Daily Lesson for Monday 17th of February 2025

Throughout Scripture, God’s amazing power is made manifest. The Bible includes countless narratives of His exercising His power and working miracles. And yet, despite this, many things happen that God does not want to happen.

Image © Review & Herald Publishing at Goodsalt.com

These texts and others teach that God is all-powerful and that He sustains the world by His power. Indeed, Revelation repeatedly refers to God as the “Lord God Almighty” (for example, Revelation 11:17; compare with 2 Corinthians 6:18, Revelation 1:8, Revelation 16:14, Revelation 19:15, Revelation 21:22) and the word translated “Almighty” (pantokrator) literally means ­“all-powerful.” The fact that God is all-powerful is not only affirmed in words but also manifest in the many amazing instances in which God uses His power to deliver His people or otherwise miraculously intervenes in the world.

However, to say God is “all-powerful” does not mean that God can do anything whatsoever. Scripture teaches that there are some things God cannot do; for example, 2 Timothy 2:13 declares, God “cannot deny Himself” (NKJV).

Accordingly, most Christians agree that God is all-powerful (omnipo­tent), meaning that God has the power to do anything that does not involve a contradiction—that is, anything that is logically possible and consistent with God’s nature. That some things are not possible for God because they would involve a contradiction is apparent in Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane. While Christ affirmed that “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26), He also prayed to the Father as the crucifixion neared, “ ‘O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will’ ” (Matthew 26:39, NKJV).

Of course, the Father possessed the sheer power to deliver Christ from suffering on the cross, but He could not do this while also saving sinners. It had to be one or the other, not both.

<–Sunday Tuesday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25a-08-pantokrator/

Daily Lesson for Sunday 16th of February 2025

“God is sovereign,” the youth pastor taught his middle school group. “That means He controls everything that happens.” One puzzled middle schooler replied, “So God was in control when my dog died? Why would God kill my dog?”

Trying to answer this question, the youth pastor replied: “That’s a tough one. But sometimes God lets us go through hard times so that we’re prepared for even more difficult things in the future. I remember how hard it was when my dog died. But going through that helped me deal with an even more difficult time later when my grandma died. Does that make sense?”

Image © Rolf Jansson at Goodsalt.com

After a long pause, the middle schooler replied, “So God killed my dog to prepare me for when He’s going to kill my grandma?”—Marc Cortez, quoted in John C. Peckham, Divine Attributes: Knowing the Covenantal God of Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021), p. 141.

People sometimes assume that everything that occurs happens just as God wants it to. Whatever happens in the world is precisely as God wanted to have happen. After all, God is almighty. How, then, could anything occur that God does not want to occur? Hence, no matter what happens, no matter how bad, it was God’s will. That, at least, is what this theology teaches.

While many people believe that God must always get what He wants, the Bible tells a quite different story. Again and again, Scripture depicts God as experiencing unfulfilled desires. That is, what happens often runs counter to what God states that He actually prefers to happen. In many instances, God explicitly declares that what is happening is the opposite of what He wants. He willed one outcome for His people, but they chose another instead. God Himself laments: “ ‘My people would not heed My voice. . . . Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways! I would soon subdue their enemies’ ” (Psalms 81:11,13-14, NKJV).

<–Sabbath Monday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25a-08-our-sovereign-god/