Lord, the Fortified Tower!

“The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.” – Proverbs 18:10 NIV

The name of the Lord is like a fortified tower. This is because He is the Creator of everything (Genesis 1:1; Psalm 24:1) but He is also Almighty God, who is powerful enough to control everything—including us—through His Spirit, even though we have tendency to think that we are able to control ourselves and do anything that we want. Proverbs 16:9 states, “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.” It is hard to believe but it is true, even though if our will contradicts against God’s will that the Lord wants us to do. Of course, we can deny the will of God forever, if we have only evil and wicked mind-set against God. However, if we have the knowledge of good and evil, it is nearly impossible to keep denying God’s will because we are eventually going to feel that denying God’s will is very wrong and we would rather correct our mistakes. According to gotquestions.org, which helps us to answer our theological questions, God’s sovereign will does not mean that God always controls us. ‘Rather, it acknowledges that, because He is sovereign, He must at least permit or allow whatever happens to happen. This aspect of God’s will acknowledges that, even when God passively permits things to happen, He must choose to permit them, because He always has the power and right to intervene. God can always decide to either permit or stop the actions and events of this world. Therefore, as He allows things to happen, He has “willed” them in this sense of the word.’ The reason why God intervenes within us is that He wants us to have no mistakes in our lives, since they hold eternal destinies. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. (Galatians 6:7-8)

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, knew that God is Sovereign God clearly, for He came from the Father (John 1:14). Because of this, while He was praying to the Father before His crucifixion, He declared, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42) Jesus had many chances to deny the Father’s will and destroy the enemies who were going to crucify Him on the cross by His supernatural power, but He did not do these. This is because He already knew what His purpose of His earthly life was—to be crucified on the cross for our sins. Thus, we are able to have eternal life through Jesus Christ by believing in Him until the end of the age. In other words, God purposely sent His only beloved Son, Jesus Christ as an image of Himself (Colossians 1:15), into the world to be crucified, in order to change our eternal destiny from the death to the life. The main reason for this is that God has loved us so much (John 3:16-17; 1 John 4:9-10) since we have actually been created by Him to be His image (Genesis 1:27).

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:6-11)

Therefore, since God has firm and secure place in the kingdom of heaven, we must run to God through Jesus Christ. This means that we have to believe in  Jesus Christ until the end of the age, regardless of any circumstances, as He proclaims that He is the way of the truthful life to God (John 14:1-7) In fact, the main reason why we are on this world is to worship and glorify Jesus Christ until the end of the age (Colossians 1:16-23). Therefore, Romans 12:1-2 instructs us to live our lives as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God and transform our mind-set to Spirit-filled one, so we are able to discern what the will of God is for our lives. To be honest, I am not very confident to provide myself financially in the future through Christian-writing and to be a successful Christian Writer. Maybe, I can work in Windsor Park Baptist Church or in a church somewhere, but my main goal is to be a Christian Writer. This is because I think Christian-writing is the will of God for me as the Spirit of God is continually leading me into it. Therefore, I trust God to continually guide me into His perfect will, regardless of my circumstances and situations (Proverbs 3:5-8; Romans 8:28) Furthermore, I do not really care about money if I already have enough supplies to live. Not only money leads us to have evil desires (1 Timothy 6:10), but I strongly believe that the worldly materials are useless except they are part of the will of God, of course (1 John 2:15-17).

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. (Ephesians 5:15-18)