Category: God’s Sovereignty

Take God’s sovereignty and see how it allows Him to be patient. For example, He has thoughts and plans toward us for a hope and a future, for welfare and not calamity (Jeremiah 29:11). These are plans and thoughts for us that have and have not yet become reality in our lives. Until we are saved by faith in Jesus, our God’s singular desire is to see us saved. Once saved, God has a singular desire for us to be more and more like Jesus. And though He desires these things far more than we do, He is patient because He knows what is coming with His complete sureness.

Give thought to God’s sovereignty  and you may see how it allows Him to do some amazing things completely outside the box of human expectations. I started writing about patience because He waits and He waits, sometimes for very long periods of time, watching us in our activities that are contrary to Him and that are of haters of God.   But He waits none the less. As I write this I review my past and am amazed at His love shown by His patience for such a willful sinner.

I’m writing about Him being outside the box because I discovered something that is perplexing, wondrous, it defies time, love and patients as I knew it.

Taken by God’s love, I was saved in mid-1998 at 32 years old. Going back further to the 1980s I was engaged in a list of activities that I will not to list. Sex, drugs, rock and roll about cover it though. I also liked to write poetry and do other things that were pretty innocuous but were an outlet for my creative side. I wrote several poems with subjects ranging from being in love with a certain girl (or two) to painful teenage confusion concerning the reason I even existed – I’m sure we’ve all had a go at writing on those things. As I was rummaging through some of that I found a few poems that had me beside myself.

Give it at least 10 years that I wrote these before accepting Jesus, and having some time in church as a child and no time at all in my teens, wrote the following poem. I vaguely remember writing it, but had no intent to exalt Christ or God in any way, I had no clue about the implication of His “river” or “kingdom” or anything else – I remember just writing what I was thinking at the time. It is obvious that God had done something then and wanted to show me something 30 years later too – that He always cared, always had a plan, and He even had me asking for Jesus (last line) before I knew what I needed! My goal is not to show off my high school level writing, but to show off my God.

Heaven

Take me to those gentle rivers that flow as your love does.

Give me what I deserve be it love or hate or deserts desolate.

Take my soul and pass me through your kingdom of life.

Give my soul a new way so that I can wade in your river.

 

His Patients is beyond us. Live a life of peace and power in the assurance of His faithfulness!

 

 

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God” – Romans 5:1-2.  “Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers” – 3 John 1:2 (NASB).   In the grace of God, attained by faith, we are on our way to have all He desires for us to have spiritually and physically.  So then, we are pretty awesome because of our faith then right?

Uh, well, He gave us the faith too.  He gave us the faith to believe Jesus is our Savior and the faith that brings to us everything else that is God’s best for us – in His grace.  There is no room for pride in that statement.  I am so thankful that I’m not responsible for giving myself what is good for me – I’ve often been wrong when I make those decisions on my own. It is vain making decisions based on what I see with my physical eyes and not based on the reality of God’s Kingdom, which is only seen in the spirit.

Am I obedient on my own?  If I’m to obey God because I love Him and I can’t love Him without knowing Him and I can’t know Him without Him showing me Himself – then even my obedience is trained into me. It’s impossible that my obedience to God is of the flesh: “This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,”  1 John 5:3 (NIV 1984)

Also, according to 1 John 3:24, His Spirit being in us is evidenced by our obedience to Him – plainly, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit for many reasons including obedience: “Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them.  And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us”  1 John 3:24 (NIV 1984)

So, similar to when we were conceived, formed in the womb, and then born, we had no choice in the matter.  We in no way could decide that we need a brain with certain propensities, heart, lungs, all of the design required for life and to make us who we are.  We had no say and no way to choose those.  So we take no recognition for, or pride in, us being alive with all the parts we have and how those parts look to other people and how they function.

Someone may be thinking, “Well, my hair or physique or mind or whatever is pretty awesome because I maintain it, train it, keep the cobwebs out, whatever… and so it’s the same with my walk with Jesus.”  The other side of the coin: when I’m (the author) doing a poor job of “maintaining” my Christian life, the Holy Spirit is there to bring me back on track and growing again.  If I try to ignore Him, He has a way of getting my attention.  Honestly, if it was not for Him, I would continue to decay like this world around us.  How attractive I am to the world may not be on the top of our Father’s list for us – we’re made to grow from the inside out.

This is it: I’m left with nothing to boast about, but all that is good is from God.   God has given us His Spirit – He is the Spirit of peace and power!