The New Normal by Mark Wyatt

Author:Mark Wyatt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Destiny Image Publishers

Chapter 8

Overruled

What does it mean that God’s Kingdom rules over all? In order to explore this concept further, we will look at two verses from Psalms, and then we’ll think about the big story of God’s rule and reign. Here are the Scriptures from Psalms:

The Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all (Psalm 103:19).

For You have upheld my just cause; You are seated on Your throne as a righteous judge (Psalm 9:4).

Even before the earth was created, God ruled over all. He ruled over the universe, both the material and spiritual, visible and invisible. His throne had been established in Heaven, and He reigned in love and joy over all the heavenly realm.

Then God, in an overflow of His loving reign, created the earth and all that is in it. He created humankind, a being who could enjoy Him as much as He enjoys being Him. But He would not force this race of beings to love Him because love must be given, it cannot be programmed or demanded. So He gave man a will with which to choose, so that when he chose to love God, it would satisfy the longing of both their hearts.

God, in His loving rule, put these first people in a garden where all of their needs would be met, and where He would walk with them in the cool of the day, talking with them, revealing Himself, sharing life together. Then He did something that could only come from a King who loves—He gave them dominion. He gave them the authority to rule the earth on His behalf, to govern it as an outpost of His heavenly Kingdom, to represent on earth what life with God is like, what life is like in Heaven.

So man ruled the earth. He gave names to God’s creation, and he governed as a reflection of Him in whose very image he had been created. Until one day when into this perfect order, disorder slithered in. Satan, whose own attempt to overthrow the throne of Heaven had failed miserably, had found that God’s throne had been established too firmly to derail His rule in Heaven. But maybe, just maybe, these pitiful little creatures that He loved so much, maybe they could be recruited, or at least used as pawns to disrupt and destroy the rule of God in this colony of Heaven, this stage called Earth.

And so satan dangled the fruit of anarchy, the deceptive promise of self-rule in front of these lesser versions of God Himself, and they took the fruit, and consumed it. And rebellion seeped into their very being, deep into their fiber, so deep that all those who came after them would be infected by it. But along with this imprisoning freedom came guilt, shame, and remorse, things they were never intended by God to feel.

Then came the missing. They began to miss God, and He missed them; but their rebellion had created a great rift between them. A

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