We cannot contain the overflowing cup of His love thus we share with you these messages of the Life of our Lord as lived out in His saints.
OUR CHOICE ......... OUR FOLLY
I had dinner last night with my neighbors and the topic of conversation was "God's sovereignty." Sitting across the table was beautiful vessel used of God to teach me a lesson of God's sovereign grace last year.
This couple and myself laughed heartily as we both recounted the incident of my awakening to the awesomeness of God's message of complete sovereignty. I had stopped by on the way to the store to visit the four children and this mother that had adopted me as a friend. After the children and I shared our customary hugs and jestings Chrissie invited me to sit for coffee which I accepted.
It was during this time that Chris shared with me something that had me scratching my head and also worrying a bit. She was telling me of how she had come to rest in God's sovereignty and even her sin was the responsibility of God. She told me she had been set free and didn't worry about her sins any more. I said to myself, "Whoa! this poor child of Christ was getting off the path."
I warned her that, "we had a will of our own and we had to take responsibility for our shortcomings."
After a bit more discussion on "free will" and after emptying our coffee cups it was time for me to go to complete my errands. We both smiled as I bid my goodbyes knowing well we were at an impasse with regards to the subject of "free will vs God's sovereignty." The rudiments of the old "Armenian/Calvinist debate" would not be decided today.
Now getting back to our dinner conversation and the reason for us laughing it seems both Chrissie and myself shared the same thoughts after this discussion. She recounted how she thought, "how could someone as mature a Christian as Jack not see and understand God's complete sovereignty?"
I thought of Chrissie, "how could that poor woman, who had a walk I had grown to respect, not know we have a responsibility for our sins?"
Little did I know some months after Chris's and my initial discussion of the "Sovereignty/free will" dilemma it would all snap together for me and I would see that my friend was absolutely correct in her belief that God is "completely sovereign" and "our free will" is but a myth and at worse a lie.
As we enter the "seventh millennium" from Adam which I believe is the "millennium and age of our Sabbath Rest" others are being awakened to the knowledge that God is in total control and we can rest knowing all that comes to us in this world is but for our good and our perfection and that also goes for all mankind.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son ...... Rom 8:28,29
I copied a couple old statements from past discussions a year ago that it might show the error of my way and how far God has currently taken me to see the Truth of this matter. Please also note when I made these two statements I had read hundreds upon hundreds of papers and messages addressing the "free will/sovereignty" issue.
"I think "free will vs sovereignty" is a great mystery...........but there is a greater mystery............and that being.....................why men think they can possibly comprehend the mystery of "free will vs sovereignty""
"Okay guys there are thousands of ways to get to the sovereignty-responsibility issue and you have but discovered another one. There can never be any true resolution to this age old debate for it lies within the framework of "the secret things of God""
In closing, I have copied a number of short messages shared by me in the last couple weeks while debating this subject on an Internet forum. I pray you might glean some truth from these and if not I hope you have enough wisdom to lay these sharings on the shelf for another day when God might sovereignly takes you back to this subject and open it up anew for you.
Blessings,
Jack
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Yes we have choice and we can qualify that choice.
Humans were made "choice making beings" but their steps are ordered no matter their plannings.
"The mind of the man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." Proverbs 16:9
Man perceives his own decisions great but God laughs at his folly.
God controls and directs all the information surrounding a choice thus man always makes the choice foreordained. Carnal man can spin his choice a hundred ways but it is always God that foreordains it.
I'll tell ya we have a Great God!
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God makes a way in His word for those that can drink milk and those that can digest strong meat. His Word is given in such a way that it accommodates the babe as well as the mature son that has entered into the realm and age of the Father.
We who are coming to know God's sovereignty without exception are learning to ask nought because we know all is for our good. Instead we become intercessors and priests moving in the will of God for others.
Do not these words ring out as the ultimate and highest pattern set before us as Christ knelt before the Father. We must like Jesus, go "a little further" until there but one "will be done"
And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt ....... He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. Mat 26:39,42
We will all come to the place of knowing "one will be done" ........ some sooner than others ........ but all will come.
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We will be a tried people ........... trials are but meant for one purpose ......... to bring us to the end of our self that we would lean upon Him ....... it is His Faith and only His Faith that will stand in the end. Faith that the "will of God" is always for our Good. Only His Faith lines up perfectly with His Will ........... count it all joy!
