What We Can Control

1Timothy 6:13-16

In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will bring about at the right time--he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

Hello, hello, remember me?
I’m everything you can’t control
Somewhere beyond the pain
There must be a way to believe

"What You Want" by Evanescence

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's as easy as this: There are things we can control in our lives and things we cannot. The trick it to always tell the difference between the two. The single thing we have absolutely no control over in this life is the workings of God. The Lord our God is the one and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. God alone has eternal dominion over the workings of this world, no other.

God bless the people who think they control their own destiny because their control is limited, and probably more than they think. God bless those who say "God would never..." because when we say that we try to limit God. When we think we will do things on our own time we discover that our only guarantee is that time eventually runs out.

AS the song goes, God is everything we cannot control. But here's another question, whose pain is it, beyond whose pain is the way to belief. Here's the trick answer, it is our pain, and it is God's pain.

We suffer from pain and disappointment. Sin, our own and others, is the source of our suffering. It is also the source of God's suffering. God came to earth to testify to Pilate and felt the pain of the cross. Yet he is without sin. Yet he is the King of kings and Lord of Lords. He alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light; and this is good. This is to our benefit.

So when our Lord calls "Hello, hello, remember me?" we can take the words of Paul to Timothy and say "Yes Lord, we remember and we know you are in control."