Spiritual Sovereignty Quotes

You start to live when you commit your life to cause higher than yourself. You must learn to depend on divine power for the fulfillment of a higher calling.

When we understand the character of God, when we grasp something of His holiness, then we begin to understand the radical character of our sin and hopelessness. Helpless sinners can survive only by grace. Our strength is futile in itself; we are spiritually impotent without the assistance of a merciful God. We may dislike giving our attention to God's wrath and justice, but until we incline ourselves to these aspects of God's nature, we will never appreciate what has been wrought for us by grace. Even Edwards's sermon on sinners in God's hands was not designed to stress the flames of hell. The resounding accent falls not on the fiery pit but on the hands of the God who holds us and rescues us from it. The hands of God are gracious hands. They alone have the power to rescue us from certain destruction.

I dwell on God's blessings.

I am convinced that the way forward for the human race is to recognize and protect the fundamental right of sovereignty over consciousness, to throw off the chains of our divisive religious heritage, to seek out forms of spirituality (or no spirituality at all if we so prefer) that are truly supportive of liberty and tolerance, to help the human spirit to grow rather than to wither, and to nurture our innate capacity for love and mutual respect. The old ways are broken and bankrupt and new ways are struggling to be born. Each one of us with our own talents, and by our own choices, has a part to play in that process.

Prayer is subversive activity. It involves a more or less open act of defiance against any claim by the current regime.... [As we pray,] slowly but surely, not culture, not family, not government, not job, not even the tyrannous self can stand against the quiet power and creative influence of God's sovereignty.

There is grace for every soul.

The Christian living is a spiritual welfare. As the year draws to an end, seek the face of the Lord for guidance in the coming year.

Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ and author of the Four Spiritual Laws chose three words for his tombstone: "slave for Jesus".

Hmm. I think love is about loving all things, to treat each and every thing and every one as a sovereign being that’s free to make its own choices.

Blessed is the person who desired to read the Holy Scriptures. It’s brings great reward to those who believe, trust and obey the Holy instructions.

I often wonder if God, in His sovereignty, allows the eyesight of the aged to cast a dim view of the here and now so that we may focus our spiritual eyes on the ever after.

The battle belongs to the Lord, and we already know that He wins the war.

Give all your mental attention to recognizing the absolute sovereignty of the Spiritual Power, knowing that the God-Power has the answer and is now showing you the way. Trust It, believe in It, and walk the earth in the Light. Your prayer is already answered.

The miraculous wonder of this blessed day is beyond my comprehension.

We are heavenly beings.

Spiritual disciplines can do nothing. They can only get us to the place where something can be done.

God strengthen and brighten your paths.

We are not trying to manipulate God and tell Him what to do. Rather, we are asking Him to tell us what to do.

Here is a fundamental difference between the man of faith and the man of unbelief. The unbeliever is 'of the world', judges everything by worldly standards, views life from the standpoint of time and sense, and weighs everything in the balances of his own carnal making. But the man of faith brings in God, looks at everything from His standpoint, estimates values by spiritual standards, and views life in the light of eternity. Doing this, he receives whatever comes as from the hand of God. Doing this, his heart is calm in the midst of the storm. Doing this, he rejoices in hope of the glory of God.

When God does not answer His children according to the letter, He does so according to the spirit. If thou askest for coarse meal, wilt thou be angered because He gives thee the finest flour? If thou seekest bodily health, shouldst thou complain if instead thereof He makes thy sickness turn to the healing of spiritual maladies?

Without Christ a people may always have the freedom to do, but never the power to complete.

Everlasting light, everlasting glory.

When you look closely to the path you have travel on, you will realise that God was always with you, directing every step you took.

No matter what kind of sin you have committed, there is always forgiveness. You must repent and seek for forgiveness. You can walk in the new life and light.

His (Lincoln's) patriotism was saved from idolatry by the overwhelming sense of the sovereignty of God.

No pilgrimage is holier than compassion, no gospel is truer than kindness, no offering is grander than love.

(Bonhoeffer's) change was not an ungainly, embarrassing leap from which he would have to retreat slightly when he gained more maturity and perspective. It was by all accounts a deepening consistent with what had gone before.

The essential task ahead requires formulating an adequate doctrine, upholding principles that have been thoroughly studied, and, beginning from these, giving birth to an Order. This elite, differentiating itself on a plane that is defined in terms of spiritual virility, decisiveness, and impersonality, and where every naturalistic bond loses its power and value, will be the bearer of a new principle of a higher authority and sovereignty; it will be able to denounce subversion and demagogy in whatever form they appear and reverse the downward spiral of the top-level cadres and the irresistible rise to power of the masses. From this elite, as if from a seed, a political organism and an integrated nation will emerge, enjoying the same dignity as the nations created by the great European political tradition. Anything short of this amounts only to a quagmire, dilettantism, irrealism, and obliquity.

