God does everything–He governs everything. Within the broad field of God’s sovereign, permissive will, both good and evil continues with increasing fury. God will yet have His way while as responsible beings, we must make our choices in any situations we may face.

When we pray…..On earth as is in heaven. God’s kingdom in heaven is established, the prayer is let it come to this earth. God’s name is hallowed in heaven it isn’t always hallowed on earth, although His will is done in heaven it isn’t always done on earth. God’s hallowed name, God’s kingdom, God’s will. we are then coming to a holy God, to an Almighty God, to a righteous God, to a sovereign God, to the great God of the universe and yet He is a loving Father. Father in heaven which means the eternal resources are at His disposal for the granting in behalf of His children. Our prayers the bottom line is God’s will be done. We never desire to usurp His will; we never desire to change His will, to force His will, to be conformed to some thought of ours.

Amy Carmichael said, “And, shall I pray to change Thy will my Father, until it be according to mine? But no Lord, no. That shall never be, rather I pray Thee blend my human will with Thine.”

In Ephesians 1:9, “Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good purpose which He purposeth in Himself.”

The potter (God) is working with this soft, yielding clay (us). If this clay does not submit, the potter may not be able to do what I should do according to His will. The potter still could make anything except for useful and beautiful (spiritual fruitful) out of an unyielding blob of clay. If God is going to make those kinds of vessels out of clay (us), however, we are going to have to yield to the spiritual law of surrender.

The key thing is are we willing to let Him do His will in the clay of earth, as it is done in heaven? That’s the heart of our prayers.