God's sovereignty also has implications when it comes to the very personal matter of self-acceptance. It is very important to understand that God has made each of us as unique reflections of his image. David speaks of God’s knowledge of himself and God’s involvement in his life from the very beginning in Psalm 139:13-16. “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” This kind of all-encompassing sovereignty even extends to traits that we might view as liabilities. When Moses was reluctant to speak to the children of Israel in God’s name because he did not consider himself eloquent but slow of speech and tongue, the Lord reminded him that he was the one who gave human beings their mouths and made them deaf or mute, and he gives them sight or makes them blind (Exodus 4:11). The same is also true of any gifts and abilities that we have. When Israel was entering the Promised Land, Moses reminded them that it was the Lord who gave them the ability to produce wealth in keeping with his covenantal faithfulness (Deuteronomy 8:18). And in the New Testament, the apostle Paul links the presence and distribution of spiritual gifts to the sovereign working of the triune God in 1 Corinthians 12:4-6: “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.” We are who we are because God has made us that way. And no matter who we are, if we yield to him we can glorify him and enjoy him forever.
Thus, God’s sovereignty is personally liberating for those who understand it. None of us are called to serve him in precisely the same way as those who have gone before us. As believers we stand before the Lord as individuals and we present ourselves to him as the one who made us the way he did for a reason. He has something for us to do that only we are able to accomplish. Instead of looking around at everyone else or trying to imitate them, we should be asking the Lord to help us realize our own unique purpose. Sometimes people can feel that there is nothing they can do to contribute to the cause of Christ. But nothing could be further from the truth. God does not make mistakes. And he does not make junk. We have value as his creatures and we have even greater value as those redeemed by his Son. In fact, salvation enables us to enter into our true purpose as human beings. Paul brings salvation and our service as Christians together in Ephesians 2:8-10 in a way that grounds them both in the sovereignty of God, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast, For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
To be continued in my next post...
No comments:
Post a Comment