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Quote from forum participant:
GOD took the most EVIL "CHOICE" in HISTORY, in the sentencing and murder of His only begotten SON... and produced SALVATION from it, ...that in itself shows ME, that the CHOICES of MAN are completely in GOD's Hands, and shall produce GOOD in the final result...
My response:
yes my friend,
This is an example of the awesome Holiness the angels proclaim when they sing, "Holy, Holy, Holy"........ an "awesome" and "terrible" Holiness as defined previously when we ran down the Biblical definitions a few weeks ago.
We so limit the attributes of God through our finite understanding at times. Some would belittle the Holiness of God while thinking they must err by choosing His Holiness over Sovereignty.
God's Sovereignty encompasses His Holiness and vise versa ........ we can avoid erring by proclaiming a big God rather than a lesser god. How often do we see some get in trouble by breaking God down to the excluding and limiting of one attribute in favor of another. All God's attributes are all so interfaced that if one would fully view one attribute they must also see all the others and to see in this way is to know all His attributes make up a "Glorious Agape".
When beholding our God we must throw out our old arithmetic. Our God measures differently, as He counts "loss as gain" and "nothing as All". Are you nothing yet?
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We must remember salvation is an ongoing process unto a state of "salvation to the utmost". Salvation to the utmost is when we are caused to recognize we have "no will what so ever" and we walk perfectly in recognition of His will. It is all about perception and our perception is Divinely given just as is salvation. They actually go hand in hand.
The cross we carry is enduring our self and self wants to think it has some power to change _________ (fill in the blank with whatever)
The truth of the "All and Nothing" is the greatest of truths but ah, so bitterly swallowed. All of you must become as nothing and then nothing is resurrected to become All. Death and Resurrection ............ the wonder of it all!
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I believe that we come by "His Faith" to trust in our complete surrender to "His Will."
His Faith and His Will will carry our souls into the perfect eternal circle of His Love ........ like a vortex the circle of Love starts small and is carried to the greatest Love where "all" is found in "All"
Our abandonment grows proportionately with His Faith. I believe Faith and Christ are inseparable and synonymous. The Spirit of Christ is the smallest of seeds that grows into the greatest of trees. When all is said and done, all will be swallowed up that only the Tree of Life is left standing. Our stinking thinking selves are but fertilizer for the Tree of Life.
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Pure love reigns underneath, notwithstanding; for how can a soul go about to consider its own interest, when it cannot so much as look at itself? Or, how could it be pleased to look at what it cannot see? It either sees nothing, or nothing but God, who is All and in all, and the more it is blinded to self, the more it beholds of Him. (Fenelon)
Before we were ever quickened by the Holy Spirit we were in a state of complete blindness and death. Only after the Spirit can we recognize self and the state in which it resides. Self can never see self thus until and unless the Spirit gives illumination we know not our state.
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A few one liners:
if you were to exercise freely a choice between eggs scrambled or eggs benedict this universe would fold up into instant chaos
He loved you first .............. why?
We want to sanitize this world to make it more palatable and we will figure out a hundred theologies to accommodate this.
We can weave a hundred tapestries but I believe all the string are held in His hands.
The "All in All" is without exception
The catch 22 is that God's sovereignty is not seen until that seeing is sovereignly given.
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That's the elephant in the room and the question that stretches one's faith and goes back to the subject of, "does God create and use evil." The answer is "yes" and to be brought to the place of accepting a "yes" to such a question will break one's heart but this is necessary.
Often the breaking of the heart precedes the acceptance of the correct answer as it was in my case. This is part of the journey to seeing a Great God that uses both His left hand and His right ............. this part of our painful undoing that he might gloriously put us back together in His image.
One day we will stand around His throne and sing praises that He alone who is "Good" has miraculously used both "good and evil" to make "All Good". This is the "knowledge of Love" of the highest order and only spiritually discerned. This is the "mystery of iniquity"
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I will take my personal experience where, when evil came to me by way of man, God said, "I did it."
Am I to argue with Him when He took the blame I was placing on my enemy. No because I am now free to love my enemy.
As far as sin and evil I think these two scriptures confirm why God took the blame for the sin and evil I suffered four years ago when I was robbed of nearly all I owned.
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him. Col. 1:16
"For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen" Rom. 11:36
Whatever has comes out of God cannot be annihilated in the sense of it vanishing completely from existence. Paul related it once in a very short but powerful statement: "For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen" (Rom. 11:36). Simply put, everything came out of God, it all passes through Christ and His cross. It returns back to Him from whence it came. It returns in resurrection glory changed to the same heavenly substance of Himself.
out of, through, and back into God. (Roach)
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Sin?
