Does God control everything?

Of course not.

God doesn’t control every person like a puppet and force every person to do everything they do. If God controlled every single thing, then He just caused you to sin the last time you sinned. He also just caused a man to molest a child the other day. God is love, not evil.

Do I need to say more?

I will say more, because there are some who still believe that God causes every single thing to happen and does not give mankind choices. If you believe that God controls everything without choices, then He is the cause of all evil in this world because He forces people to do everything.

Um, that contradicts all of scripture.

Yes, of course, God is “sovereign” and has the ability to control everything. But because He’s a righteous God, He must do what’s right and can’t do what’s wrong. Otherwise, He is not a just God. He controls some things, just not all things. Don’t believe that false doctrine.

Here’s a few simple proofs… I mean, it’s ridiculous that we need to prove that God is continuously good and never evil. The cold hard fact is that if God controlled “all things”, that means He has caused every person, with the exception of His Son, to sin. If that’s the case, then He Himself is in big trouble according to His own words. Let’s hear what God Himself has to say about that:

“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. (Matt 18:6)

Based on some people’s beliefs, it looks like God is going swimming in the sea with no chance of survival.

If God were even a little tiny bit evil in any way, we’d have to depart from Him because over and over He says to depart from evil and resist evil. (Psa 34:14, Psa 37:27, Pro 3:7, Pro 16:17, Matt 7:17, Eph 4:31) So that would mean we have to resist God? C’mon people. God does not control everything we do.

Control is not true love; it’s evil.

Those who try to control you (as in force) are behaving in an evil way. As you can see around the world, our governments are trying to control us. They want to infringe on our freedom and use Artificial Intelligence to “track us” and force us to do many things not for our own good but rather so that they can have total “control” of everything. That’s a fleshly/earthly way of thinking and it’s a contrast of how God interacts with His children.

Of course, there’s a type of “control” that needs to be enforced occasionally in people’s lives. For example, a loving father would grab and control his children if they were trying to run into the road in front of traffic. But that is not a lifestyle of control. That’s an exception provided in love in that circumstance.

If you’re a Christian husband, do you want to control your wife, or do you want to lead, guide, and serve your wife? If you’re a Christian wife, do you want to be controlled? Of course not. That’s not true love. It’s the same way in our Christian walk. It is never said that we should be “controlled” by the Spirit. We are to be led by the Spirit. We are joined to the Lord so that He can lead and guide us. And that’s exactly what happens when we consecrate ourselves to Him. Being a follower of Jesus doesn’t mean you are controlled by Him, it means you have chosen to follow Him because He’s the only way, the only truth, and the only life.