SOVEREIGNTY IS SPELLED “G-O-D”

"God is able to do what He pleases with whomever He chooses whenever He wishes." (Chuck Swindoll) And I would add, no matter how much they whine. Satan attacked Job’s health, wealth and family, using sickness, human atrocities and natural disasters, but could do absolutely nothing without preapproval from God.  Job knew it was God who had loosened the leash of satan, and looked past the delivery truck to the one who owns the truck: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away…Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not accept evil…Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.” Although satan is referred to as the ruler or god of this world, prince of the air and cosmic power over darkness, he is a pretender to an imagined throne where God establishes the scope and limits of all his activity; he cannot even sneeze without permission. During our Saviors’ temptation satan offered to give Him authority over all the kingdoms of the world if Jesus would worship him. Strictly speaking this is true for sovereignty putting them self into subjection to someone transfers their sovereignty. But the “old liar” is lying here. He did not have the authority to give authority over the kingdoms of the world to anyone, only to take this authority from Jesus if Jesus chose to relinquish it in submission. For scripture repeatedly tells us God rules and controls the kings and kingdoms of man who are like grasshoppers to Him, and predetermines the times and boundaries of nations. Satan is real and full of hate, but he is not sovereign over anything.

God is sovereign over all satan’s power including his delegated world rule, angels/demons/evil spirits, sickness and disease causing power,  life-taking power, mind-blinding power,  persecution, temptations to sin, strongholds and spiritual bondage, hand in natural disasters, and use of nature and the earth. Satan was decommissioned as an archangel, cursed as a serpent and imprisoned on earth as the pseudo-prince of a temporary world system, powerlessly awaiting eternal doom. His domain is the air, the polluted atmosphere surrounding the earth, and his greatest defeat was at his own hands when he crucified the Lord exactly in accordance with God’s pre-creation predestined plans. The idea satan has dominion over the earth is wrong. “The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein”: All power, dominion and authority have been given to the Son, who is, even now, seated at the right hand of the Father in the heavenlies, “far above all principality and power and might and dominion … in this age … God having put all things under His feet.” It’s a completed fact! The roaring lion is still walking about “seeking whom he may devour.” He has to “seek whom he may” attack for he cannot attack without God’s permission, the divine “hedge” is still in place. God is sovereign over all that was, is, and is to come. Nothing escapes His sovereignty, nothing is left to chance, and nothing is left to satan!  Failure to recognize God’s sovereignty creates a dichotomous quagmire as we attempt to rationalize responsibility for God’s speed bumps, ignoring the simple truth that God allows both good and evil. God has the ball, no one can steal it, and He never fumbles.

SOVEREIGNTY DEFINES GOD

 AND CONFRONTS OUR SPIRITUAL IMMATURITY

Scripture References: Job 1:21-22, 2:10, 1:8-12; Lk. 4:5-7; Dan. 2:20-21, 4:17; Proverbs 21:1, 16:33; Ps. 2:2-4, 33:10-11; Acts 17:25-26; Rev. 1:5; Matt. 8:29-32; Mk. 1:27; Lk. 13:16; Ex. 4:11; Job 2:4-10; Deut. 32:39; 1 Sam. 2:6; 2 Cor. 4:4-6; 1 Peter 3:17; Lk. 22:52-53; Jn. 10:17-18; Lk. 22:3-4; Acts 1:16, 2:23; Lk. 22:31-32, 2 Tim. 2:24-26; 2 Cor. 10:4-5; Job 1:12,16,18-19, 21; Mk.4:9; James 5:11; Ps. 135:5-7; John 1:17, 2:10, 4:6-7; Ex. 7-10; Ps. 24:1; Job 42:11; 1Sam. 2:8b; 1 Peter 3:22; 1 Peter 5:11; Lk. 22:31; Dan. 4:34b-35; Isa. 46:10; Lam. 3:37-38; Amos 3:6b; Proverbs 19:21, 16:33; Ps. 135:6; Eph. 1:11, 20-23; 1 Peter 5:8-9; Rom. 16:20; Acts 2:36; Ps. 139:16b; 1 Peter 4:11; Jude 24-25; Rev. 1:6; Heb. 1:3, 10-12; Matt. 28:18; Rev.13:8; 1 Tim. 6:15; 1 Chron. 29:12; Job 23:13;; Acts 4:27-28; Jn. 19: 10-11; Is. 40:22-24, 43:13, 45:6-7; Ps. 103:19; Job 42:2; ( Ps. 8:4-6; 1 Cor. 15:24-28; Eph. 1:20-23; Heb. 2:5-10, 14 taken together) Is. 45:6-7; Ecc. 7:13-14

