Morning At Last

The following is a repost that a friend of mine made in a forum we both visit.  I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says but I think it’s something we should all take a look at. When I realized that God really is sovereign, it threw things like self will or free will into a tizzy.  How could both of them be true?  Craig takes a crack at it and comes up with a pretty interesting answer.

When the Lord revealed Universal Salvation, I concluded that free-will was a joke, but upon further investigation, it was not free-will but the doctrine of self-determination which was the joke.

Free-Will says we can live and move and have our being within a boundary and habitation in which it is placed, but Self-Determination says we can go beyond that boundary and habitation in which we’re placed. One is true, the other is not. We cannot self-determine, no matter what we choose, we do it always within the habitation and boundary that God has placed us.

Why would this be an important distinction? It all comes down to judgment (God’s Judgement). If we had no free-will, then there is no such thing as sin. If we had no free-will, then God cannot judge us, nor can he ‘repay’ or ‘recompense’, as Scripture says He does.

From that point, the only thing a person can do is disregard Scripture and then finally they disregard anything to with Christ, Christianity. and you are left with a pantheistic belief system, that strips God of His Fatherhood, and makes Him once again some out of reach, impersonal ‘higher power’. and numerous of other slippery slopes that are very much valid.

You remove freedom of will, you remove the need to renew our minds, forgive one another, even love one another. Without freedom of will, there is no accountability and responsibility. A seered conscience, not knowing the difference between good and evil, infants being thrown to and fro by every wind of doctrine that tickles their ears, and the latest fad in pyschological philosophy.

Everyone reserves the right to be wrong, but I do not settle for being wrong when the Lord has said we can know what is right, and if we ask for Wisdom, He gives it lavishlessly.

Craig Nolin

Today on Elaine Cook’s Site (Oct.2003 newsletter) I read:

Autoimmune diseases (rheumatoid arthritis) are those where the body attacks itself as if it were the enemy.  All these diseases have a spiritual root of self-hatred, self-bitterness and guilt.  All auto-immune diseases can be defeated and or prevented.

OK, that being the case, I ask the Holy Spirit to shine His light on the area of darkness in me that is allowing the RA to exist in my body.

Many times over the years I have wondered why I seem to walk alone.  I don’t have many close personal relationships and always seem to be on the edge of a group looking on.  It doesn’t seem to matter whether it is school, church or the internet.  I can interrelate with people for a while but eventually, I gravitate to the sidelines.  It really is my nature to be a cave dweller.  I’ve finally come to peace with this but wonder if that has affected me in some primal level?

Think about it.  Science has proven that water responds to words and emotions.  (Please see my Squidoo Lens on How Words Affect Our World for a graphic explanation of this.)  Since we are 70 to 80% water, the dilemma’s we muddle through have to affect us at the atomic level.  I’ll keep seeking and see where this journey takes me.

As clearly as I have ever heard anything from the heart of God, He spoke these three things to me for all of us;

Grow up and get with the program
Get your eyes off yourself and onto the big picture
Lay down your tradition and unbelief and fasten your seatbelt.

Glenda Wilson

OK God, I hear You.

Once a week for the past 3 or 4 years, I have been cleaning someone’s home.  Now, it looks like that job is ending and I haven’t liked the thought of either doing without that small check or finding another job.  It’s not that I don’t want to work.  I have worked very hard for most of my life but now I am dealing with some physical things that make looking for a job difficult.  In addition, my family needs me home.  So with a lump in my belly that I know should not be there, I am reaching out to my Father for direction and help.  Truthfully, I have never had to go looking for a job.  They always come to me so as I stand at this fork in the road, I wonder what He has for me this time…and yes, it’s time to fasten my seatbelt :0)

If  there has ever been a time for the sons of God to stand up in maturity, it is now.  With so much instability around us, we need to have hearts full of the Peace of God and free of bitterness, complaining or  unforgiveness.  We are the signposts that God is still in control when it looks like everything is falling apart.  Appearances are deceiving and as darkness falls upon man’s ways, light will shine forth from the Christ in us if we don’t get in the way.