What God in His sovereignty may yet do on a world-scale I do not claim to know. But what He will do for the plain man or woman who seeks His face I believe I do know and can tell others. Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days.

The time and intelligence that our ancestors spent on understanding the sovereignty revealed in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are directed by our contemporaries in affirming and validating the sovereignty of our needs, wants, and feelings.

Jesus' favorite speech form, the parable, was subversive. Parables sound absolutely ordinary: casual stories about soil and seeds, meals and coins and sheep, bandits and victims, farmers and merchants. And they are wholly secular: of his forty or so parables recorded in the Gospels, only one has its setting in church, and only a couple mention the name God. As people heard Jesus tell these stories, they saw at once that they weren't about God, so there was nothing in them threatening their own sovereignty. They relaxed their defenses. They walked away perplexed, wondering what they meant, the stories lodged in their imagination. And then, like a time bomb, they would explode in their unprotected hearts. An abyss opened up at their very feet. He was talking about God; they had been invaded!

The modern conflicts that occur on Irish soil today are symptoms of the horrors of the past, the record of which is embedded in the subconscious minds of Ireland’s traumatized inhabitants. The Irish people (like many in the world) are for the most part infirm in mind and spirit. Those who have brought such infirmity about, dance on their desks and revel at their success. The Irish people have suffered untold misery through no fault of their own, but because they had what Rome coveted for her own power, a Savior, a Bible, and a spiritual sovereignty...England was but a tool used by Rome in her striving to attain her end, namely, recognition as the sole source of the Divine Authority on earth – Conor MacDari

Open your eyes; you will see the greatness of God.

The Lord God must be greatly feared! We can’t stand his wrath.

God's grace is the power for greatness.

We all have that divine moment, when our lives are transformed by the knowledge of the truth.

Three essential keys (FAITH, HOPE and LOVE) will open the Heavens door.

Who can know the mind of God?

The sacred gift of parenthood is inscribe in the universal words ‘Papa’ and ‘Mama’.

The love of God knows no end. Lord may your boundless and unfailing love surround us.

God determine the appointed time and boundaries of influence for every man.

Children are the greatest blessing from God.

Man is most free when he is most guided.

We take a self-forgetful pleasure in the sheer alien pointless independent existence of animals, birds, stones and trees.

THE DECLARATION of the Rights of Man at the end of the eighteenth century was a turning point in history. It meant nothing more nor less than that from then on Man, and not God's command or the customs of history, should be the source of Law. Independent of the privileges which history had bestowed upon certain strata of society or certain nations, the declaration indicated man's emancipation from all tutelage and announced that he had now come of age. Beyond this, there was another implication of which the framers of the declaration were only half aware. The proclamation of human rights was also meant to be a much-needed protection in the new era where individuals were no longer secure in the estates to which they were born or sure of their equality before God as Christians. In other words, in the new secularized and emancipated society, men were no longer sure of these social and human rights which until then had been outside the political order and guaranteed not by government and constitution, but by social, spiritual, and religious forces. Therefore throughout the nineteenth century, the consensus of opinion was that human rights had to be invoked whenever individuals needed protection against the new sovereignty of the state and the new arbitrariness of society.

There are many themes found in the Book of Psalms that are generally not found in modern music. These include the fear of God, the righteousness and justice of God, the sovereignty of God, the judgement of God, the evil of sin, spiritual and physical warfare, the arch enemies of the Christian, the destruction of the wicked, the reality of hell, the blessedness of the church, the vicious attacks upon the church, the commandments of God, the dominion of David’s son, and so on. Without the backdrop of these truths, the themes of love, mercy, faith, and salvation become largely meaningless.

All these stories of Janamsakhi were like an artistic instrument that was yielded more to spread Nanak’s spiritual sovereignty as a mystical prophet than as an effective teacher in flesh and blood. In the midst of ignorance and mystical craving, they provided a simple method to guide people, or rather allure them to a newly formed religious path by sermonizing through stories of mystical non-sense.

The core problem seems to lie in the classical-philosophical equation of power with control, and thus omnipotence with omnicontrol, an equation that forces the problem of evil to be seen as a problem of God's sovereignty. If it is accepted that God is all-loving and all-powerful, and if maximum power is defined as maximum control, then by definition there seems to be no place for evil. If goodness controls all things, all things must me good.

Your confusion will give way to wonder. In wonder you will reign over all things. Your sovereignty will be your rest.” Thomas offers us a vision of a new universe resting on an unshakeable foundation that emerges during midlife. This new foundation is the part of our

Forgiveness has been distorted by religious conditioning. Religion is designed to control your personal authenticity, sovereignty, self empowerment, and check book. So drop all ideas of bending your knee to an entity that needs your worship as worship is parasitical.

