Tag: What the Bible says about God’s Sovereignty

John 1:14 (LSB) 14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

This verse is explosive in its proclamation and spiritual significance.

The human mind cannot truly comprehend or contain it.

It is impossible.

But it is something that we must try to grasp the best we can, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

God is incomprehensible. He is too big. Too complex. Too vast in scope and power.

Yet we know, He is.

Thus, the phrase, “I AM THAT I AM”.

John 1:1 says far more than we may ever be able to process, but let’s look at it.

John 1:1 (LSB) 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The Word, Jesus Christ, existed in the beginning. He was not a creation of the Father. He did not suddenly appear when it was time for Him to walk the earth among men, “God with us”.

Everything that was created was created through Him.

Now, consider that God took it upon Himself to clothe Himself in human skin, and come to earth to walk among us, feel what we feel, and die as we die.

The raw truth of this fact is mind-numbing.

God, the all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present One, came and dwelt among men for a season.

How can this be? By what process did he do this or make it happen?

That is not for us to understand. It is too big. And far too complex and unexplainable.

Yet it happened!

This is the God we serve. The God we worship. And the God we will stand before and spend eternity with if we have made ourselves His.

Stand in awe today. Marvel at His magnificence.

But most of all, trust Him in all things.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

To have the Bible Verse of The Day delivered to your inbox each day, please Click Here and then enter your email address in the box near the upper left corner of the page. 

Habakkuk 3:15-16 (NLT) 15 You trampled the sea with your horses, and the mighty waters piled high. 16 I trembled inside when I heard this; my lips quivered with fear. My legs gave way beneath me, and I shook in terror. I will wait quietly for the coming day when disaster will strike the people who invade us.

As Habakkuk penned the words that would bring his prophecy/prayer to a close, he invoked imagery from the parting of the Red Sea — where God rescued the Israelites with a magnificent display of His power and might by separating the waters and creating a path for His people to cross safely, even as the Egyptian army closed in behind them.

He expressed the terror that he felt as he heard these words from God; his lips quivered with fear, his legs folded beneath him, and he shook with terror.

This prophecy was like nothing Habakkuk had heard before. Its vividness caused him to melt with fear and trembling.

And yet, despite all of this, he affirmed his faith, confidence, and trust in God, stating that he would wait quietly for the day when God would punish those who invaded them.

Now that we’ve learned a little about Habakkuk, what can we learn from him?

How can we use the words and insights in Habakkuk’s prayer/prophecy to strengthen our own walk with God?

It’s safe to say that Habakkuk trusted God immensely. He understood and accepted God’s sovereignty, even when what he was seeing didn’t make sense or seem fair.

He listened to what God told him through the Holy Spirit. And yes, it sometimes terrified him. But he took it at more than face value.

And when he recognized what God was saying, instead of arguing with Him, he cried out for His mercy.

This is a valuable lesson for us all. We can only cry out for God’s mercy when we have accepted His will and His plans and submitted ourselves to Him.

This is a sign of our trust in Him, and it demonstrates maturity as a believer.

The lessons over the last few days were put together, not necessarily to learn about Habakkuk, but to help us step outside the “normal” boundaries of our routine thinking when it comes to Bible devotionals, and the things that we tend to study repeatedly.

Habakkuk is a great example of learning from the obscure; being willing to look at the seemingly insignificant things, and gleaning understanding and wisdom from those things.

We hope you have enjoyed this series.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

To have the Bible Verse of The Day delivered to your inbox each day, please Click Here and then enter your email address in the box near the upper left corner of the page. 

Habakkuk 3:3 (LSB) 3 God comes from Teman, And the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. His splendor covers the heavens, And the earth is full of His praise.

As Habakkuk spoke the words of his appeal to God, he painted an image of God rescuing His people.

Verse 3, above, was just one of many verses written by this method.

His imagery was largely drawn from past experiences and happenings involving the nation of Israel and God’s covenant people.

The Jews were known for their idolatry; spiritual adultery committed against God.

This frequently resulted in God’s chastening of His people. The punishment would often involve purging the idolaters in massive numbers. Seeing this would cause the remaining Israelites to repent and humble themselves before God, at least for a time.

Habakkuk’s cry was that God would once again purge the idolaters as in days gone by instead of allowing the nation to be ransacked and marauded by outsiders, with people being exiled to foreign lands in mass numbers.

