Live It!

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD IN OUR EVERYDAY LIFE

Theology is something that you live.

The truths of Scripture are meant to be the means by which you make sense out of your life, your relationships, and your world.

You live life based not on the facts of your experience, but rather on your particular interpretation of the facts.

The things you say to yourself every day structure the way you live.

If you want to properly understand what is happening horizontally, you first need to look vertically.

There are very few things we can control.

James 4:13–15 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

The sovereignty of God is deeply humbling.

The truth of the sovereignty of God should also produce in us a joy that simply cannot be shaken.

1 Kings 18:21“How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him”.

1 Kings 18:37 “Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back”.

The only appropriate response to the truth of the sovereignty of God is surrender.

Rest of heart is always personal. Peace of soul is always relational.

God answers our desire to know and understand not by giving answers, but by giving us himself.

What God declares to be true is often far from being experientially obvious.

Hebrews 2:8 “Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside of his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him”.

You develop your theology of God’s sovereignty not by horizontal observation but by vertical faith.

What God declares about himself is true even in those moments when his sovereign control seems far from obvious.

Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

Romans 8:18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us,

Rom.8:29–30“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified”.

It is the good of God’s rescuing, forgiving, transforming, and delivering grace.

What he gives you in your pain and struggle is himself.

God promises the good of his unrelenting, unstoppable grace.

Ps. 34:18 “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted / and saves the crushed in spirit”.

The horrible lie of the serpent was that human sovereignty was possible.

Sound biblical doctrine doesn’t just define who God is, but it also redefines who we are as his children.