God is in Control

During these days with our economic and political world reeling in uncertainty, we truly need to recognize, believe, and affirm that God owns and controls everything. In I Chronicles 29:11-12, King David stands before the whole assembly of Israel and prays this prayer of affirmation that needs to be a part of the very fabric of our being:

“Yours, O LORD, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty. Everything in the heavens and on earth is yours, O LORD, and this is your kingdom. We adore you as the one who is over all things. Riches and honor come from you alone, for you rule over everything. Power and might are in your hand, and it is at your discretion that people are made great and given strength.”

In the midst of negative confessions that surround us, like David, we need to publicly confess before family, friends, and coworkers that God is in control, and riches, honor, and power come from Him alone.  It needs to be our affirmation, whether we are struggling or walking in success. This is not some pious, scripted prayer David read, but it came from the depth of his soul. David declared God’s greatness when he was a shepherd boy, when he confronted Goliath, when he was the general of Saul’s army conquering all his enemies, and when he was running from Saul for his life.

“Yours, O LORD, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty.” God’s greatness, glory, victory and power are not diminished because of our circumstances or world conditions. We have become so saturated with humanism that we have lost sight of the greatness of our God. We do not possess the strength or ability to rescue ourselves or our society.  No man, government, or army can rescue us from the dilemma that we are in. We do not possess the spiritual character to stop the moral decay that surrounds us, but God does.

In Acts 17, the Apostle Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus in Athens before some of the greatest minds of his day and declared, “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, …. He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:24-28)

Like David, the greatest king in Israel’s history, a man after God’s own heart, and Paul who brought the Gospel to the world of His day and was constantly awed by God’s grace, we too must stand up in our day and declare before a struggling world that the God we serve is in control. We must not be influenced or intimidated by those who profess themselves to be wise or mighty “because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”(I Corinthians 1:25)

Today, Lord, “we adore you as the one who is over all things. Riches and honor come from you alone, for you rule over everything. Power and might are in your hand, and it is at your discretion that people are made great and given strength.”

Andy Clark