Truthfully, my flesh likes the status quo but my spirit is reaching for what my Father has before me.  Change really is good and that old man might as well die because he is not in control.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.   Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.   Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. (Matt 5:10-12)

No one wants to think of being persecuted and yet there are parts of this world where  it happens everyday.  We would much rather turn our eyes to the part about peacemakers and forget about it.  However, that would be a big mistake.  Such thinking only waters down our expectations and causes us to waver when we need our faith the most.  Jesus never promised us that life would be rosy once we accepted Him as our Lord and Savor.  In contrast, he said:

If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.   If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.  (John 15:18)

Not all persecution takes the form of physical violence.  Words are powerful and when people are sending “poisoned darts” your way, you have to learn to forgive.  Here’s the thing, Christians come in all shapes, colors and levels of maturity.  What looks like heresy to you today may reveal God’s glory tomorrow as another veil is removed from your eyes.  It’s so important to give grace to the less mature as God will reveal Himself in His own time.  They have to learn that if you really are wrong, you are still God’s child and He will correct you.  In either case, we have to look through the eyes of love and be patient.  Remember the post on meekness?  Just because you understand a little more than your brother doesn’t mean you are supposed to share it with him.  We all have to develop ears to hear what God is saying and commit to doing that above all else.

Mat 5:9  Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

I have heard unbelievers tell me the Bible is full of contradictions.  I suppose it can look that way if you don’t realize that God is working with a very, very long timeline and that much of His Word has different levels of understanding.  For instance, Jesus is called the Prince of Peace and yet said this:

Mat 10:34  Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
Mat 10:35  For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
Mat 10:36  And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

That doesn’t sound very peaceful does it?  The end result of His plan will be peace on the Earth but men will fight for what they believe in.  Before that peace can be the norm, there are a lot of untruths that are going to have to be confronted.  Everytime we embrace God’s ways instead of our own, peace grows.

However, the Beatitudes put forth the traits of the sons of the Kingdom of God.  So peacemaking is a particular quality of the residents of it.  Not just enjoying living in peace but actually extending it to those who aren’t peaceful.

And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;   To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.  Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. (2 Cor 5:18-20)

This then is the job of the “raptured remnant”.  It’s not to enjoy Heaven while the rest of the World rots in Hell, rather it is to minister the truth to them in love until the light dawns and they can receive what we are saying.  Love conquers all.  It never fails.  Eventually those working to reconcile fallen man with his God will succeed and there will be peace.

Mat 5:8  Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.  (KJV)

If none of us is righteous in ourselves, who then of us is pure in heart?  God is holy.  There is no darkness in Him so only the pure in heart can stand in His presence.

2Ti 2:22  Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

When you first experience Passover in your life, your heart overflows with love for Jesus, your Savior and it seems like you will never sin again.  Then time passes and you find that your heart still has a wicked life of its own.  At Pentecost  you receive an earnst of the spirit and suddenly it’s God and You working His will in the Earth.  It’s heady stuff  until you find that your heart still loves the things of this life.  Once again you are frustrated because you desire a pure heart but are powerless to acquire it on your own.   It’s only as we walk into the full work of Tabernacles and receive our redeemed body that we will finally be able to stand before God with a truly pure heart.  That is why Jesus included this verse in this marvelous passage on the coming Kingdom of God.  The mature sons of God will be uncorruptable and pure in heart.  That is why they will see God for He will make them to go in and out as kings and priests of His household.  How marvelous is that?

Mat 5:7  Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

The laws of sowing and reaping always apply so it is clear that if you sow mercy, you will reap mercy.  So let’s consider what mercy is.  The Strongs Concordance says that mercy is to have compassion in word or deed and compassion is to have sympathy or pity for someone.  The Bible says that when Jesus healed people He was often moved with compassion for them.  He was also moved with compassion when He saw that they were like sheep without a shepherd.  Mercy tempers judgment.  A judge is merciful when he gives a lenient sentence within the confines of the law.

Psa 89:14  Justice and judgment are the foundation of Your throne; mercy and truth shall go before Your face.  (MKJV)

A king’s throne is the place He rules from.  God judges justly.  Nothing is hidden from Him but He is also merciful.  In His mercy, He sent His Son to concile the world back to Himself.