I don't blame Him and in reality I can't hold myself accountable because I was created in futility. This is why I often lay prostrate at His feet ............ hours and sometimes days.
I can't change my spots and I gave up trying. I know He can and this is my "rest."
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When we share " Universal Salvation" they say sin will encompass your life because of this belief
When we share God "All in All" they say sin will encompass your life because of this belief
So whats new?
I have had God take me back to see the sin in my life when I have been in the greatest of pain as I suffered the consequences of reaping my sins sowed many years ago. He has showed me by His grace I could not have done anything different back then and these shortcoming were all being made for ultimate Good. I don't kick myself any longer for past sins or even present ones as I know well the law of sowing and reaping and I also know I have surrendered all to Christ for His keeping.
He occasionally shows me the darkness that still resides in my soul and the horror of this causes me to cling more tightly to my Lord that I be free from adding to this horror. It is He that initiates all in my life and He that corrects me that I might find humility, know there is no good in me ...... there is not strength of my own will to overcome ..... and there is only a sweet surrender that will bring a sweet repose.
Sin ......... oh no I can't do anything about it for it is the curse that dwells in my flesh. It is His business to dissolve this sin and this sinful flesh and having walked with Him long enough I know Him more than capable.
In closing let me share this saying which I have adapted as it speaks to the purpose of my sin and my reaction to sin.
Suppose we have stumbled, or even fallen, let us rise and run again in His strength; all our falls are needful for they strip us of a disastrous confidence in ourselves, while they do not take away a humble and salutary trust in God.
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I already know what "good and evil" is. Adam ate of that tree for me a long time ago.
Now I am about the knowing of "He alone that is "Good""
This is why I must leave this world which is the realm of "good and evil" and beckon to His call to "come up hither" where only "Good" resides.
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This is why He brings us to the end of "our selfs" ......... that we rise up by His resurrection power, working in us, and rest in His mind ............. the mind of Christ.
He is the potter and when we really know that, we really know to rest.
Self hates rest and loves it's own works ..................... self so wants to have a part in our redemption. The problem is our redemption has already been paid for.
Why beat the air?
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This is the fearful elephant that fills room:
for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope. Rom 8:20
As we grow we will feel part of the elephant .......... then another part. To feel and know the elephant will break your heart.
His light is sovereignly given that we would see the elephant. To know the elephant is to groan for our full redemption made manifest.
"for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope"
Do you groan? ......... do you sleep well every night? ............... do you fall weeping at the foot of the Cross? ............... this will tell me if you are seeing the elephant.
"Even's God's worst evil is good, while man's best good is evil"
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.......I was soft, week and easily impressed upon, when that thief stole all I had four years ago. That event hardened my heart and I was possibly going to prison for the rest of my life if I was to act upon my plans for reciprocation.
Then God told me He stole my life savings.
I learned then God does evil and He moves violent men with their evils doing to bring us to our very end and thus to Him, as broken. God used not a preacher behind a pulpit to teach me grace, but He used a common thief with evil in his heart to do the job. It sure makes it easier to love your enemy when God says "I did it."
Is that not what we learned with Jesus relationship with Judas.
Yes, God hardens and He makes soft and no one shall stay His hands as He will use both to bring you and I and all mankind to perfection.
Pity the man that thinks he or the devil has even a hint of free reign.
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God makes a way in His word for those that can drink milk and those that can digest strong meat. His Word is given in such a way that it accommodates the babe as well as the mature son that has entered into the realm and age of the Father.
We who are coming to know God's sovereignty without exception are learning to ask nought because we know all is for our good. Instead we become intercessors and priests moving in the will of God for others.
Do not these words ring out as the ultimate and highest pattern set before us as Christ knelt before the Father. We must like Jesus, go "a little further" until there but one "will be done"
And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt .............. He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. Mat 26:39,42
We will all come to the place of knowing "one will be done" ............. some sooner than others ........ but all will come.
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I know the reality but as I have often tried to explain such to others I find it is like talking to a wall until one experiences and knows His sovereign grace. Knowing God's complete sovereignty is one of the last great revelations to come to my life and I can hardly believe the rest it has brought me ........... especially with regards to my relationship with others.
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" the kingdom of the serpent, our fleshly wisdom"
Selah