The Shemitah bears witness that the land and, for that matter, the earth, belong to God. It is only entrusted to man as a steward. God is sovereign. His sovereignty extends also to the realms of money, finances, economies, and possessions. These are entrusted to man’s keeping but ultimately belong to God. The Shemitah declares that God is first and above all realms of life, and must therefore be put first and above every realm. During the Shemitah Israel was, in effect, compelled to turn away from these earthly or worldly realms and turn to the spiritual.

Not a drop of rain can fall outside the orb of Jesus’ sovereignty. All our days—our health, our illnesses, our joys, our victories, our tears, our prayers, and the answers to our prayers—fall within the sweep of the sovereignty of one who wears a human face, a thorn-shadowed face.

Always, in Lincoln's mature theology, there is paradox. There is starting this, yet there is also tenderness; there is melancholy, yet there is also humor: there is moral law, yet there is also compassion. History is the scene of the working out God's justice, which we can never escape, but it is also the scene of the revelation of the everlasting mercy.

The Scripture was given to us to teach and to uplift. To provide a path to God. Occasionally a person fixates on a certain portion, a portion that many of us would consider narrative history--such as the book of Daniel. It is a record of Daniel's experience in exile, in the court of Babylon. We can see God's sovereignty over kings, in this case Nebuchadnezzar." Tate jingled the change in his pocket, unsure where Mitch was headed. "In addition to the historical aspects, there are spiritual lessons to be found within this portion of the Scripture--God's faithfulness to his people and his omnipotence." "But..." "But when someone fixates on one portion versus the Scripture as a whole, confusion sets in. They pick and choose certain words and use them to justify almost any action." Tate hesitated, then asked, "Even murder?" "Especially murder.

American Indians share a magnificent history — rich in its astounding diversity, its integrity, its spirituality, its ongoing unique culture and dynamic tradition. It's also rich, I'm saddened to say, in tragedy, deceit, and genocide. Our sovereignty, our nationhood, our very identity — along with our sacred lands — have been stolen from us in one of the great thefts of human history. And I am referring not just to the thefts of previous centuries but to the great thefts that are still being perpetrated upon us today, at this very moment. Our human rights as indigenous peoples are being violated every day of our lives — and by the very same people who loudly and sanctimoniously proclaim to other nations the moral necessity of such rights. Over the centuries our sacred lands have been repeatedly and routinely stolen from us by the governments and peoples of the United States and Canada. They callously pushed us onto remote reservations on what they thought was worthless wasteland, trying to sweep us under the rug of history. But today, that so-called wasteland has surprisingly become enormously valuable as the relentless technology of white society continues its determined assault on Mother Earth. White society would now like to terminate us as peoples and push us off our reservations so they can steal our remaining mineral and oil resources. It's nothing new for them to steal from nonwhite peoples. When the oppressors succeed with their illegal thefts and depredations, it's called colonialism. When their efforts to colonize indigenous peoples are met with resistance or anything but abject surrender, it's called war. When the colonized peoples attempt to resist their oppression and defend themselves, we're called criminals. I write this book to bring about a greater understanding of what being an Indian means, of who we are as human beings. We're not quaint curiosities or stereotypical figures in a movie, but ordinary — and, yes, at times, extraordinary — human beings. Just like you. We feel. We bleed. We are born. We die. We aren't stuffed dummies in front of a souvenir shop; we aren't sports mascots for teams like the Redskins or the Indians or the Braves or a thousand others who steal and distort and ridicule our likeness. Imagine if they called their teams the Washington Whiteskins or the Washington Blackskins! Then you'd see a protest! With all else that's been taken from us, we ask that you leave us our name, our self-respect, our sense of belonging to the great human family of which we are all part. Our voice, our collective voice, our eagle's cry, is just beginning to be heard. We call out to all of humanity. Hear us!

Embracing our Queen demands that we sacrifice old, outdated versions of ourselves which can be petrifying. Embracing your Queen is a choice, it is a sacred claiming of your realm and choosing the real estate of your story. It is trading in your running shoes for slippers, a bow and arrow for a crown and invisibility for sovereignty. Allowing yourself to be brave and uncertain, giving yourself divine permission to be seen, heard, celebrated, and criticised.

If we further consider this divine panoramic view within which all evil is supposedly a "secret good" is held by a God who, according to Scripture, has a passionate hatred toward all evil, the "solution" becomes more problematic still. For it is certainly not clear how God could hate what he himself wills and sees as a contributing ingredient in the good of the whole. If all things play themselves out according to a divine plan, how can God genuinely hate anything?

We do not pray to inform God of our needs, because He knows what we need before we ask. What is prayer like for you? Is it a religious ritual that you perform out of habit? Is it a spiritual discipline that you practice because you want to be the best Christian you possibly can be? Is it a mechanism by which you can bring your “shopping list” to God in order to have your needs met? Or are you running to meet your Lover, to commune with Him, hungering to find your joy in Him, and to be fulfilled in His presence?

