Crossing Community Church

To say that God is sovereign means he has total control over everything. . Psalm 103:19-22 teaches us that He has control over angels, over all creation, over all spiritual principalities, over mankind. So that means He causes all things to happen or He allows things to happen. Today, Pastor Tim helps us understand how God allows things to happen and yet is still in control. He also explains how God uses you and I to fulfil his plans. 

God is near. He is ever present. He is not one to create and step apart from his creation. He knows the names of every star and knows all the birds and creatures of the field. He even knows us in the womb. He is all powerful, yet ever near us. How is that possible? What a great God! Even more, God knows us for who we really are. He knows the darkness of our heart. Knowing that, even before we were born, He still made provision for our salvation at His own expense -- the death of Jesus. 

To say that God is everywhere all the time is an understatement. But to think of Him as being equally and fully present at the farthest reaches of the universe -- billions of light years away -- and with you right now at the same time is mind boggling. What does that mean to us in our day-to-day life?

"God is good all the time" is more than an often quoted phrase to Carl Payne. It's been the guiding principle of his life. This week, Carl shared how the truth of that phrase served him through his tenure in the military during the Vietnam War, throughout his professional career and later in life in the passing of his wife and more recently when he was diagnosed with malignant cancer.

Throughout the Bible you'll find God referenced as "God Almighty" and every time you read that it's telling us that God is all powerful. Paul writes that God's power is "Immeasurable" and the Psalmist tells us to be in awe of his power. What is truly incredible is that the very power God used to speak the universe into creation, is the power He makes available to us!

Perhaps you've heard that God is immutable. That's not a word we use very often, but what it means is that God does not change. In a world that is constantly changing, having one thing that is constant and certain is a comfort. That 'one thing' for Christians is God himself! He is never changing. This week, Pastor Tim discusses why that is important and what it means to our daily life that God never changes. 

Isaiah found himself in the presence of God and recorded the only words he heard as being "Holy, holy, holy." The mere words of mankind fall short of describing the "otherness" of God. This week Pastor Tim uses the story of the death of Uzzah in 1 Chronicles 13 to remind us of how we can make the holiness of God an unimportant thing and the need to grow in our awe of Him. 

"From everlasting to everlasting” you are God." It is unimaginable to think of anything apart from time. We can not escape thinking about everything in the context of time. And yet, God is not limited by time. He is eternal -- the creator of time, the master of time. 

The difference between an idols we create and the true eternal God are His attributes. Eternal, holy, unchanging -- the list goes on and on. No idol has those attributes and the only way we can know our God is to know and understand His attributes. We can move from the golden calves we create to embrace our Father God as we understand who and what He is.

Scripture is always right. And our nation needs the truth of Scripture right now! But few of us really want the instruction Paul gives us in Romans 12 -- do not pay back evil, respect all men, do not take revenge, overcome evil with good. God's standards are always higher than ours and not usually the way we would resolve conflict. But God is like that, always surprising us and working in ways we could never imagine.