Musings on Faith
Continued (click here to see previous page)....
I mentioned earlier the absolutely sovereign nature of God. Is this not also another aspect of faith, one that is often overlooked—the sovereignty of God? The sovereignty of God is the God-hood of God. God does as He pleases, when He pleases, how He pleases, to whom He pleases. He has ordained the beginning, the end, and all things in between. He is in absolute control. He knows our thoughts before we even think them, because our thoughts, like everything else in all of reality, were ordained by Him from all eternity. Oh, how unsearchable, how immeasurable, how utterly amazing is the Lord God Almighty! Until we have checked our “sovereignty” (which is no sovereignty at all!) at the door, and embraced His absolute sovereignty in every aspect of life, we have not fully understood the most basic principle of who God is. It is submission to this aspect that requires, in my view, the greatest demonstration of faith, for it is at war with all of our fleshly instincts, and as such it is the most difficult to take hold of. It is in this aspect of faith where we acknowledge that we are not in the driver’s seat, and we acknowledge that God is God, and we are not. It is this aspect of faith whereby we come down off of the Potters chair, and affirm His right as the only true Potter, and His right as the Potter to do with the clay as He sees fit. It is in this aspect of faith that we are forced to lay down all of our carnal weapons of warfare, all of our horses and chariots, and all of our nets of safety, and throw ourselves completely at the foot of the cross, where, having emptied our hands of those things we previously trusted in for our deliverance, we cry out to God and say “have mercy on me, a sinner!” And having done that, He places in our empty hands not a crown, but a cross, and bids us to carry it wherever He hath so ordained. For it has been granted us both believe and to suffer for His sake. Amen.