DAILY DEVOTIONAL – January 26, 2021
“Faith Not Fate”
Prayer: Lord of all creation, God of the universe, we are amazed by Your love. Have mercy on us and grant us the eyes and ears of faith to see Your miraculous grace that is always at work in our life, and grant us the courage and strength of faith to walk in Your will and the ways You set before us. In Jesus name, Amen.
Scripture: Romans 5:1-5
“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
Devotional – “Faith, Not Fate”
Experiencing life on this earth has often been compared to a deck of cards. More than a few times I have heard someone say something to the effect of, “You can’t control the cards you’re dealt, you can only play the cards you have.”
It is certainly understandable how people make this comparison. As finite, sinful humans, we cannot see what tomorrow will bring. We don’t know if tomorrow will come at all. The discomfort of the unknown and the inability to control the circumstances in our lives as much as we would like to has led many to come to a fatalistic understanding of life, believing that there is an unavoidable fate that awaits each of us and there is nothing we can do to stop it. I have found most people that have a fatalistic worldview do not believe in God.
Ironically, however, you cannot have a naturalistic worldview and believe in fate. In order to believe in fate you have to believe in an intelligent Creator of all things, who is ultimately a singular authority, who has a will, and the power to ensure it is perfectly realized. To believe in fate, you have to believe in God, otherwise fate is nothing and meaningless because without God we come from nothing, and nothing cannot give meaning to something.
God is ultimately in control of our life and nothing is a surprise to Him, nor does anything happen by coincidence. Proverbs 15:3 says, “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.” As the Creator of all things, God sees everything outside of time and space, however, that does not mean that God is a puppet master pulling every string or that the deck is stacked against us. We see repeatedly throughout Scripture, God exercising His providence, graciously ruling over all things while still honoring the freedom and free will that He mercifully endowed us with as our Creator who made us in His image. God is the maker of all things, except sin and evil. God made everything “very good” and in good order because He intended to reign with and over the lives of His people through the natural order of His creation. Once humanity rebelled and sinned against God, the natural order became cursed and corrupted by sin. All of Creation was made for man, so when man sinned so man corrupted what God entrusted to him as well. Mankind’s sins, however, do not necessitate that God change anything about Himself, His plan, or His perfect will. Just as He intended and created it to be, God still works His love and power in the world through the natural world He made, and also now through the consequences of a world sick with sin.
Our God is most certainly a miraculous God, but God is most typically known for working through His creation, the natural order He created and the unnatural order and consequence of things brought about by sin. God worked His judgements on Egypt 10 times to try and soften Pharaoh’s heart, despite God knowing in His providence that Pharaoh would persist in hardening his own heart. God allowed Himself to be negotiated with by both Abraham and Moses. God allowed a physical ailment, all of which are the consequence of humanity’s fall into sin, to minister to and strengthen Paul’s faith – even after Paul had prayed for that thorn in his side to be removed many times. Ultimately, we see God working in and through both the natural and unnatural course of humanity to bring about salvation, submitting Himself to the wicked will of wicked men in order to defeat the death wicked men deserve, bringing instead forgiveness and eternal life for all who receive that free gift purchased in the blood of God’s Son, Jesus Christ.
God may not will for someone to get sick, but He may allow the consequence of sin on our bodies and on creation to run its course in order to work out salvation on a personal level. God certainly does not will or create evil, but as with Pharaoh and the Exodus from Egypt, God will use even evil against itself to accomplish His loving, merciful, and saving work. God does not wish that anyone should perish, have to die, suffer or go to hell, but God is not a puppet master, nor are the dice loaded or the deck of cards we are dealt pre-determined in such a way that resigns us to fatalism or a fatalistic outlook. God is so mighty, so powerful and so loving, He redeems what sin has destroyed. He uses even the mess our sinful nature has created in order to work out His love and salvation in our life.
What cards have you been dealt? What cards are you playing in your hand right now? What cards would you rather not have to deal with? The message of hope I have for you today is that you are not holding that card because it slipped by God, or because He was asleep at the wheel. No, God wants to use that very card. Even if that card is suffering or even death, He wants to use it to bring life! Just as He has done throughout history, and just as He did on the cross.
Everyone suffers. It is an unfortunate fact of the broken world our sin has created. The difference for Christians who know and believe in a resurrected Christ who forever bears the scars of His own suffering, is that we suffer with purpose because we suffer in faith and our hope in Christ’s faithfulness in all circumstances. We endure for a reason and we carry our cross with hope because Jesus’ victory over sin, death and the Devil has proven God’s love for us, the sureness of our salvation, and that we have an eternal purpose far beyond this broken life and broken world.
As Paul encourages us in Romans 5, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
Thanks for joining me for another time of devotion in the Word of God, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today, and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