Habakkuk 3:4-5 (LSB) 4 His brightness is like the sunlight; He has rays flashing from His hand, And there is the hiding of His strength. 5 Before Him goes pestilence, And plague comes after Him.

As we continue through chapter 3, we see numerous allusions to these past events.

Verses 4-5 above revisit God’s dealings with Pharoah, as He punished him for not releasing His people from their slavery in Egypt.

And here, in verse 6, Habakkuk reinforces God’s sovereignty as he recounts the events that took place at creation.

Habakkuk 3:6 (NKJV) 6 He stood and measured the earth; He looked and startled the nations. And the everlasting mountains were scattered, The perpetual hills bowed. His ways are everlasting.

And as Habakkuk continued, he painted a picture of the future redemption of God’s people.

Habakkuk 3:10-11 (NKJV) 10 The mountains saw You and trembled; The overflowing of the water passed by. The deep uttered its voice, And lifted its hands on high. 11 The sun and moon stood still in their habitation; At the light of Your arrows they went, At the shining of Your glittering spear.

Habakkuk trusted God and His plan for the Israelites, even though he struggled to understand what he was seeing in the present.

Please join us again tomorrow as we bring this study to a close.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

To have the Bible Verse of The Day delivered to your inbox each day, please Click Here and then enter your email address in the box near the upper left corner of the page. 

Habakkuk 3:1 (NKJV) 1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, on Shigionoth.

Welcome back. Let’s continue!

Habakkuk’s name is said to mean, “embrace” or “one who embraces”.

That name is fitting. And the accuracy of it becomes obvious the further into the book we read, as we see Habakkuk embracing and clinging to God despite not understanding His ways.

What else can we learn about Habakkuk?

Because he introduced himself in Habakkuk 1:1 as simply, the prophet Habakkuk, it is believed that he was likely well known in his day. It has been well established that he was a contemporary of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zephaniah.

Further, Habakkuk’s writings differed from most other OT prophets of God in that they did not address Judah or Israel directly. Instead, he speaks to God about what he sees taking place around him.

Many of the questions Habakkuk asks God are similar to the words spoken by Job as he questioned God’s ways, His judgements, and His seeming lack of justice regarding evildoers.

Habakkuk’s words were sincere, passionate, and heartfelt, not accusatory. There was no malice intended in his inquiries of God.

So, with this background in place, and these things established, let’s move forward with Habakkuk’s prayer, which runs from Habakkuk 3:1 through 3:16.

Habakkuk 3:2 (NKJV) 2 O Lord, I have heard Your speech and was afraid; O Lord, revive Your work in the midst of the years! In the midst of the years make it known; In wrath remember mercy.

If we look at Habakkuk 3:2, we will see that he is making an impassioned plea for God to “revive” His work in the midst of the years. What was he referring to?

Habakkuk was pleading with God to protect and restore Israel as He had done in past situations; to prevent the land from being invaded and overtaken by evil rulers from foreign lands.

God’s practice in years past was to purge His covenant people and restore them to righteousness.

But in this instance, it seemed that God would not protect Israel or Judah, allowing them instead to be conqured and chastened by way of captivity and exile to foreign lands of heathen, pagan people.

More tomorrow…

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

To have the Bible Verse of The Day delivered to your inbox each day, please Click Here and then enter your email address in the box near the upper left corner of the page. 

Habakkuk 1:2 (LSB) 2 How long, O Yahweh, will I call for help, And You will not hear? I cry out to You, “Violence!” Yet You do not save.

If we step back, and we view our walk with God from a distance, we may see that it (our walk with Him) has become a practice of repetition; a series of routines carried out repeatedly each day, each week, and each month.

We didn’t intend for this to happen. In fact, we probably understood before it happened that a relationship based on rituals and repetition is, at best, a weak relationship.

But here we are.

And if we’re honest, we will likely admit that we have in fact become at least slightly mechanical in our relationship with the God who created us.

But God is merciful, and He knows our heart.

He is a God of endless chances, and He wants us to recognize these things so we can make the necessary corrections and adjustments to restore the joy and fervor in our relationship with Him!

And it’s on that note that we will be looking at a “Prayer of Habakkuk”.

We may have heard about the “Prayer of Jabez” at some point in our journey, but never about Habakkuk. There are likely various reasons for this. One of them may involve the simplicity of the prayer of Jabez vs. the intricacies and the nature of Habakkuk’s prayer.

