Journal Entry ~ 07/27/18

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. James 4:13

James reminds us in this passage of the power of pride. The reality is that God's presence can be overwhelmingly intrusive in all the details of life. Pride cannot tolerate the intimate involvement of God running the details of our lives - we often convince ourselves that He is only in the big decisions.  Pride does not like the sovereignty of God. 

He is in every little detail of your life, reigning over every single aspect of your journey. Now, God reigning over our lives does not mean He is making all our decisions for us. He still allows us to make plenty of poor decisions, but being sovereign over it all means He is at every outcome, determining our consequences and our blessings based on the choices we make. Mind you, the consequences and blessings are not a matter of punishment, but rather a matter of refining us to be more like Him. 

We can either choose to submit to the fact that He is sovereign over every little thing or we can choose to ignore His sovereignty and do as we please. Far too many professed Christians seek Him on Sundays, but really don’t make Him a substantial part of their day throughout the week. We can choose to seek Him in all that we do, looking to Him for guidance and wisdom, working to glorify Him in every aspect of our lives, or we can choose to keep Him partitioned off from certain places in our lives. But know that one choice is honoring to God and one is sin. 

In other words, He cares about everything we do - when we’re at the office or the dinner table, when we’re out with friends or spending time with extended family, when we’re watching tv or gossiping over coffee - He sees it all and He cares about it all. We boast on our arrogance when we go about our days or lives making decisions without involving Him. We’re told in this passage that’s sin. 

James says that not believing in the sovereign rights of God to manage the details of our future is arrogance.  The way to battle this arrogance is to yield to the sovereignty of God in all the details of life, and rest in his infallible promises to show himself mighty on our behalf, to pursue us with goodness and mercy every day, to work for those who wait for him, and to equip us with all we need to live for his glory. 


Press on ~ you are loved 💗

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