About Me

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I am a born-again Christian, who is Reformed, but also charismatic, spiritually speaking. (I do not speak in tongues, but I believe glossalalia is a bona fide gift not given to all, and not as great as prophecy, for example.) I have several years of college education but only completed a two-year degree. I was raised Lutheran and confirmed, but I didn't "find Christ" until I was in the Army and responded to a Billy Graham crusade in 1973. I was mentored or discipled by the Navigators in the army and upon discharge joined several evangelical, Bible-teaching churches. I was baptized as an infant, but believe in believer baptism, of which I was a partaker after my conversion experience. I believe in the "5 Onlys" of the reformation: sola fide (faith alone); sola Scriptura (Scripture alone); soli Christo (Christ alone), sola gratia (grace alone), and soli Deo gloria (to God alone be the glory). I affirm TULIP as defended in the Reformation.. I affirm most of The Westminster Confession of Faith, especially pertaining to Providence.

Thursday, December 16, 2021

Do All Things Occur As God Plans?

 Some Christians don't believe that God's will is always done.  They believe they can frustrate God and defy His will. It is true we can break God's laws and not obey Him, but this is known as the preceptive will of God or that will revealed to us. But there is another way to look at God's will: the secret, decreed, and ultimate will of God that we do not know till it happens. God is known for orchestrating history as He wills to glorify Himself per Eph. 1:11 where it says God works all things in conformity with His will. That means God is sovereign, and if He is not Lord of all, He cannot be Lord at all. There can be no  maverick molecule in the cosmos.  No  grain of sand outside His will. It was one grain of sand in Oliver Cromwell's kidney that stopped a war! God was working!  Job said we cannot frustrate or thwart God's will in Job  42:2. 

Some believers think that when bad things happen, they cannot be God's will or when men sin that God didn't decree to allow it to happen or  even direct it into being. The crucifixion is the most wicked event in history perpetrated by man and Acts 4:28 says that it went according to God's predestined plan and will. Now, when God says not to steal and I do anyway, I am breaking God's Law and preceptive will. But God may allow it to happen for He intends good out of evil. As Joseph said to his brothers, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." Gen. 50:20  John Wycliffe, first translator of the Bible into English, made the famed dictum: "All things come to pass of necessity." 

That means God has a  purpose for everything happening and God even has a purpose for allowing evil according to Prov. 16:4. God is the Potter and we are the clay; we cannot complain to the Maker why we are made so. Some people are vessels of honor and some of dishonor, but all serve God's higher purpose. God used Judas to do the dirty work of betraying Jesus, yet Judas did it completely of his own initiative without God  impelling or compelling him. Judas went as it was written of him.... 

We pray that God's will be done and this means on earth as it is in heaven, to be done willfully and cheerfully from the heat and not forced to do it. God is stronger than our wills as Jeremiah found out in Jer. 20:7 when he said that God had overpowered him and he felt defeated by God who prevailed.  We know "that a man's way is not his sown; no one who walks determines hi sown steps." Jer. 10:23 and "A mans steps are determined by the LORD so how can anyone understand hi sown way?" Prov. 20:24 and "A man's heart plans his way but the LORD determines his steps." Prov. 16:9 We are not fully in control of our lives; even the king's heart is controlled by God as He controls a river's course per Prov. 21:1 and in Prov. 16:33 it says God controls the toss of the dice.  Soli Deo Gloria!