Sovereign Door

December 31st is not New Year’s Eve to us. It is now the day of Don Nelson’s home-going, a sovereign door. Our beloved brother and Carole’s husband closed his eyes and in peace went to heaven the last day of 2012. Two years now.

With my family’s blessing, I wanted to spend the night with Carole on the last day of 2014. We had a wonderful evening but it was this morning, the first day of 2015 that the Lord came and met with us.

I was still mulling over my question: what was it that brought such power of the Spirit in the month of my health crisis? I said I would ask the Lord in 2015.

So on the first day of ’15, I asked Carole, “Was it the proclamations that brought in God’s great power?”

“No, not as such,” she said. “You said that the proclamation is only as powerful as the person’s belief that God is GOD. It is spoken in faith that He is true!”

Then Carole had the whole secret to God’s power. She quoted Ephesians 1:19 in the New Living Translation. We had begun to memorize Ephesians while traveling in Italy only a few months after Don’s passing.

“I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe Him.”

I wanted the secret of this transcendent experience of His “incredible power.”

And Carole stated it simply:

“It’s faith at the core of you that God is God is God is God!

“You only witness the power of God if you believe Him, that He is truly God, God of everything and every circumstance. That scripture says “for us who believe Him.” We can’t see the incredible power of God unless we believe He is sovereign over literally everything. That is our foundation, the message you have given to us for years. Sovereignty!

“It’s here in Ephesians. You experience the greatness of God’s power if you believe Him.

“That sovereignty is what you have imparted to all of us. I didn’t have that belief. It’s growing in us always that ‘God is…God!’

“He has to pull us back to that. By His rod and staff, He pulls us back to His sovereignty every single time. I would think, ‘OH GOD, this is impossible!’ And He would pull me back to His sovereignty and WHO HE IS. I can wander from His sovereignty when I look at what is before me, but He only lets me wander so far.

“Some weeks ago, I started mulling over Ephesians 1 again. In memorizing it aloud together, that scripture captured us and eventually conquered us. The memorization and the proclamation united us to the Person of the Word. We entered Him, who is the truth and reality, and He entered us, so our declaring it as God’s word was the living Word and seed within us.

“Now it has become our living experience. We realized we were living Ephesians one. Verses 21-23 is the absolute proclamation of God’s sovereignty:

Now He is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else – not only in this world but also in the world to come.

“He is above everything and there is nothing that He is not far above! If that isn’t sovereignty, then what is? And that is what Paul was praying for, that we would see this:

…that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe Him.”

“Through your chronicle of this last year, that’s when I began to see we were experiencing Ephesians 1. We have come to the realization of what He has done, and not only in your healing and all those blessings. Christ has been manifesting Himself and His sovereign rule. It dawned on me, and I would say, ‘This is Ephesians 1, what Paul prayed!’

He has put all things under the authority of Christ and made Him head of all things.
v. 23

“Is that not absolute sovereignty?

“The thing that has amazed me throughout this first chapter is this: it reveals that Christ is above all things and everything.”

Passionately Carole quoted Ephesians 1:22 from memory.

God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made Him head over all things for the benefit of the church and the church is His body.

“‘He is Head over all things for the BENEFIT of the church.‘ God put you through this valley for the benefit of the Church and ‘He fills all things everywhere with Himself.’ And that is your whole story. He wanted to bring glory to your dark place because He wants to ‘fill all things everywhere with Himself.’ He is working to fill every dark place in us with Himself. Everything within us then is made full and complete by Jesus Christ.

“This is the route of transcendence. You cannot come to the revelation or the experience if you do not have sovereignty as a foundation.

“When God shakes us, the only thing that remains is what He has put there. When, by Don’s passing, He shook me to the core into total weakness, I was knocked down. What I discovered, even as He answered my every prayer, was this: something solid was underneath and within me. God was proving to me that He had built a solid base within me and around me. That foundation was faith in His sovereignty, that He was in charge of everything, even and including the death of my husband.

“God’s complete transcendence took me over. The moment I bent over and said to Him, ‘Jesus! I can’t do this!’ He took me up. I seemed to fall into Him and from that point on I was carried. I didn’t have that word ‘transcendent’ then, but I experienced God as a mystery, a marvel and a reality.

“It was only because of the sovereignty He had built into my life. I had the peace of God because of sovereignty and no other reason. If I had not had the foundation of His absolute and complete control, I would not have had peace.

“Yes, it was grievous, but I was kept by Him and ONLY because He had established faith in His rule. I knew that I knew that I knew, He was carrying me—and that was my transcendent experience. It seemed strange because it didn’t feel normal. I was moving outside of my own loss and carried above my own grief.

“Since He is Head for the benefit of the church and the church is His body, He used this Body to draw me back over and over again to His absolute sovereignty. I would wander away from His dominion into tormenting ‘what ifs,’ but He would not leave me there. His rod and His staff would draw me back and I was comforted.

“He is constantly deepening our belief in HIM. Not our faith in healing, our faith is in HIM, that ‘He makes everything work out according to His plan.’

“There is that word again – everything. That is the foundation built on the apostles and prophets. God is GOD. And there is no other.

God’s purpose and plan is that we believe Him so that we can receive all He has given.”