Martha's Chapel

Freewill Meets Sovereignty... Who Is In Control And Who Is In Charge? 

We have to redefine what we mean by the sovereignty of God… There’s a difference between being in charge and being in control. God is in charge, but to think He’s in charge of everything is sad because that means He sponsored Hitler… God is not willing that any should perish, yet people are perishing. That means not everything is His will.



From David R. Bauer's Article "God Is Responsive"

The Bible does not consider that God’s practice of sometimes changing his mind in response to human initiative suggests a limitation of God’s sovereignty. The Bible indicates that God’s sovereignty is large enough to include a measure of human freedom and initiative. God sovereignly wills the divine-human relationship as described in the Bible, and has thus constituted his human creatures as true persons who possess the capacity for moral freedom.

I do not believe that the doctrine of the sovereignty of God means that God has predestined everything, in the sense that God absolutely and directly causes it to happen. Rather, God’s sovereignty means that the universe has meaning and order. There are some things that must happen, such as the fulfillment of prophecy in accordance with God’s purposes. There are many things that may happen, given the freedom God has bestowed upon humanity. But God is sovereignly at work in all these things, so that each in its own way contributes to the realization of God’s good purposes (Romans 8:28). The responsiveness of God, then, expresses God’s sovereignty and serves the purposes of God’s love. 

The Irresistible God 

Jesus was the desire of the nations. His body – us – should be the desire of the nations because  He’s irresistible. It’s a great time to be alive. It’s probably a great time to be dead too – I don’t know. I'm not dead. So many of us act as though we are dead and not alive. How in the world is the world going to think us irresistible because we serve the irresistible God? We turn to TV, movies, video games, texting, computers, food, alcohol, drugs, porn, impure sex, and many other questionable activities searching to be fulfilled somehow. 

If we discover the irresistible love of Christ, and follow this irresistible God then all these things become unfulfilling and resistible. Become an irresistible person/people. Be alive not dead do something that God's truly stirring you to do. Do it in love. Be irresistible. Food for thought. Be blessed.

Pastor Dan

ON SICKNESS SIN AND DEATH

Once I was asked if God desires one to be sick for a purpose. My response was never. This provoked the question "then what about this sick person or that sick person that God has used in a mighty way"? My reply was this -   

What is the will of God? On earth as it is in heaven. If it doesn’t exist there, it’s not supposed to exist here. If it does exist there, it’s supposed to exist here. I can’t promise that every person I pray for is going to be healed. I’m not at that place yet. But I can ensure that they’re going to be loved. Do you know why we pray for the sick? Because we want Jesus to get what he paid for. We’re just passing along a check that somebody else wrote. When Jesus performed miracles, he wasn’t demonstrating what God can do, but what God can do through a man.   

Everyone Jesus prayed for to be healed was healed. God's perfect will is that we win the battles in life that we take the power He has given us to win the war. The battles against sickness, sin, and death are just that... battles. We lose battles but we have the power of God within us which never fails. Even empowered man walks somewhere between total victory in every battle and the possibility of failure... but we can win if we persist and do not grow weary. I say never stop praying and believing for total victory in every battle, against every sickness, against every sin, and for every salvation. God desires that no one should parish and that all should live a totally victorious life. Food for thought:)   

Be blessed   

Pastor Dan