How do you view the world? Is it as a set of random events which are the result of individual and collective decision making? Or is it that God is sovereign and he is working out his eternal purposes in all things?
We may say that obviously it is the later, obviously it is that God is sovereign. But I wonder if we live life in the light of that reality, whether that knowledge saturates our actions or whether we live to all intents and purposes as practical atheists. I think the key to identifying which it is is seen in our responses to pressured situations.
That is not saying that we are atheists, but that actually because of the way we think we actually live as if we don't know that God is sovereign (practical atheism). We do believe in God and have a relationship with him through repentance and faith in Jesus but we just forget in the heat of the moment that God is sovereign and that we amazingly can call this sovereign God 'Father' and live as if we can't.
We allow ourselves to respond instinctively because we have not allowed the knowledge of God's sovereignty to saturate our thinking and our lives. So to take an example, a week before Christmas we buried my Grandad, who was a Christian but for the last few years of his life mentally degenerated seriously, to the point where he couldn't recognise anyone. A solid grounding in the sovereignty of God brings the comfort that God knows what is happening to my grandad and more than that amazingly through what is happening God is working out his purposes, though I still don't know what they are.
It is different from fatalism, because fatalism is the result of blind chance. Sovereignty gives us the comfort and assurance that a loving God who did not spare his only son but gave him for us is working through every circumstance for our good. The challenge, and it is a challenge we do not find it easy, is to live in the light of this.
No comments:
Post a Comment