IS GOD A RESPECTER OF PERSONS?

The Bible interprets itself, through context and related passages. There are seven passages where this precept is discussed and the context in each passage is either Salvation, Judgment or Rewards, which explains the intent of the precept. It makes perfect sense and accords with the whole council of God that Salvation, Judgment and Rewards would be universal precepts applicable to all saints. Except for these three areas, God is at liberty to deal with us differently, individually and uniquely. He created us as unique individuals with unique pathways of transformation, reflecting our uniqueness. We are born into different cultures and life situations having unique mixtures of attitudes, proclivities and personality traits,   have different innate interests and desires, are susceptible to different temptations, face different trials and chastening, have different callings and giftings, and drag behind a long train of unique and constantly changing life experiences. Jesus said the way to eternal life is difficult: Our uniqueness makes our confirmation into the nature of Christ uniquely difficult

Some examples: John the Baptist spent 30 years in the woods eating bugs, followed by a three month local ministry before losing his head. Stephen, the newly appointed deacon, was stoned to death before he could get new business cards printed, while Phillip, Stephen’s classmate in the first class of deacons had a long impressive ministry, raised four godly daughters, and became the first, and so far the only, flying deacon. The Apostle John, whom Jesus loved more then the other disciples, lived to a ripe old age dreaming of heaven; all the other apostles were tortured and killed while in the prime of life.  The Apostle Paul suffered far more than anyone recorded in scriptures, was denied healing by God, and was beheaded in prison, while Jesus’ friend Lazarus was raised from the dead to a long and peaceful life. God blinded one man for thirty plus years to demo His Glory, and blinded Pharaoh’s heart, leading to his destruction. Jesus healed only one person out of the “great multitude of sick, blind, lame and paralyzed” at the Pool of Bethesda. And then there is Hebrews 11 where the great faith-life of Able, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, … etc., is juxtaposed with others whose likewise great faith-life was demonstrated with torture, scourging, imprisonment, stoning, destitution, affliction, and tree-saws through the body. Enoch lived a blessed life, literally walking with God for three hundred plus years then was transported home by God bypassing death. That sounds a little biased if you’re the one who has a date with a tree-saw! God does not treat His children all the same: We are all called to adversity but the specifics and degree differ widely, due to our uniqueness and God’s plans for us. The good God brings from bad will always outweigh the bad, producing patience, unswerving endurance, faith, godly character and integrity, joyful confident hope  in eternal salvation, and radiant agape love, releasing the strength and power of God in our lives. Sounds like Spiritual Maturity. Conformance into Christlikeness is not produced through a life of Health and wealth. Paul understood this to the point of literally rejoicing in infirmities, troubles, suffering, hardships, afflictions, persecutions, in a nutshell adversity, referring to them as momentary “light afflictions” that produce for us a vast transcendent eternal glory. We only see a cloudy half-picture of what God is doing in us and through us in others, in allowing adversity to draw us Godward. This purposeful intentional God demonstrates His goodness by His laser-like focus on our transformation, never deviating from His plan, loving us too much to leave us the way we are. “You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”                              

JESUS: THE ONLY ANSWER BIGGER THAN QUESTIONS

A missionary is killed when a 4x4 board catapults through the windshield of her bus, a financial reversal leaves a retired minister homeless, a pastor is electrocuted in his church baptismal, a worship leader is killed on a ministry trip, leaving behind ten young children, a pastor’s five year old daughter has cancer, a worship leader’s son accidentally drives over and crushes his toddler brother, a quadriplegic minister accidentally paralyzed twenty years ago now has cancer. These are examples of the millions of real life difficulties that Christians face daily. Whether physical, financial or relational, adversity knows every saint’s address. Bad things happen to Godly people, you can count on it.

