The Sovereignty of God

“Our God is in heaven; He does whatever pleases Him.” – Psalm 115:3

Psalm 115:3 is short but gives a view of God’s sovereignty pretty well. God does what He wants because He is God. God having sovereignty means He has supreme power over everything. We may question His sovereignty but according to the Bible, He controls everything either if it is good or bad. We see this in the life of Job. God allowed Job to lose everything and experience health problems (Job 1:13-22, Job 2:1-22:2). Lucky for Job, God was in control of his suffering and only allowed Satan to do certain things to him even though it was still painful (Job 2:3-6).

God also has sovereignty over our lives including the plans we make. Proverbs 19:21 says, “People can make all kinds of plans, but only the Lord’s plan will happen.” Another verse that shows God’s sovereignty in our life is Proverbs 16:9 which says, “People may make plans in their minds, but the Lord decides what they will do.” It is nice to know that we have a loving Father who cares what we do and shows it by directing our paths in accordance with His will and not our own.

God is sovereign over who is chosen and who is not. He picks people to be saved from the beginning of time. This is known as divine election. This idea is debated among people, but the truth about it is mentioned in Ephesians 1:4, “He chose us before the world was made so that we would be His holy people.” Romans 8:29-30 also address the sovereignty of God in election:

“God knew them before he made the world, and he chose them to be like his Son so that Jesus would be the firstborn of many brothers and sisters. God planned for them to be like his Son; and those he planned to be like his Son, he also called; and those he called, he also made right with him; and those he made right, he also glorified.”

God picking people has nothing to do with us because we are sinful. It is of God’s own doing. God did it so no one can boast in themselves, but instead for people to boast in Him since He only has the power to save (1 Corinthians 1:29-31).

A prayer for today:

Dear heavenly Father,

You are sovereign. We see examples of Your sovereignty in the Bible like in Genesis 1:1-31 where You created everything. Therefore, You are in complete control of it. We are glad that You are in control of our lives because we have a hard time knowing what is best for us. Thank you for Your guidance because it shows how much You care about Your creation. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen!