Skip to main content

God is Sovereign



Christians should be able to rest easy knowing that God is sovereign. According to the dictionary, to be sovereign means to be “supreme in rank or authority,” and God certainly is that. The word reign is right there in the word—as our Sovereign God, He reigns supreme over the universe He created.  

The word sovereign does not appear in the Bible, but Isaiah 45:5-7 says, “I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things.”

 That sounds like sovereignty to me.

 

God does whatever He wants. He consults no one; He seeks advice from no one; He answers to no one. Psalm 115:3 tells us, “Our God is in the heavens; He does all that he pleases.”

 

We might be tempted to think that we are sovereign over our own lives. I like to think about it this way: last year we bought a house on a plot of land. I have the paperwork that says the land is mine. If someone were to trespass I could legally have them removed. But do I really own the land? In the eyes of the law I do, but someone owned it before me, and someone will own it after I’m gone. Regardless of whose name is on the title, God owns it all. 

 

Psalm 24:1 is a good reminder: “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof,

the world and those who dwell therein...”

 

God controls the universe, while allowing us freedom to make choices within certain parameters (Tozer compared this to passengers on a cruise ship; they have freedom to move around, eat and relax, but they cannot control the ship). Our best response to sovereignty is to trust God. We make our choices as we feel led by His Spirit, and at the end of the day, we recognize that He is ultimately in control over all things so that nothing happens outside of His notice. We must learn to say: 

 

God is absolutely in control

Of all things big and small—

Whether just my life or the universe,

God is over it all.

 

So trust in Him for everything

Let go of every doubt—

You’ll find true freedom at the cross,

That’s what life is all about.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Save a Life

(Like my blog about the peace symbol, this blog was written as a default response to all the parents, students, and other people who are asking my opinion of To Save a Life.) By now you have probably heard of the movie To Save a Life, which opened nation-wide in theaters on January 22nd. The movie deals with so many issues that teens face today, like suicide, cutting, drinking, drugs, premarital sex, teen pregnancy, and abortion. At first glance this movie looks like an awesome resource that we should recommend for our teens, parents, youth pastors, and youth workers. But a closer look at the movie reveals a few disturbing things. For starters, according to pluggedin.com, there are 2 uses of the “A” word, 5 uses of hell (used as a curse word), and once the “D” word is used. There are other crude terms used to describe a girl, and crude terms for referring to sexual activity. There is also a bedroom scene that shows a girl removing a boy’s shirt, then afterwards the girl putting he...
38 comments
Read more

Catechism #15

Q. By what sin did our first parents fall from their original condition? 
A. Our first parents’ sin was eating the forbidden fruit. The first sin we see in the Bible was in the eating of the forbidden fruit by Adam and Eve. But as we saw last week, there are sins of commission and omission. The eating of the fruit was an act of commission—a sin that was committed in the Garden of Eden. But before Eve ever took her first bite, a few sins of omission occurred that led up to the sin of commission. First, notice that it was Eve, not Adam, that did all the talking with the serpent in Genesis 3. Yet it was Adam, not Eve, who was created as the spiritual leader of the family. For whatever reason Adam abdicated his role as the spiritual leader and stood silently by as Eve ate the fruit. After Eve’s bite, she gave it to Adam, and he ate it too. Not only did Adam omit his role as leader, Eve omitted her trust in the goodness of God. Not only did she misquote God ...
Post a Comment
Read more

All Things To All Men

One of our favorite verses to use in our evangelism methods is where Paul said that he “becomes all things to all men” so that he might “by all means save some (I Corinthians 9:22).” This is certainly a good idea if we keep it in its proper context and application. For example, I remember a time in high school where I knew a kid that loved skateboarding. Being the chicken that I am, I was never a skateboarder. All he would talk about was skating, and I knew none of his lingo. But to help develop a relationship with him (he was new to our church and didn’t know many people), I brushed up on my skating lingo so I could ask if he had done any sick ollies lately (impressed?). This would be like Paul saying “to the skateboarder, I became a skateboarder.” This is effective and necessary. But then there are the people that use this verse to justify doing sinful things in the name of evangelism. The first one that comes to mind is about drinking. Some people will go into the bars to evan...
23 comments
Read more