Nonetheless, taking the time to study Habakkuk’s prayer is worthwhile. So, let’s do that.

This will not be a deep dive, so to speak. Think of it as a study that will help us look outside of our normal study routines, with the hopes that it will cause us to ponder some things of God that we are less likely to ponder unless we are encouraged to do so.

As a foundation for this study, we may want to know a little about who Habakkuk was.

Let’s see what we can come up with.

Habakkuk was an Old Testament prophet who penned the book that bears his name.

He is little-known and is one of the 12 “minor prophets”.

As with the most “minor prophets”, there is virtually nothing known about Habakkuk’s personal life or his history. Most of what is known is derived or inferred from the words he penned in the book bearing his name.

We will continue with this study tomorrow!

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

To have the Bible Verse of The Day delivered to your inbox each day, please Click Here and then enter your email address in the box near the upper left corner of the page. 

Daniel 2:21 (LSB) 21 And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men And knowledge to men of understanding.

It has become very apparent over the years that the recognition and understanding of the absolute sovereignty of God has been lost to most believers.

It is hard to know when this started happening. But it has happened!

It is quite possible that it has truly been happening for centuries; perhaps even from the beginning of time.

This is obvious in the struggles for power that we witness as history repeats itself again and again.

Treachery is nothing new. It has been happening since man was first created and placed on the earth.

But as man has drawn further from God in the last several decades, it is easy to see that there is little to no understanding of God’s absolute power.

Political struggles ensue and seem to take surprising twists and turns. But none of this surprises God or catches Him off guard.

His word teaches us that, just as He is the one who changes the seasons, He is also the One who raises up kings and removes them.

And you might ask why He does this? Why does He allow kings who are evil? Why does He do the things that seem to be so hard for us to understand?

The answer is simple, yet truly profound and mind-numbing; for His glory.

As we see the constant shuffling of global kings and leaders, the seasons of war or famine, seasons of peace and plenty, it gives us the opportunity to see evil at play, and righteousness battling that evil.

It gives us the opportunity to recognize God’s hand at work.

The question is, do we? Do we recognize Him at work in all this seeming chaos?

This is a question we should ponder, and one we should seek answers for.

And those answers can be found in His word; our handbook for life.

He never leaves us without answers or understanding. We must seek it out.

And when we seek Him, we will find Him if we seek Him with all our heart.

Jeremiah 29:13 (NKJV) 13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

To have the Bible Verse of The Day delivered to your inbox each day, please Click Here and then enter your email address in the box near the upper left corner of the page. 

Mark 4:39 (NKJV) 39 Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm.

We don’t often think of the elements and the tangible things of the earth regarding their relationship to or with God.

They are seemingly just there, existing and doing what they were made to do.

But there is abundant evidence in God’s word that even the elements and visible, tangible things of the earth, the waters, and skies are subject to God.

And though they are not “beings” in the way that we may think of them as such, they will give honor and glory to the One who created them in their own ways at God’s command.

Jesus told the Pharisees (in Luke 19:39-41) that if the people did not rejoice and call out to Him as He entered Jerusalem, even the stones would have cried out!

In the verse at the beginning of this devotional, Jesus was accompanying His disciples across the water in a boat. And as they crossed the water, He had fallen asleep. Navigating the boat was the responsibility of the disciples. So, He left them to their task and He rested.

As they traversed the waters, a storm came up and a great wind blew. The word of God says in Mark 4:37 that “the waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling up” with water.

The disciples became fearful that they were all about to perish, so they quickly woke Jesus, implying verbally that He cared nothing about the fact that they were perishing!

Now, this is where we witness the elements obeying the One who created them.

The word of God does not indicate that there was any great or lengthy discussion between Jesus and the disciples. He simply rose, and He rebuked the wind, saying “Silence! Be still.”

Then the wind ceased and there was a great calm.

The earth, the heavens, and everything in them are subject to God, our Creator.

They must obey Him!

Even as they give Him glory and honor with their beauty, as we discussed in Monday’s devotional, they also must obey Him and honor Him in their submission to His voice.

Isaiah 66:1 (LSB) 1 Thus says Yahweh, “Heaven is My throne, and the earth is the footstool of My feet. Where then is a house you could build for Me? And where is a place that I may rest?

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

To have the Bible Verse of The Day delivered to your inbox each day, please Click Here and then enter your email address in the box near the upper left corner of the page.