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MANY SAY YOU ARE SOVEREIGN.  WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

Many say that, but few believe it entirely.  Put quite simply, I am completely in charge.  I control everything. Nothing happens by chance.  There are no accidents. Think of what most would call reality as if it were a huge stage play.  I write, produce, and direct.  I create the lighting, set decoration, costumes, and special effects.  I am also in charge of casting.  I choose the players as well.¹  Most of them think that they decided to try out for it and could have turned down the part if they wanted to.  Not so.  Actors can be a proud lot, you know.  Like I say, it’s a huge production, but everything and everyone is under my command to carry it off.  It has everything, even audience participation.²

BUT WHAT ABOUT FREE WILL?  WE’RE NOT JUST ROBOTS, ARE WE?

1   Unless noted otherwise, all scriptural references are from the New King James Version.  All parenthetical items contained within scriptural references are my emphasis.

“I do not speak concerning all of you (for) I know whom I have chosen . . . For you did not choose me, but I chose you . . . I chose you out of the world, therefore, the world hates you” (John 13:18a, 15:16a, 19b).  “. . . just as He chose us in Him (Christ) before the foundation of the world . . .” (Ephesians 1:4a). “Of His own will He brought us forth by the  word of truth” (James 1:18a).

It’s the author’s belief that a failure to grasp and/or accept the truth of just Who chose whom is the basis for much of the confusion and immaturity that presently grips the Church. A faulty belief that I chose God makes me an easy mark for insecurity attacks.  To believe such, results in much the same angst as a child experiences when he is put in charge of his own life instead of being protected and kept in check by his elders. If I chose God, then I can “un-choose” Him as well.  To be in charge of one’s own destiny is to be in varying degrees of bondage to pride and fear.  Two of the characteristics of such bondage are a faulty human “fairness doctrine” and what is commonly known as “survivor’s guilt.”  In our immaturity we ask, “How could God be fair and still pick one person over another?  Why am I saved and so many are perishing?”  These issues may be so painful to address that blindness to the truth becomes a safety blanket of subtle encumbering bondage for many.  We simply don’t want our belief that we had something to do with our own salvation tampered with.  “Who’s in charge?” is the controversy of the universe – the one that Lucifer dealt with rather poorly.

2   “. . . since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses . . .”       (Hebrews 12:1a).

3   “The king’s heart is in the hands of the Lord.  Like the rivers of water, He turns it wherever He wishes” (Proverbs 21:1).