 These roads, like all roads, lead to the cross. “It was the Lord’s will to crush Him (Jesus) and cause Him to suffer.” Picture this: The world’s greatest lover commits history’s most heinous event on history’s best and only sinless person, who just happens to be the very object of His passionate love. Why on earth would we expect a life free from suffering? We do not know why God chose to cloth Himself in weakness and suffering to overpower all opposition in accomplishing his eternal purposes, or why He endowed mankind with limits and suffering, subject to sorrows, pain and death. Perhaps Good does not draw one to God as forcefully as Bad. Perhaps man’s stubborn independence, willful self-centeredness and casual love affairs with the world require something more forceful then Good to produce lasting transformation. Perhaps Self’s preoccupation with Good breeds a sense of entitlement. But we do know God keeps His own rules, exacting nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He lived as flesh, born in poverty and acquainted with sorrow and grief, and died in tortured disgrace, deserted by His greatest love, His Daddy.

The Atonement somehow tore God apart. The Cross exceeded the worse human suffering, exposing the Godhead to rejection and pain of cosmic proportion, exceeding human capacity for pain as infinitely as God’s knowledge and power exceeds man’s. In this qualitative sense, Jesus endured the agony and anguish of hell itself: Sweating blood speaks volumes, capillary walls blowing out from emotional intensity, blood oozing from divine pores. God, the maximum Good, is personally acquainted with the maximum Bad. Isn’t it remarkable the omnipotent creator God, sovereign of all, would create a world where no one suffered more than He. When we begin to fathom the foreboding terror at Gethsemane, the denigrating spectacle of the Trial, the torturous brutality of the Beatings and Scourging, the excruciating pain and mental anguish of the death march to Golgotha, and the lonely horror of Love’s utter abandonment at the time of its greatest need on the Cross, we will refrain from ever questioning God’s understanding or His love. Rather than question His “allowings” in our life, ask instead, “Lord, Why did you do that for me”? Only a God of wounds can speak to the wounded. Never doubt God cares -- see the blood, scars and savage brutality -- He cares and suffers still, suffering with us in our suffering.

There will always be raging storms in our sea of life, we should know we will all get the opportunity to walk on water, more often than we would like. Why? Jesus: The only answer bigger than all questions. Jesus is God’s answer to why! But, know this: We serve a sovereign omnipotent God who is totally in control and personally guarantees the mysterious hope of Good coming out of all the Bad things His children endure. No power in heaven or earth can “make straight what He has made crooked”, restrain or thwart His purposes. He never fumbles the ball, or the flight of a 4x4, never! 

GOD NEVER FUMBLES ANYTHING

TRANSFORMATION

God loves us to much to leave us the way we are, and He paid too high a price to settle for our complacency. His mission is simple with profound consequences: “You shall be perfect.” The Father’s wooing call is a two-edged sword that meets our willingness with love surgery, paring the callus from our hardened hearts. There is pain, as this metaphor implies, for we are being changed from something we have been taught to love – our Self with its self-interests – into something we don’t quite yet fathom, the image and nature of our Lord. The cauldron of adversity is God’s mold, and involves pressure as the name implies: Some blessings leave bruises. We struggle with this God who is hell-bent on our perfection, allowing life’s circumstances and the powers of darkness to whack away at our fledgling mustard-seed faith as He pulls down our strongholds of worldly desires, the modern day Egyptian “flesh-pots.”  But struggling is good; it’s God’s Binky to help our wisdom teeth break skin so we can masticate solid spiritual food. And make no mistake this is more about God’s allowing than satan’s power. If God isn’t in control, will then He is not sovereign and our faith is in vain.