(WARNING: I differ from most of standard Christianity in this area.  If that offends you, please stop reading my blog.  You are certainly welcome to write your own.  )

Most of the mainline churches teach that Jesus died for the world but that unless you personally accept it, you are going to hell.  On top of that, the Bible says that unless the Father draws you, you can’t be saved.  What kind of good news is that?  Now I ask you, did any of us have a choice when Adam sinned?  Did we have to accept his sin for it to apply to us or were we born mortal without our consent?  If it didn’t take our consent to curse us, why would Jesus act be any less powerful?  To hear them teach it, when Adam sinned, the whole world was cursed and when Jesus died for that sin, He will be satisfied with only getting a remnant of the people He died for.  (I don’t know about you but if I paid for a whole TV, I wouldn’t be happy coming home with just the remote.)

1Jo 2:2  And He is the propitiation (atonement) concerning our sins, and not concerning ours only, but also concerning the sins of all the world.  (KJV)

Do I believe there will be a judgment? YES!  Do I believe that if you personally accept Jesus’ sacrifice for your sins that they are covered by the blood and you will not have to pay for them?  YES!  Do I believe that Jesus is the only way for us to be reconciled with the Father and that all men will sooner or later have to believe in Him?  YES!  But do I believe in the traditional church teaching that hell is a place of fire and men will burn there eternally?  NO.  I believe that if you go back and study what the original scriptures say, that is not a Biblical truth and many of the first century believers didn’t believe it either.

Part of the problem occurred when people who weren’t well versed in Greek, set church doctrine.  Much of our current hell teaching is based on a work by St. Augustine but by his own admission, he wasn’t a Greek scholar.  The word ‘aionian’ that he translated as eternal actually meant for an age.  So even if you believed the hell fire and damnation part of the message, it had to be for a finite period of time.  That alone should cause many of today’s preachers to reevaluate what they are telling people.

Think about Hebrews 2:8

You subjected all things under his feet.” For in subjecting all things to Him, He did not leave anything not subjected to Him. But now we do not see all things having been subjected to him.  (MKJV)

Have you ever wondered how everything could be in subjection to him if they are still rejecting Him while burning in a fiery hell for eternity?  Is there more glory in the image of every knee bowing to him because they have no choice or because they have been won over by Him in love?  LOVE NEVER FAILS.  Why then do we think Adam’s ability to sin was greater than Jesus Christ’s ability to save?

A good book to read that can explain it better than I can in this limited space is Hope Beyond Hell by Gerry Beauchemin.  You can get a free book download here.  Before you write to tell me that I’m a heretic and teaching wrongly, do yourself a favor and read the book.  It is full of scripture and should be very enlightening.

You can get a shorter article on this topic at Hell: Fact or Fable? If you want more resources after reading those, contact me and I will tell you where you can learn more.

Meanwhile, thank God for His Mercy and ask Him to work more of it into your character so that you can reflect Him.

Heb 8:9  Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
Heb 8:10  For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
Heb 8:11  And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
Heb 8:12  For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.

Mat 5:6  Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

At first look, this verse seems obvious.  When Jesus literally walks this Earth, Justice, truth and righteousness will be the order of the day.  The word filled here means to be gorged or have plenty so of course if that is something you are desiring, you will have your fill.

However, Jesus wasn’t given to stating the obvious just to poke fun at people.  He always had a deeper reason so let’s try to see this verse from kingdom eyes.

A friend of mine wrote that the closer you get to God, the more Sovereign He seems and the farther you get from Him, the more sovereign man looks.  I agree and when people start talking about righteousness, their argument will always be tempered by whether or not they are pursuing God.

W.E.Vine’s Expository Dictionary entry on Righteousness starts:

1. dikaiosune (G1343) is “the character or quality of being right or just”; it was formerly spelled “rightwiseness,” which clearly expresses the meaning. It is used to denote an attribute of God … which means essentially the same as His faithfulness, or truthfulness, that which is consistent with His own nature and promises;

Since God is the standard of Righteousnes, man’s efforts to achieve it will continually fail.  The book of Judges records a time when everyman did what was right in his own eyes.  By doing so, they would stray farther and farther from God’s law and end up losing the blessings He had promised them.  He would send them a Judge who would bring about liberty from their oppressors and reinstitute God’s law and they would be safe for a time until that Judge died and they were back to doing what was right in their own eyes.

