Sovereign Father

"All of God's actions are to our benefit."

GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY is dependent upon His honor. It’s not about a power display, nor the strong arm of His authority. It’s His nature, who He is and how He responds.

We must keep in the forefront of our thoughts that He infinite and knows all things. That He is ALWAYS love, and ALWAYS mercy, and ALWAYS grace. Grace is Him giving us the strength and confidence, the peace and well-being, the authority and power, to live well and do all we are given to do. He is infinitely patient and of great longsuffering.

Sovereignty is NOT His anger, vengeance, or temper on display. We must stop making His thinking, His actions and reactions, like our incomplete human ones. The Spirit in us heals our thinking to be like His, so that we see as He sees – with hope and love and peace. With completion, nothing missing or lacking, shalom. He knows our thoughts. He knows our words before we speak. He knows our motives and our intents and understands them. This does not mean He endorses them, but His love sees us and embraces us. I find great comfort in this because what I don’t get about me, He does. Proverbs 3:5 says to trust in Him and not in our own understanding. Here, again, is comfort. He is never without understanding. All of God’s actions are to our benefit.

ALL OF GOD’S ACTIONS ARE TO OUR BENEFIT. He never acts to our discomfort, to our sickness, to our weakness, meaning that what He’s doing is to harm us. NEVER. He is good and does good (Psalm 119:68), and here, is His sovereignty. It is that He always does what He does for our good. When we are uncomfortable, when we don’t understand, He will bring comfort and understanding, but we must seek it. We can, in fact, misunderstand, get angry, and back away from Him. He will keep loving us.

As I have said many times, in the garden, Jesus was pleading for Judas. He did not want to condemn the one who betrayed Him. He committed Himself to the Father’s will, but know this, the Father did not enjoy Judas’ spiritual death. There is no greater understanding of God’s sovereignty than the Father’s complete unity with Jesus in that moment and those that followed. Jesus stated this, “I speak His words. I do His works. We are one (John 14:10-11).” There was no separation between them. Jesus died as the Father, so that the Son (Jesus) and the children of God, who would believe in His death, would inherit all the Father had. The Father felt everything Jesus felt, through His life and all His actions, through His death and His Resurrection. He feels all you feel. He knows our every weakness and infirmity (Romans 8:26).

And in that, He is the most sovereign. Not as men think – that He lays pain on us and watches us suffer, but in that He has provided our healing. He is complete health. He is overwhelming victory. He is rest.

“For the Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.” (Proverbs 3:26)

Jesus saw the joy before Him when facing the cross (Hebrews 12:2). He gave us His peace with suffering still ahead of Him (John 14:27). God being God – faithful, constant, continual – He laid His life down, knowing the Father would raise Him up again. WHOLE. Perfected. Now, seeing His stripes healed, we are healed. Because He is alive and well, we are alive and well. There is no greater picture of God’s nature than this. The Father resurrected Jesus’ mutilated body and healed all His scars. Those in the sealed room saw them when He appeared among them (John 20:21); those on the road to Emmaus didn’t. They didn’t know Him until He broke bread (Luke 24:31). Mary thought Him to be the gardener (John 20:15).

A loving, gentle, Sovereign God became His creation, even unto death, in order to rescue them from all the effects of death. There is nothing more honorable than to place our trust in His.

“For we do not have a heavenly physician (a great high priest) who is unable to appreciate our weakness, suffering and struggles, but we have one who in his humanity was tempted in every way—exactly as we are—yet without sin, without ever giving in to selfish temptations.” (Hebrews 4:15)

“And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.” (Luke 23:46)

Photo by Daniel McCullough on Unsplash


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com