Growing numbers of us are acknowledging with grief that many forms of supremacy—Christian, white, male, heterosexual, and human—are deeply embedded not just in Christian history, but also in Christian theology. We are coming to see that in hallowed words like almighty, sovereignty, kingdom, dominion, supreme, elect, chosen, clean, remnant, sacrifice, lord, and even God, dangerous vices often lie hidden. . . . We are coming to see in the life and teaching of Christ, and especially in the cross and resurrection of Christ, a radical rejection of dominating supremacy in all its forms. The theological term for [this] is kenosis, which means self-emptying. . . . Rather than seizing, hoarding, and exercising power in the domineering ways of typical kings, conquistadors, and religious leaders, Jesus was consistently empowering others. He descended the ladders and pyramids of influence instead of climbing them upwards, released power instead of grasping at it, and served instead of dominating. He ultimately overturned all conventional understandings of . . . power by purging [it] of violence—to the point where he himself chose to be killed rather than kill.

Someone has said that no theology is worth believing that cannot be preached standing in front of the gates of Auschwitz. I, for one, could not stand at those gates and preach a version of God’s sovereignty that makes the extermination of six million Jews, including many children, a part of the will and plan of God such that God foreordained and rendered it certain.18 I want young Calvinists (and others) to know and at least come to terms with the inevitable and unavoidable consequences of what this radical form of Reformed theology teaches. And I want to give their friends and relatives and Spiritual mentors ammunition to use in undermining their sometimes overconfidence in the solidity of their belief system.

In the aftermath of Jesus and his cross, we should never again define God’s sovereignty or supremacy by analogy to the kings of this world who dominate, oppress, subordinate, exploit, scapegoat and marginalize.3 Instead, we have migrated to an entirely new universe, or, as Paul says, “a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17) in which old ideas of supremacy are subverted. If this is true, to follow Jesus is to change one’s understanding of God. To accept Jesus and to accept the God Jesus loved is to become an atheist in relation to the Supreme Being of violent and dominating power. We are not demoting God to a lower, weaker level; we are rising to a higher and deeper understanding of God as pure light, with no shadow of violence, conquest, exclusion, hostility, or hate at all.

Growing numbers of us are acknowledging with grief that many forms of supremacy—Christian, white, male, heterosexual, and human—are deeply embedded not just in Christian history but also in Christian theology. We are coming to see that in hallowed words like almighty, sovereignty, kingdom, dominion, supreme, elect, chosen, clean, remnant, sacrifice, lord, and even God, dangerous viruses often lie hidden, malware that must be identified and purged from our software if we want our future to be different from our past. We are realizing that our ancestors didn’t merely misinterpret a few Scriptures in their day; rather, they consistently practiced a dangerous form of interpretation that deserves to be discredited, rejected, and replaced by a morally wiser form of interpretation today. (We

Who, after all, is saying something more objectively atrocious, or more aggressively perverse? The person who claims that every newborn infant enters the world justly under the threat of eternal dereliction, and that a good God imposes or permits the imposition of a state of eternal agony on finite, created rational beings as part of the mystery of his love or sovereignty or justice? Or the person who observes that such ideas are cruel and barbarous and depraved? Which of these two should really be, if not ashamed of his or her words, at least hesitant, ambivalent, and even a little penitent in uttering them? And which has a better right to moral indignation at what the other has said? And, really, don’t these questions answer themselves? A belief does not merit unconditional reverence just because it is old, nor should it be immune to being challenged in terms commensurate to the scandal it seems to pose. And the belief that a God of infinite intellect, justice, love, and power would condemn rational beings to a state of perpetual torment, or would allow them to condemn themselves on account of their own delusion, pain, and anger, is probably worse than merely scandalous. It may be the single most horrid notion the religious imagination has ever conceived, and the most irrational and spiritually corrosive picture of existence possible. And anyone who thinks that such claims are too strong or caustic, while at the same time finding the traditional notion of a hell of everlasting suffering perfectly unobjectionable, needs to consider whether he or she is really thinking clearly about the matter at all. (from Public Orthodoxy, “In Defense of a Certain Tone of Voice”)

