September 1, he does all that he pleases. Our God is in the heavens. He does all that he pleases.

Psalm 115, verse 3. This verse teaches that whenever God acts, he acts in a way that pleases him.

God is never constrained to do a thing that he despises. He is never backed into a corner where

his only recourse is to do something he hates to do. He does whatever he pleases, and therefore,

in some sense, he has pleasure in all that he does. This should lead us to bow before God

and praise his sovereign freedom. That in some sense, he always acts in freedom.

According to his own good pleasure, following the dictates of his own delights.

God never becomes a victim of circumstance. He is never forced into a situation where he must

do something in which he cannot rejoice. He is not mocked. He is not trapped or cornered or

coerced. Even at the one point in history where he did what in one sense was the hardest thing

for God to do. Not spare his own son, Romans 8.32. God was free and doing what pleased him.

Paul says that the self-sacrifice of Jesus in death was a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God,

Ephesians 5.2. The greatest sin and the greatest death and the hardest act of God was in some profound

way pleasing to the Father. On his way to Calvary, Jesus himself had legions of angels at his

disposal. No one takes my life from me, but I lay it out of my own accord of his own good pleasure

for the joy that is set before him, as it says in Hebrews 12-2. At the one point in the history of

the universe where Jesus looked trapped, he was totally in charge, doing precisely what he

pleased, dying to glorify his Father in justifying the ungodly like you and me.

So let us stand in awe and wonder and let us tremble that not only are praises of God's sovereignty,

but also our salvation through the death of Christ for us, hang on this. Our God is in heaven.

He does whatever he places.

you

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