Knowing the Truth of God’s Sovereignty
Here is a shortlist of questions to ponder today:
- Does God’s ability to use someone mean God approves of everything that person does?
- Are Spiritual gifting and spiritual maturity not the same thing?
- Can God have a purpose for a person long before that person understands or fulfills it?
No, no, and yes.
God’s using someone specific or some specific action to accomplish His Sovereign Will is not tied in anyway to His blanket approval of all that person does. How do I know this? Because every human being that has ever lived or will ever live is flawed. We sin. We make mistakes. We make poor or bad choices. And while God allows us the freewill to make these choices, He does not negate or cancel the consequences of our choices. When He uses us in spite of ourselves to accomplish some portion of His will either for us, for someone else, or for the world, this demonstrates God’s sovereignty to control the events directly related to His will on earth.
Spiritual gifts and spiritual maturity are definitely not the same thing. Just a quick read of the letters the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians should help us see this. In reality spiritual maturity is directly related to how closely aligned our will is to God’s will. Spiritual gifts is a whole other discussion. People often think gifts of the Holy Spirit relate only to vocational choices like preaching, teaching, singing, playing musical instruments etc. However, as it relates to the correlation of spiritual gifts to spiritual maturity, I would turn your attention to Paul’s list in Galatians.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. ~Galatians 5:22-23
When the Holy Spirit of God transforms a human heart to exhibit all of these attributes of God into an individual life, then spiritual maturity is the by-product of that transformation.
And finally…
There is a little pamphlet that I used in college as a tool to have spiritual discussions with my classmates. It began with “God loves you, and has a wonderful plan for your life…”
The truth of God’s Sovereignty is that not one single person alive now, has ever lived, or will live, is on the planet by a random act of procreation. God has placed you here for a reason. We often don’t even get to know what the reason is. Sometimes we do. Most often we don’t. However, there are things we can know about the “why are we here question” though. The first is that you are here as a creation of God, to know Him and His great love for you. Exhibited in God the Son’s coming to reveal God the Father’s nature to humanity, the Son gave His own life, so that we might not just know who God is, but actually become part of His family forever.
The Control aspect of God’s Sovereignty is that He creates every human with the capacity to know Him, choose Him, love Him and serve Him. The Freewill aspect is that He doesn’t force you to choose Him or His will for you. Understanding this also brings spiritual maturity or spiritual immaturity. For those who are transformed by God the Holy Spirit when they accept Jesus the Son as their Savior, a lifetime of learning, growing, trusting and serving can take place. For those who shake their fist at God’s love and refuse His mercy, grace, and love often spend a large portion of their existence continually asking a “why” question that can only be answered, “Because He chose you, but you didn’t choose Him.”
If you want to know more about how to say yes to God’s mercy, grace, and love, I would like it if you would email me, and we can chat offline about these truths.
As I was saying... 