God’s laws are an expression of His character.  The farther we stray from them, the less righteous we will be and one of the marks of the sons of God is that they will be like Him.  I know that we have a better covenant and that Jesus fulfilled the law.  Many churches today teach that God’s law was fulfilled and we don’t need to concern ourselves with it today.  Let me ask you something.  Have you ever heard of a country that didn’t have laws?  When the Kingdom of God is manifested on Earth, whose law do you think will be in it?  Don’t you think it would be a good thing to become familiar with it now?  I’m not advocating that we return to offering sheep and oxen to God.  Jesus did away with that when He became the perfect sacrifice but what about the laws that teach us how to be responsible neighbors?

It’s not like any of us will perfectly comply with it now.  If you have vowed to overcome one of your less than desirable character traits,  you know how easy it is to fail.   Even the Apostle Paul found that man in his corruptibility is incapable of being righteous.

What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise.  So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.

But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help!  I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it.  I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway.  My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up.  I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.  I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. (Romans 7:15-25 Message Bible)

Matthew 5:6 isn’t promising us perfect righteousness in this life but it is promising that if you are hungry for it, when His Kingdome comes, you will be satisfied.  It’s one more thing to look forward to.

Mat 5:5  Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Alright, unless we know what God means by meek, we will never understand this verse.   To our way of thinking, meek means gentleness but it generally denotes weakness or a sense of being cowed because there’s nothing else we can do.  That is not what this verse is talking about.

According to W.E.Vines Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words,

Meekness is an inwrought grace of the soul; and the exercises of it are first and chiefly towards God. It is that temper of spirit in which we accept His dealings with us as good, and therefore without disputing or resisting; it is closely linked with the word tapeinophrosune [humility], and follows directly upon it, Eph_4:2; Col_3:12; cf. the adjectives in the Sept. of Zep_3:12, “meek and lowly”;…it is only the humble heart which is also the meek, and which, as such, does not fight against God and more or less struggle and contend with Him. This meekness, however, being first of all a meekness before God, is also such in the face of men, even of evil men, out of a sense that these, with the insults and injuries which they may inflict, are permitted and employed by Him for the chastening and purifying of His elect” (Trench, Syn. Sec.xlii). In Gal_5:23 it is associated with enkrateia, “self-control.”

Think about a powerfully strong man refusing to take on a bully.  Bystanders might think he is a coward but he really holds back because he knows his own strength and has nothing to prove.

Moses was considered meek as was Jesus.  It denotes having power that is under control and submitted to God.  That is something that comes with overcoming trials and temptations in this life so it is an attribute of a mature son of God.  That is why the meek shall inheret the Earth.  They won’t misuse God’s power for their own elevation but will rather submit it for His purposes and glory.  They are the ones who have been proven trustworthy and can be counted on to rule with Christ in His will and not their own.

Mat 5:4  Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.  (KJV)

As I was thinking about this verse, I started thinking about three different kinds of mourning.  The first is when someone we loved has died.  It is natural and healthy to grieve over the loss of that person.  Their passing has left a hole in our life and we have to adjust to it so a time of mourning is very beneficial.  It lets us value them and figure out how to go on without them.  At the same time, when you understand why Jesus died on the cross, you know that you will see your loved ones again.  That is part of the good news of the Gospel. Life is eternal and our loved ones are not lost to us forever.

1Th 4:13  But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
1Th 4:14  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

The second form of mourning has to do with intercession.  An intercessor takes on the burden of the one they are praying for as if it was their own.  For example, as they pray,  they may weep and mourn over a broken relationship with the Lord.  Their comfort is in seeing the result of their intercession.

Isa 61:3  To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.

Finally, the third form of mourning that I want to address is that of someone who has lost the relationship they once had with a church body.  Regardless of the reason for leaving, when your church has been like a family to you and you have to leave it, it can cause you to grieve.  If your fellowship has been broken, you can feel like a branch that has been cut off and cast aside alone.  When God sets you in your place in the Body of Christ, you will find  such fulfillment that you will feel He has truly wiped the tears from your eyes.  It’s time to believe “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.   Lean on Jesus and as He opens your eyes to His bigger plan, you will be satisfied.

Granted, this is just scratching the surface.  I invite any of my readers to add their comments.  What is God showing you in this verse?