DECEMBER 14 "DOES MAN HAVE A FREE WILL?"

THE problem with the story of Jonah is it causes many lazy Christians to form a wrong Theology. And that theology is, that God will bring to fruition his purposes for my, irregardless of moi. Irregardless of my stubbornness, irregardless of my rebelliousness, irregardless of my uncleanness, irregardless of my undisciplined spiritual life, in essence, irregardless of me. "Look at Jonah, he didn't want to do God's will, he was heading in a completely different direction and in the end, God got him to do what he wanted". And what do we say to that? We cannot deny it is true, we just read it! We cannot deny that God is Sovereign and that his will will always prevail, otherwise He cannot be Sovereign. We cannot deny that God, in being sovereign, reserves the right to "override" our free will when necessary; otherwise he cannot be sovereign. My son, no doubt has a free will and he functions day to day exercising his free will, but I, as his Father, reserve the right when necessary to override his free will for the greater good and purpose of things he does not see. While we cannot deny that God made the decision, "for Nineveh" to "override" Jonah's freewill (to rebel and not to go Nineveh) we cannot apply this to are lives and to everything in life. I am sure God has many times, without me knowing, "overrode" my free will and led me to make decisions that I was not even aware I was making, that were going to lead me to a certain place, a certain person or a certain situation, He wanted me to be in. That being said, we must understand that God does gives us the freedom to exercise our "freewill" even if it goes against what his permissive will would have for us. God allowed David to exercise his "freewill" to commit adultery with Bathsheba. God allowed David to exercise his freewill to murder Uriah. God allowed David to exercise his "freewill" to do these things that God knew would alter David's destiny and future. God allowed Moses to exercise his freewill to strike the rock twice, knowing full well in doing this, Moses would disqualify himself from entering the Promised Land, the very purpose God had was to bring Moses into the promised land, however, in God allowing Moses to exercise his freewill, Moses disqualified himself.  10 And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock? 11  And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also.  12  And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them."  God, from the womb had called Samson to be a Nazarite, set apart from birth for himself, but God also allowed Samson the right to exercise his freewill to ruin his destiny and ultimately commit suicide in the end. I have a problem with lazy Christians today who use the story of Jonah to excuse their lazy and undisciplined, spiritual lives; believing that in the end, it will all work out because God is good, He is Sovereign, we are not and He will bring his purposes to pass, irregardless of me. I agree, God will bring about his purposes to pass, irregardless of me. God sidestepped Moses and used Joshua to bring about his purposes. So yes, God's purposes will prevail, but God is not obligated to bring them to pass "thru us" irregardless of our attitudes and behavior. Did He do so with Jonah, yes He did and that was God's choice, He is free to do so. Did God do it with every servant He called in the bible, no He did not. This Theology that God "will force you to do his will" is False. Read Matthew 7:21 and the account of all those Christians who think they're making Heaven their home when to their shock and amazement they are not. And why are they not, the text says, "because they never did the will of the Father". Why didn't God force them to do his will, especially when the stakes were so high? We have to make sure that we do not use stories in the bible to form Theologies that are fitting for us. No theology should be formed by a story in the bible. We form our Theology by knowing the bible as a whole, by knowing God as a whole. People to this very day, are still trying to walk on water and handle deadly serpents and drink poison because of stories in the bible. God never meant for us to take stories from the bible and form doctrines and theologies of them, He called us to know his Word, from cover to cover and to know him and form our Theology from that.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NOVEMBER 6 "DOES GOD STILL DO MIRACLES?"

 The Psalmist writes, "who can list the glorious miracles of the Lord!" I dare say, there are some reading this blog that might challenge that!"  They would say, "list them, I'm hard pressed to think of one! How'' your miracle life? Miracles go hand in hand with opportunity. We have our lives so structured and we don't venture out in faith, we keep it safe. Well then don't complain you have no miracles. Peter had to step out of the boat to experience a miracle, but don't forget there was a handful of other disciples that stayed in the boat, safe and experienced no miracle! You can have it both ways.  Christians who venture, in faith, are the ones that have the "lists of miracles" to write about.   "Does God still do miracles? In your intellect you say, "yes of course", but in your heart what do you say? God does miracle, yes! Does He do miracles for you? Do you encourage others to believe in miracles and now you need ...
Read more

NOVEMBER 21 "CLASS WARFARE IS AN UGLY THING"

     There’s no denying, James is not that fond of “rich people”.  If it was only this reference in Chapter 5, that would be bad enough, but James has taken jabs at the rich in other chapters as well. No doubt, James did not grow up with affluence of any kind. We know from the Gospels that Joseph and Mary (James’ parents) were poor. Historians believe that Joseph died at an early age, as he is not mentioned in the Gospels; except in the early stages of Jesus’ life. Now with Joseph dead, James & Jesus, probably had to work that much harder to make ends meet at home. Jesus himself takes a jab at rich people saying, “ it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of an needle than for a rich person to get into heaven ”.  I’m sure in the  Church  of  Jerusalem  where James was an elder, there were not many affluent people in that congregation. However we cannot deny that it was Joseph of Arimathea, an affluent man , a prominent member of th...
Read more

FEBRUARY 8 "ABANDONED IN MY TIME OF NEED"

   This may end up being one of the greater indictments against The Church of Jesus Christ at our judgement; that we abandoned our brothers and sisters in their most dire time of need. In our reading today, the Psalmist eludes to a time of great anguish in his life and because of this his strength is failing; he then goes on to say concerning his friends, "I am a dread to my friends....I am forgotten by them". Unfortunately, it is when we are not at our best that our brothers and sisters in Christ seem to get turned off by us and often abandon us when we need them the most! Why is that? Is it because of selfish reasons, after all, who doesn't want to hang around upbeat people full of joy and victory, but are there not times that we need to also grieve with those that are grieving?! Another reason is their weakness probably turns us off, "why are you even struggling with this ....what's wrong with you!!?" Thence, we're turned off and leave them to struggl...
Read more