LEAD PEOPLE TO COMMITMENT We have seen that nonbelievers in worship actually “close with Christ” in two basic ways: some may come to Christ during the service itself (1 Cor 14:24 – 25), while others must be “followed up with” by means of after-service meetings. Let’s take a closer look at both ways of leading people to commitment. It is possible to lead people to a commitment to Christ during the service. One way of inviting people to receive Christ is to make a verbal invitation as the Lord’s Supper is being distributed. At our church, we say it this way: “If you are not in a saving relationship with God through Christ today, do not take the bread and the cup, but as they come around, take Christ. Receive him in your heart as those around you receive the food. Then immediately afterward, come up and tell an officer or a pastor about what you’ve done so we can get you ready to receive the Supper the next time as a child of God.” Another way to invite commitment during the service is to give people a time of silence or a period of musical interlude after the sermon. This affords people time to think and process what they have heard and to offer themselves to God in prayer. In many situations, it is best to invite people to commitment through after-meetings. Acts 2 gives an example. Inverses 12 and 13 we are told that some folks mocked after hearing the apostles praise and preach, but others were disturbed and asked, “What does this mean?” Then, we see that Peter very specifically explained the gospel and, in response to the follow-up question “What shall we do?” (v. 37), he explained how to become a Christian. Historically, many preachers have found it effective to offer such meetings to nonbelievers and seekers immediately after evangelistic worship. Convicted seekers have just come from being in the presence of God and are often the most teachable and open at this time. To seek to “get them into a small group” or even to merely return next Sunday is asking a lot. They may also be “amazed and perplexed” (Acts 2:12), and it is best to strike while the iron is hot. This should not be understood as doubting that God is infallibly drawing people to himself (Acts 13:48; 16:14). Knowing the sovereignty of God helps us to relax as we do evangelism, knowing that conversions are not dependent on our eloquence. But it should not lead us to ignore or minimize the truth that God works through secondary causes. The Westminster Confession (5.2 – 3), for example, tells us that God routinely works through normal social and psychological processes. Therefore, inviting people into a follow-up meeting immediately after the worship service can often be more conducive to conserving the fruit of the Word. After-meetings may take the shape of one or more persons waiting at the front of the auditorium to pray with and talk with seekers who wish to make inquiries right on the spot. Another way is to host a simple Q&A session with the preacher in or near the main auditorium, following the postlude. Or offer one or two classes or small group experiences targeted to specific questions non-Christians ask about the content, relevance, and credibility of the Christian faith. Skilled lay evangelists should be present who can come alongside newcomers, answer spiritual questions, and provide guidance for their next steps.

All of God's sovereignty is mediated through one who was crucified on my behalf. For Christians, that means God's sovereignty can no longer be viewed as a merely credal point, still less as the source of endless mystery. There is more than enough material for credal confession here, and not a little mystery; but these mysteries revolve around one who died in my place. The mysteries of prayer remain, but they dissolve in worship and gratitude.

If you can find your way, a little prayer can help you find the right path.

Gracious blessings, power for great deeds.

I am on a mission, I will depend on a greater power to accomplish the task.

February 3 MORNING “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors.” — Romans 8:12 AS God’s creatures, we are all debtors to Him: to obey Him with all our body, and soul, and strength. Having broken His commandments, as we all have, we are debtors to His justice, and we owe to Him a vast amount which we are not able to pay. But of the Christian it can be said that he does not owe God’s justice anything, for Christ has paid the debt His people owed; for this reason the believer owes the more to love. I am a debtor to God’s grace and forgiving mercy; but I am no debtor to His justice, for He will never accuse me of a debt already paid. Christ said, “It is finished!” and by that He meant, that whatever His people owed was wiped away for ever from the book of remembrance. Christ, to the uttermost, has satisfied divine justice; the account is settled; the handwriting is nailed to the cross; the receipt is given, and we are debtors to God’s justice no longer. But then, because we are not debtors to our Lord in that sense, we become ten times more debtors to God than we should have been otherwise. Christian, pause and ponder for a moment. What a debtor thou art to divine sovereignty! How much thou owest to His disinterested love, for He gave His own Son that He might die for thee. Consider how much you owe to His forgiving grace, that after ten thousand affronts He loves you as infinitely as ever. Consider what you owe to His power; how He has raised you from your death in sin; how He has preserved your spiritual life; how He has kept you from falling; and how, though a thousand enemies have beset your path, you have been able to hold on your way. Consider what you owe to His immutability. Though you have changed a thousand times, He has not changed once. Thou art as deep in debt as thou canst be to every attribute of God. To God thou owest thyself, and all thou hast — yield thyself as a living sacrifice, it is but thy reasonable service.

When God opens our eyes to see the beauty of Christ and His gospel, it is entirely His work. He opens our blind eyes to give us the miracle of spiritual sight.

Divine election is a theme mentioned often in sacred Scripture. God has chosen to reveal this truth for the spiritual nurture and growth of the people of God.

There is, of course, some comfort to be derived from the thought that everything that occurs at the level of secondary causality - in nature or history - is governed not only by a transcendent providence but by a universal teleology that makes every instance of pain and loss an indispensable moment in a grand scheme whose ultimate synthesis will justify all things. But one should consider the price at which the comfort is purchased: it requires us to believe in and love a God whose good ends will be realized not only in spite of - but entirely by way of - every cruelty, every fortuitous misery, every catastrophe, every betrayal, every sin the world has ever known; it requires us to believe in the eternal spiritual necessity of a child dying an agonizing death from diphtheria, of a young mother ravaged by cancer, of tens of thousands of Asians swallowed in an instant by the sea, of millions murdered in death camps and gulags and forced famines (and so on). It is a strange thing indeed to seek peace in a universe rendered morally intelligible at the cost of a God rendered morally loathsome.

