PASTOR’S CORNER: God’s got it all in control

Think for a moment if you have lived at any length of time when you found yourself in the twilight zone.

Somebody may be there today — the sudden loss of a loved one, a relative, friend; somebody we know who was rushed to the hospital; intensive cancer treatment; four or five people that we know battled the COVID-19 virus and other terminal diseases; or the loss of homes in fire, automobile accidents, serious health problems that rock our world.

In 2024 we need to gather up some fragments this morning and take them with us for the rest of the year, set them aside and when we need them, reach over and grab one. It is this morning, that “God’s got it all in control!”

This is the best medicine that we can take with us the rest of the year and remember. Like any medicine, it will work if we take it. We need to put this in our spiritual DNA now before we go any further. This is a recipe for calmness, stability, peace and the power to go on. It is the difference between giving up and pressing on.

God got this! I can’t handle this, but God can! I don’t care how this looks God’s got his hand all over this! For man’s extremities are God’s opportunities!

A woman was in the hospital sick and discouraged. Her pastor came to see her and she said to him, “I know the Bible says ‘for we KNOW that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord; to them who are the called according to his purpose (Rom. 8:28’… but I don’t see how this is working for my good.”

The pastor wisely said to her, “The Bible don’t say we SEE all things working for our good. It says ‘we know it.” Community, sometimes we just have to go on what we know. When our heart is broken, and tears are streaming down our faces; when it’s all we can do to put one foot in front of the other; when all we want to do is lay in the bed and pull the shades down and lay there in a fetal position, that’s when we’ve got to know that it’s working for our good and that God is in control. For God’s promises don’t operate in how we feel; it operates in what we know!

Look at Bible history and let it tell the story. Joseph in Genesis chapters 37-43 is a perfect example of today’s message. Joesph was hated by his brothers, thrown in a pit and eventually sold by his own brothers. He was falsely accused of sexual assault by his boss’s wife, and thrown in prison for a crime he did not commit. After interpreting the dream of a fellow inmate the inmate promised when he got out he would remember Joseph and he forgot him. Joseph did not see how all of these negative things were working for his own good. He knew it! God had it all in control all the time. He stayed faithful and God raised him from the pit to the palace.

Community remember this. God didn’t bring us into 2024 to leave us. He didn’t teach us how to swim to let us drown. He didn’t build his home in us to move away and he didn’t lift us up to let us down.

Remember in Exodus 1:15-21 when the king of Egypt threatened by the Hebrew slaves, had all of the firstborn children of the Hebrews drowned in the river. The weeping and wailing of mothers throughout the land over the loss of their children was anything but good. It was an attempt by Satan working through the king of Egypt to kill the seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15). But Moses’ mother hid him, and he was raised by the daughter of Pharoah and through him God delivered the Hebrew slaves from Egyptian bondage. It looked bad, but God had it all in control.

In II Chronicles chapter 20 we remember the children of Moab and others came against Jehoshaphat and Jehoshaphat was afraid. But, he went where he should have gone, and that is to the Lord. We all know that when trouble comes in any form and it is beyond our control, we go the rock that is higher than we are. We look unto the hills from whence comes our help (Psalms 121:1-2).

He prays to God and says, “We don’t know what to do for we have no strength against this great army that is coming against us…our eyes are on you.” What a prayer. And the enemy was defeated. My friends, God was in control all the time! What about Job? Community, to lose one child is bad enough and heartbreaking, but to lose all your children at one time is enough to lose your natural mind, but God was in control. We later see that the latter end of Job was more than his beginning.

Community, there has to come a time when we get this; whatever comes against us is no surprise to God and we‘ve got to know that God in his foreknowledge knows everything that is going to happen in 2024 so that no matter what we hear or face or see, immediately this should come to mind in 2024.

With cancer, COVID-19, dialysis, bad news, and health decline, just remember this year of 2024 that God’s got it all under control.