God does not want to change us, a snip here and a tuck there, He wants complete metamorphosis (Greek: metamorphoo, translated transformed in Rom. 12:2), an extreme makeover -- the Caterpillar into a Butterfly kind -- only our Cocoon is the cross. The transformation process never stops in this life, although it gets easier. The more God’s love leavens our heart the more we rise to the occasion, recognizing God’s hand in every circumstance of life, the good, the bad, and the ugly. As we behold God’s love for us His love seeds begin to sprout in us and we become what we behold, we become loving. Who and what we become flows out of transformation, from the inside out, as our actions reflect a mind renewed to pattern on things above, and a heart full of God’s love.

God’s eternal purpose, our transformation, has never changed and cannot be challenged or thwarted in any way. Transformation takes our eyes off of the world’s baubles and bangles glittering with death and decay, and focuses our attention on all that really matters, God. What we are in Him is the only lasting reality of this life, the only thing that transcends death. We can hide out in the wine-press but God’s will always finds us, He is purposeful and relentlessly determined. Constrained by His love, we are continually being conformed by degrees into godliness, into His glory. Our volition is the key to transformation and establishes its pace. Time-outs and earthly-mindsets impede progress but His love will prevail, provided our heart is willing. Submission to God as He "wills and does in us His good pleasure" produces a lifestyle not a label.                       

SOME BLESSINGS LEAVE BRUISES

IS GOD FAIR???

Is God fair? Is His one way My way Jesus way fair? It is His game and we are in His sandbox, so the standards of play are written in stone, so to speak. God is not obligated to save anyone; we are privileged beyond comprehension to have a hand in His cosmic card game. We are offered a seat at the table, an opportunity to ante up one worthless life for a winner take all eternal pot of staggering infinite value. And God cheats you know; He gives everyone who chooses to play a winning hand. Even Aces and Eights win.

Using metaphors to describe God stuff is not denigrating; Jesus used metaphors all the time, He called them parables.  Asking the question “Is God Fair” is more than a loaded question.  Considering His absolute sovereignty and the horrendous price He paid to redeem us to Himself, it could even be considered audacious, questioning His sovereignty. The word “fair” is not in God’s vocabulary, not a known concept in His Kingdom where the omnipotent God made all things “good”, the absolute best possible in human speak. Only mere earthlings pontificate in this manner, trying to assess God’s qualifications to be God. It is a little like the caricature of a defiant mouse boldly giving the third finger salute to a mighty eagle swooping down with talons extended. Dead mouse! Makes about as much sense as questioning God’s sovereignty; short lived defiance followed by long dead. Job, the man God called blameless, had more justification to ask this question than anyone who has ever lived, and ask he did, in so many words.  But when Job “Seen God” -- stood in His presence -- he immediately repented of his “council without knowledge”, realizing he had “uttered what he did not understand.”  If we look at this from the prospective of fair as in what we most deserve, then we deserve nothing -- we deserve hell. But, and this is a big but, God, thankfully, doesn’t look at it this way. He has given us what we least deserve, the opportunity for mercy. He calls us to His gaming table and bids us to take a seat and ante up our life at the cross of His Son, so that we might win the greatest pot of all– eternally forever life with Him. Praise the Lord for His awesome grace! And the significance of Aces and Eights; that’s the classical dead man’s hand, Wild Bill Hickok's last draw at the wrong poker table.

DIVINE NOBODIES

I want to be a nobody

Divinely touched from above

Living in God’s sweet mystery

His relationship of love

I won’t be a rhinestone Christian

Living luxury’s sweet lap

With heart adoring worldly things

As my faith, my lap dog, naps

We’ve come so far from what is truth

God’s people must love others

With lusting hearts we cling to things

Having many false lovers

This God of love with fiery heart

Does He look at us and cry

Heartbroken by the thing we lack

What He died just to provide

Let love shine through this filtered heart

Let divineness radiate

Overcoming evil with good

As God’s fierce love permeates

Arise, arise, you nobodies

Let your divineness shine bright

As salt-licks to a love starved world

Divine nobodies, God’s light