Miraculous is divine.

I walk boldly and confidently relying on God.

The Lord is glorious. The Lord is majestic.

The answer to prayers is for the appointed time. God’s honour is at stake to response to the supplications of His Children in His timing.

The state of things, however, under the New economy, is extremely different. For the great Proprietor and Lord of the Christian church, having absolutely disclaimed a kingdom that is of this world cannot acknowledge any as the subjects of his government, who do not know and revere him -- who do not confide in him, and sincerely love him. Having entirely laid aside those ensigns of political sovereignty, and those marks of external grandeur, which made such a splendid appearance in the Jewish Theocracy; he disdains to be called the King, or the God, of any person who does not obey and worship him in spirit and in truth. Appearing as the head of his church, merely under the character of a spiritual monarch, over whomsoever he reigns, it is in the understanding, by the light of his truth; in the conscience, by the force of his authority; and in the heart, by the influence of his love: for as to all others, his dominion is that of Providence, not that of Grace. --The New Testament affords no more ground for concluding, that our being descended from parents of a certain description, constitutes us the subjects of our Lord's kingdom; than it does to suppose, that carnal descent, in a particular line of ancestry, confers a claim to the character and work of ministers in the same kingdom.

If you and I are to appropriate God's grace in our times of need, we must see His sovereignty ultimately ruling in all the circumstances of our lives. And when those circumstances are difficult, disappointing, or humiliating, we must humble ourselves under His mighty hand.

God is awe-inspiring.

One more thing that stands in the middle of the road of easy-believism is the truth of the sovereignty of God. Years ago, I used to hear people say, “Don’t ever preach the doctrine of the sovereignty of God when you have nonbelievers in the audience.” People literally warned me against that. But here is another offensive bit of news for the unbeliever: God is sovereign, and you are not. You are not the captain of your soul or the master of your fate. You do not hold your destiny in your own hand. According to 1 Corinthians 1:24, those who believe are those whom God calls and sovereignly draws. God calls them because He has chosen them (v. 27), eklegomi, picked them out for Himself. The word appears again in verse 28. How could anybody get saved under those terms? You’ve got nothing left! You’re absolutely stripped of everything. Verse 30: “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” So, if it’s all God’s doing anyway, why would I tamper with the message? Why would I try to manipulate the results? Verse 31: “He who glories, let him glory in the LORD.” My friend R. C. Sproul has said that “God’s favorite doctrine is sovereignty, and if you were God, it would be yours too.” A wonderful sentiment like that helps offset the sick feeling I get when I hear contemporary evangelicals attack the sovereignty of God. His elective purpose is salvation, because if God isn’t saving people, they won’t be saved. This is a hard truth that many prominent evangelicals deny, stealing glory from God and overestimating the ability of the spiritually dead!

THE DREADFUL DOCTRINE One more thing that stands in the middle of the road of easy-believism is the truth of the sovereignty of God. Years ago, I used to hear people say, “Don’t ever preach the doctrine of the sovereignty of God when you have nonbelievers in the audience.” People literally warned me against that. But here is another offensive bit of news for the unbeliever: God is sovereign, and you are not. You are not the captain of your soul or the master of your fate. You do not hold your destiny in your own hand. According to 1 Corinthians 1:24, those who believe are those whom God calls and sovereignly draws. God calls them because He has chosen them (v. 27), eklegomi, picked them out for Himself. The word appears again in verse 28. How could anybody get saved under those terms? You’ve got nothing left! You’re absolutely stripped of everything. Verse 30: “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” So, if it’s all God’s doing anyway, why would I tamper with the message? Why would I try to manipulate the results? Verse 31: “He who glories, let him glory in the LORD.” My friend R. C. Sproul has said that “God’s favorite doctrine is sovereignty, and if you were God, it would be yours too.” A wonderful sentiment like that helps offset the sick feeling I get when I hear contemporary evangelicals attack the sovereignty of God. His elective purpose is salvation, because if God isn’t saving people, they won’t be saved. This is a hard truth that many prominent evangelicals deny, stealing glory from God and overestimating the ability of the spiritually dead!

Eternity exist in a holy time.

Every day is divine.

The Creator is Sovereign Lord. We are Sovereign being.

