The Holy One calls to me this morning. The New Year approaches. A day for resolutions to make changes in our life or status, enact disciplines that we hope will improve our health and to set some goals we failed to achieve in years past.
Holiness speaks to the deepest thoughts in my mind regarding resolutions we all are preparing to make: "Apart from Me you can do nothing". I realize that any resolutions I might make or even desire to make, in and of myself is destined to fail unless He enables and provides.
Knowing this, I have been asking the Lord for a promise out of His Word that is personal to me and one that I can take claim to in this upcoming New Year. The Holy One has been teaching me about His Sovereignty for some time now. Today, in answer to my request, and judging by the promise I have received, I know the lessons will continue into 2014.
God's immutable Sovereignty ia a deep dark mystery. It is the least understood and most questioned Characteristic of our Creator God. God's Sovereignty seems to end every discussion and it goes far beyond out quest to understand Him.
All the "why" questions do seem to go back unanswered to the mystery of His Sovereignty:
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Why are the innocent taken and evil ones left to thrive?
Why are some people healed while others suffer the same infirmities unto flesh death?
Questions abound for things we cannot control or explain and each one takes us back to God's Sovereignty.
As a person of faith and in a deeply personal relationship with Jesus, the Christ, the issue of God's Sovereignty comes up over and over during my journey here on earth.
Trusting in His Goodness is always challenged by the enemy of my soul. Nothing has changed since Eve was approached by a serpent with a lying tongue suggesting the Creator's motives and His rules for successful living were not in her best interests.
If we are settled in a belief that this temporal life is all there is, the reason for our hope dims as the circumstances overwhelm our desperate need for resolutions here.
However if, as the Word of our Creator God teaches, and there is a life after this one; another place far and away from the things that cause our pain on earth, then the subject of His Sovereignty can actually draw us closer in fellowship and not repel us away from His Presence.
Who do I trust in any situation in life? Who did I trust when death and divorce knocked at my door and took someone I loved? Humanity will never have all the answers and at some point we all will have to just trust that God's Sovereignty is ultimately good.
The story of Job has helped me resolve this issue in my own heart and mind. The ancient account of his life and trials have given us a look past the temporal into the Spirit Realm where God resides. It gives us a picture of dark created beings that also exist past all the human senses of sight sound and touch.
This unseen realm and those dark beings must be factored into our understanding of God's Sovereignty as the Creator of everything even those things that we can not see or explain in human terms.
This earth and all that may seem permanent due to its age is really just a temporary setting in light of eternity. The mystery and some of the "why" questions in our minds may just have to wait for God's purpose in our eternity to be revealed.
The important point I register today about Job's life and trial was the humbling fact that Job had to wait, amid all the discomfort of his losses, until God chose to speak and bring relief to his pain. Job was powerless to protect himself in or from the hard things that were brought to him. He truly suffered and in every way we might also suffer, but in his multiplied agonies, he chose NOT to judge THE Judge.
Job began in the human way of trusting in his own righteousness but in the end, he trusted only in the Sovereignty he learned of his Creator and saw that it was good.
The Promise I have been given for 2014 is out of Isaiah 55: 8-13
Holiness speaks to the deepest thoughts in my mind regarding resolutions we all are preparing to make: "Apart from Me you can do nothing". I realize that any resolutions I might make or even desire to make, in and of myself is destined to fail unless He enables and provides.
Knowing this, I have been asking the Lord for a promise out of His Word that is personal to me and one that I can take claim to in this upcoming New Year. The Holy One has been teaching me about His Sovereignty for some time now. Today, in answer to my request, and judging by the promise I have received, I know the lessons will continue into 2014.
God's immutable Sovereignty ia a deep dark mystery. It is the least understood and most questioned Characteristic of our Creator God. God's Sovereignty seems to end every discussion and it goes far beyond out quest to understand Him.
All the "why" questions do seem to go back unanswered to the mystery of His Sovereignty:
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Why are the innocent taken and evil ones left to thrive?
Why are some people healed while others suffer the same infirmities unto flesh death?
Questions abound for things we cannot control or explain and each one takes us back to God's Sovereignty.
As a person of faith and in a deeply personal relationship with Jesus, the Christ, the issue of God's Sovereignty comes up over and over during my journey here on earth.
Trusting in His Goodness is always challenged by the enemy of my soul. Nothing has changed since Eve was approached by a serpent with a lying tongue suggesting the Creator's motives and His rules for successful living were not in her best interests.
If we are settled in a belief that this temporal life is all there is, the reason for our hope dims as the circumstances overwhelm our desperate need for resolutions here.
However if, as the Word of our Creator God teaches, and there is a life after this one; another place far and away from the things that cause our pain on earth, then the subject of His Sovereignty can actually draw us closer in fellowship and not repel us away from His Presence.
Who do I trust in any situation in life? Who did I trust when death and divorce knocked at my door and took someone I loved? Humanity will never have all the answers and at some point we all will have to just trust that God's Sovereignty is ultimately good.
The story of Job has helped me resolve this issue in my own heart and mind. The ancient account of his life and trials have given us a look past the temporal into the Spirit Realm where God resides. It gives us a picture of dark created beings that also exist past all the human senses of sight sound and touch.
This unseen realm and those dark beings must be factored into our understanding of God's Sovereignty as the Creator of everything even those things that we can not see or explain in human terms.
This earth and all that may seem permanent due to its age is really just a temporary setting in light of eternity. The mystery and some of the "why" questions in our minds may just have to wait for God's purpose in our eternity to be revealed.
The important point I register today about Job's life and trial was the humbling fact that Job had to wait, amid all the discomfort of his losses, until God chose to speak and bring relief to his pain. Job was powerless to protect himself in or from the hard things that were brought to him. He truly suffered and in every way we might also suffer, but in his multiplied agonies, he chose NOT to judge THE Judge.
Job began in the human way of trusting in his own righteousness but in the end, he trusted only in the Sovereignty he learned of his Creator and saw that it was good.
The Promise I have been given for 2014 is out of Isaiah 55: 8-13
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