I’m Not God

God is sovereign, and he knows what he is doing.

There really is a God, he is in charge (the Creator, sustainer, and ruler of all), and people are not him (thankfully).

“‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:34-36).

God is sovereign, and he knows what he is doing.

Ron Dunn, the late international Bible teacher, used to say that God not only knows what he’s doing, he does it right well.

Jude’s benediction is right on, “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever” (Jude 24-25). 

Many believers are like the preacher who was playing golf when a squirrel took his lost ball, ran to the green, and dropped it in the hole. The preacher looked up to the sky and said, “Please Father, I would rather do it myself!” It is quite irritating to think that we might not be, as William Henley said in his poem “Invictus,” the masters of our fates and the captains of our souls. Our desire to do it ourselves has tremendous theological implications, and among them is the promotion of our self-righteous efforts at obedience in cheapening God’s demands at the expense of God’s holiness. 

There are also social implications with the motivational nonsense, promoting the lie that Christians can “just do it” and thus achieve every dream they ever had. Our desire to do it ourselves gives credence to the belief that the unfixable can be fixed, and every problem has a solution.

When Jesus said, “For you always have the poor with you” (Matthew 26:11), he was not suggesting that believers just ignore the poor; he was simply looking at a world where effort and resolution do not always go together.

God’s sovereignty relieves me of a great responsibility—the responsibility of assuming the role of God. No matter what I do, say, or think, no matter if I succeed or fail, no matter if I do it right or wrong, God is still in charge, things are under his control, and in the end, “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Philippians 2:10).

So if God is sovereign, what does that mean for us? We have nothing to protect or lose, we don’t have to be right, we don’t have to pretend, we don’t have anything to hide, and we don’t have anything to promote.

God has our back.

There now, don’t you feel better?  

Adapted from Steve’s book, Talk the Walk.