As part of evolutionary spiritual growth there is a biological change followed by a psychological change. In order to advance both have to progress. Some people get too absorbed in the physical changes and don’t work on the psychological changes which can slow ones progress. Worrying about when you are going to become a butterfly will not help advance the metamorphosis, let the process flow freely. There will be growth only if we remain open and intelligent enough to clear our conditioning and let our filters dissolve. Learning to trust in one's intuition, for guidance, to learn independence and self-sovereignty and to become a master unto oneself. Otherwise we will project the old beliefs of our personality to the world, which are basically a bunch of patterns. Truth is outside religion, nation, language and gender and is only available for those who are ready to let go of our filters and be open to consciousness itself. Otherwise our access to truth is blocked. The more filters you let go of, the more wisdom you receive, which can be seen as stepping stones to guide you forward towards truth. Intelligence is awakened when truth is exposed and in order to continue to live in that intelligence one has to align with truth in everyday life. This is a very natural state and it’s very easy to live. Living outside truth is the hardest but we have been conditioned to live the harder way. The choice is ours to break that conditioning anytime and join the mainstream of truth.

All experiences are preordained by the Creator.

Indeed the hour is coming . . . that you will be scattered . . .” (John 16:32). Jesus was not rebuking the disciples in this passage. Their faith was real, but it was disordered and unfocused, and was not at work in the important realities of life. The disciples were scattered to their own concerns and they had interests apart from Jesus Christ. After we have the perfect relationship with God, through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, our faith must be exercised in the realities of everyday life. We will be scattered, not into service but into the emptiness of our lives where we will see ruin and barrenness, to know what internal death to God’s blessings means. Are we prepared for this? It is certainly not of our own choosing, but God engineers our circumstances to take us there. Until we have been through that experience, our faith is sustained only by feelings and by blessings. But once we get there, no matter where God may place us or what inner emptiness we experience, we can praise God that all is well. That is what is meant by faith being exercised in the realities of life. “. . . you . . . will leave Me alone.” Have we been scattered and have we left Jesus alone by not seeing His providential care for us? Do we not see God at work in our circumstances? Dark times are allowed and come to us through the sovereignty of God. Are we prepared to let God do what He wants with us? Are we prepared to be separated from the outward, evident blessings of God? Until Jesus Christ is truly our Lord, we each have goals of our own which we serve. Our faith is real, but it is not yet permanent. And God is never in a hurry. If we are willing to wait, we will see God pointing out that we have been interested only in His blessings, instead of in God Himself. The sense of God’s blessings is fundamental. “. . . be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (16:33). Unyielding spiritual fortitude is what we need.

Worry and anxiety reflect our hearts' distrust in the goodness and sovereignty of God. Worry is a spiritual issue and must be fought with faith.

The glorious riches of God are inexhaustible.

Existence of mankind, the glory of God.

The idea of cultivation and exercise, so dear to the saints of old, has now no place in our total religious picture. It is too slow, too common. We now demand glamour and fast flowing dramatic action. A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar. The tragic results of this spirit are all about us. Shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit: these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul. For this great sickness that is upon us no one person is responsible, and no Christian is wholly free from blame. We have all contributed, directly or indirectly, to this sad state of affairs. We have been too blind to see, or too timid to speak out, or too self-satisfied to desire anything better than the poor average diet with which others appear satisfied. To put it differently, we have accepted one another's notions, copied one another's lives and made one another's experiences the model for our own. And for a generation the trend has been downward. Now we have reached a low place of sand and burnt wire grass and, worst of all, we have made the Word of Truth conform to our experience and accepted this low plane as the very pasture of the blessed. It will require a determined heart and more than a little courage to wrench ourselves loose from the grip of our times and return to Biblical ways. But it can be done. Every now and then in the past Christians have had to do it. History has recorded several large-scale returns led by such men as St. Francis, Martin Luther and George Fox. Unfortunately there seems to be no Luther or Fox on the horizon at present. Whether or not another such return may be expected before the coming of Christ is a question upon which Christians are not fully agreed, but that is not of too great importance to us now. What God in His sovereignty may yet do on a world-scale I do not claim to know: but what He will do for the plain man or woman who seeks His face I believe I do know and can tell others. Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days.

Knowing the Unknowningness is Mastery of Sovereignty.

KAILASA Celebrates International Day of Charity KAILASA upholds the fundamental concepts and principles of making a Dana which is the traditional practice of ‘giving away’ or ‘donation’ without expecting any return’ as ‘philanthropy’, helping humanity to reclaim conscious sovereignty through six of its international humanitarian agencies. Members of the Sovereign Order of KAILASA form an efficient network as religious peacekeepers of International humanitarian agencies that includes supporting everything from educational needs, medical needs, food bank programs, emergency relief programs, spiritual support for the displaced living through war, conflict, or law-fare to intervention in areas hit by natural disasters, and various social services.

