Letting God Be In Control

Tuesday, December 31st, 2019

When we give ourselves to encountering the love of God, He actually removes the fear that makes us want to be in control...
Joaquin Evans

TRANSCRIPTION

Hi everyone, my name is Joaquin Evans and I am the Senior Leader of Bethel Church in Austin, TX.  I want to welcome you to God Today. Today I want to talk about letting God be in control of our lives.  We know that God is good and He is an amazing Father. But have you ever noticed that things work out better when we learn to let Him be in control?

 

God loves us and He wants to empower each and every one of us.  Part of His being able to empower us is our ability to trust Him completely and in all aspects of life.  God made so much grace available for all of us, but sometimes we hinder ourselves from being able to function in all the grace because of our need to be in control.

 

I want to share some keys with you today that I believe will help move out of that place and into the grace God has provided for us.  One of my favorite verses is Proverbs 3:5. It says this, “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”  It is such a powerful verse but there are some things in there that I think are key to understand. And one is that understanding in and of itself is not the problem.  God gives us wisdom and the Bible tells us to study to show ourselves the proof. So understanding isn’t the problem, here is the problem: our need to understand before we can step out in trust.  That’s what becomes a problem.

 

I think it is important for us to realize that our need to understand is rooted in control.  Control is actually rooted in fear. When we don’t fully trust our Father and know He has a great plan for us and that He wants it to work out for our good, then fear can cause us to want to control all the aspects around us and the elements at play in our lives at that moment.  When we start to control that gives us this false sense that “I have some understanding of how this is going to play out.” The problem with that scenario is that God is no longer in charge. When God is in charge, it is when great things happen in our lives. That is when we are able to step into the grace that He has provided.  

 

The good news is that the Bible also tells us that perfect love casts out all fear.  When we give ourselves to encountering the love of God, He actually removes the fear that makes us want to be in control that causes us to need to understand everything that is going to happen before we step out in faith.  That love begins to wash that equation away. He restores to us childlike faith in our hearts, knowing just how good our Father is. And giving us the capacity to trust Him before we understand, which is what He is really looking for.  That is the faith that pleases His heart. When we can do that, we access all of the grace that He has made available and breakthrough happens. More happens in that place than happens in our own effort. But when we don’t understand that and we need to understand before we trust, we are leaning on control because of our fear.  We actually limit the grace we are really seeking in our lives.

 

I want to pray for us today, that that perfect love that God talks about would bathe our hearts and remove the fear and the need to control and the need to understand.  I feel like this is really important for some people. This is the key that has been hindering the breakthroughs you are looking for in your life. As I pray today, I believe God is going to remove that fear and release another level of trust so that you can trust the Lord with your whole heart and move into the full measure of grace that He has made available for you.

 

Father, I thank you for your love, I thank you for your goodness, and I thank you for your breakthrough in peoples’ lives.  God, we invite your perfect love to remove all fear right now, Father. In Jesus’ name. The fear we don’t know what is going to happen next, the fear that we don’t understand the outcome.  God, we know you are good. Let that love just come and make everything new in our hearts. God, I thank you for restoring childlike faith, Father, in every person who is hearing this. And the ability to step out before we understand because we know just how good you are.  God, I thank you for the breakthroughs that are going to come as a result of this fresh childlike faith. I pray that in Jesus’ name. Thank you, Lord. Amen.