“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,” Ephesians 1:3-5

God has a plan for every human that is born into this world. It was a plan devised before the foundations of this planet were put in place. Before the first mountain was formed, or the first drop of water put into the ocean, God planned for every man, woman, boy, and girl to accept their adoption into the family of God. That was God’s plan, that’s His desire for all of us now, and all of us that have ever been, but unfortunately so many that have walked this Earth have exercised their God-given right of choice to choose to reject that adoption.

Hell, the Lake of Fire, those places of eternal death and judgment were not created with man in mind, but many a man will find themselves there because they have ignored God’s pre-prepared plan and lived life their own way.

The last couple of weeks we have written in response to some tough questions concerning the seeming contradiction between the declared goodness of God and His undeniable sovereignty. Tough questions in our age, not because the answer can’t be found, but because we most often look for the answers to these questions in places they can never be found. Our experiences, our own ideas, the collaborative “brainstorming” of man never lead us to the absolute truth in these matters. There’s only one place to find the answer to these types of questions—that’s in the Word of God.

So, that’s where we’ve turned our attention to trying to understand how God can be both good (as He Himself declares) and sovereign, which many assume to mean that He is in complete control of all happenings everywhere, all the time. We’ve looked in Genesis 1 and there we read how God gave mankind “dominion” and told us to “subdue” this planet. The One with all authority shared some of that authority with His creation man, so we would have the right and ability to accomplish what He desired in this world He placed us in. This is so very important to understand: the fact that God, even though He possessed all control, gave up some of that control so we could manage this Earth. Sadly, it seems that as soon as He tossed us the keys to the “car,” we promptly went out and wrecked it.

You know the story. Eve was tempted to do the one thing God forbade man to do, Adam followed suit, and their disobedience started a chain reaction that won’t be completely corrected until there is a new Heaven and a new Earth. Now, most of the time when we think of what happened in the Garden, we think of how they lost fellowship with God and lost their first home. You know what else they lost at that time? Control. Authority to dominate and subdue this planet was ceded to the enemy in those moments; that was Satan’s aspiration in the deception all along. The enemy despised the fact that God had thought so much of man as to give them some of His own control. The angels didn’t get any of that; he sure didn’t have any of that at the time, but when we fast forward to the time of Jesus on this Earth, we read in Luke 4 that he had what was intended to be man’s birthright.

Would you like some Scriptural proof of this claim? In Luke 4:5-6, the devil tempts Jesus by showing him the kingdoms of the world and stating, “All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.” Jesus rebuffs the temptation but doesn’t deny the devil’s claim. That’s telling. Also, remember, this was called a temptation by the Bible. Would Jesus be tempted at all if he knew the devil was lying about having authority? That’s telling as well. Evidently, at that time, the devil did have some control over the kingdoms of this world. Well, if he had control, even a little at the time, guess who didn’t? Yeah, something to ponder on, right?

Greg Crum is the pastor of Calvary Temple in Lovely.