In the eleventh century however the Papacy had been reinvigorated under Pope Gregory VII and his successors. Rome now began to make claims which were hardly compatible with the traditional notions of the mixed sovereignty of the King in all matters temporal and spiritual. The Gregorian movement held that the government of the Church ought to be in the hands of the clergy, under the supervision of the Pope. According to this view, the King was a mere layman whose one religious function was obedience to the hierarchy. The Church was a body apart, with its own allegiance and its own laws. By the reign of Henry II the bishop was not only a spiritual officer; he was a great landowner, the secular equal of earls; he could put forces in the field; he could excommunicate his enemies, who might be the King’s friends. Who, then, was to appoint the bishop? And, when once appointed, to whom, if the Pope commanded one thing and the King another, did he owe his duty? If the King and his counsellors agreed upon a law contrary to the law of the Church, to which authority was obedience due? Thus there came about the great conflict between Empire and Papacy symbolised in the question of Investiture, of which the dispute between Henry II and Becket is the insular counterpart.

Like everyone, I have my own, maybe obsessive, futile, maybe in some way authentic, vision: all of a sudden, I will imagine the entire homogenous world as it is revealed to us—the streets, the cities, the rooms, those intelligent beasts of a sad and predatory nature, who have learnt to stand on their hind legs, who have built all this but are fated to disappear, who, despite this, still try to cling to something solid and lasting, still try to ward off the inevitability of death, who dreamt up fairy tales and, now that these stories have been disproved, are disconsolate —and for me the only means of defending myself from our terrible fate is love, my love—Lyolya. Without love we fall into a stupor or despair, it covers our naked animal essence; with the fear of death, with deliberate attempts to grab hold of some kind of eternity, one that is at once a mystery to us and yet devised by us, even the remains of love, even its very echo in music, imbues us with a semblance of fearlessness, dignity and the spiritual range to disregard death. Only by loving, by knowing about love, hoping for love, are we inspired and meaningfully engaged in life, able to banish the sovereignty of petty day-to-day cares, to stop waiting for the end to come;

God is sovereign in the bestowment of His gifts, both in the natural and in the spiritual realms.

Much, much stress results from your wanting to make things happen before their times have come. One of the main ways I assert My sovereignty is in the timing of events. If you want to stay close to Me and do things My way, ask Me to show you the path forward moment by moment. Instead of dashing headlong toward your goal, let Me set the pace. Slow down, and enjoy the journey in My Presence.

LET THANKFULNESS TEMPER ALL YOUR THOUGHTS. A thankful mind-set keeps you in touch with Me. I hate it when My children grumble, casually despising My sovereignty. Thankfulness is a safeguard against this deadly sin. Furthermore, a grateful attitude becomes a grid through which you perceive life. Gratitude enables you to see the Light of My Presence shining on all your circumstances. Cultivate a thankful heart, for this glorifies Me and fills you with Joy.

One reason that conversations about race are so hard is because too many American evangelicals lack thinking with biblical nuance. Sadly, when it comes to using our God-given brains, evangelicals often have only two speeds. For the evangelical, if something is not essential for salvation, it’s often regarded as unimportant. Issues, then, are either of speed 1: ultimate importance, or speed 2: no importance. Os Guinness reflects on the sin and scandal of evangelicals refusing to love the Lord with their minds: “American evangelicals therefore characteristically display an impatience with the difficult, an intolerance of complexity, and a poor appreciation of the long-term and disciplined. Correspondingly, we often demonstrate a tendency toward the simplistic, especially in the form of slogans or overly simple either/or solutions.”13 This either/or mental proclivity is why evangelicals often pit two good things against each other (e.g., evangelism versus justice, the spiritual versus the social, man’s responsibility versus God’s sovereignty, etc.). It’s why we often see those who disagree with us as a part of the faithful or as a full-blown heretic—we only have two speeds.

Sacred Rest Boundaries Emotional boundaries protect you from others’ abuse. Jesus resisted against a crowd that was trying to throw Him off a cliff for claiming to be the Messiah (see Luke 4:28–30). Sensory boundaries protect you from fatigue and overstimulation. Jesus often withdrew from the crowds to desolate places to pray (see Luke 5:15–16). Physical boundaries protect your health. As the New International Version states, “One day Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Let us go over to the other side of the lake.’ So they got into a boat and set out. As they sailed, he fell asleep” (Luke 8:22–23). Social boundaries protect you from the perfectionism trap. When faced with hundreds of hungry people, Jesus extended grace. He did not make an excuse for the meager meal He had to offer his dining guest. No, He took the five loaves and the two fish and looked up to heaven, blessed them, broke them into pieces and passed them to His disciples to serve to the crowds. Everybody ate and was satisfied. (See Luke 9:10–17.) Social boundaries also value your inner circle. Jesus took Peter, John, and James, His three closest friends, on a mountain to pray and there He revealed truth (see Luke 9:28). Spiritual boundaries provide room for unhurried intimacy. When asked what is the greatest commandment, Jesus answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Luke 10:27 NIV). Mental boundaries protect your priorities. Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other” (Luke 16:13 ESV). Creative boundaries abandon life’s outcomes to God’s sovereignty. Jesus was tempted to be overcome with fear about the cross. He overcame by letting go. He chose not to force things, but to trust God’s will. He said, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42 NIV).