After all, he created autonomous and sovereign beings, and had to give them freedom to choose.
Yes, God created man with freewill to live within His created boundaries. When we speak of freewill, it is really has to do with our concern over who has control over our eternal destination.
It starts with an understanding of our nature, our will's are bound by our nature, as it is our nature that directs what we will.
So God is not in total control and power over everything that we do then? My pasture claims that God has power over everything. Then he contradicts himself by saying that we are the authors of sin not God.
Just like the law of gravity, we have freewill to walk about anywhere we want on the rooftop of a 30 story building and enjoy being alive, as long as we are constrained by the boundaries of the four sides of the rooftop and go no further.
In the same way, we are constrained by the boundaries of our sinful nature, it is in our very cells (patterned after the original altering of man's once perfect nature, having been altered by his choice to sin), which this sin nature now permeates our bodies, our minds, and our wills. In our sinful nature, we are carnally (temporally) minded not spiritually minded. We are in bondage to sin.
The Bible explains this in
Romans 8:6-7:
“For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can it be”.In our naturally fallen (sinful) state, we don't submit our wills to God, because we don't even seek after God, and we are against God and knowing what His Will is for us. It's in our very nature to be at war with God, and we don't have it in our fallen, sinful nature to choose to turn towards God nor to submit to His will. It's not a thought in our minds at all. We are incapable of choosing what is good and holy in God's eyes, or even choosing to have a relationship with God in our naturally sinful state.
So, while we say we have freewill, we really don't while we are still in bondage to our sin nature. We are slaves, held prisoner's to it. And like a prisoner, we can pace back and forth throughout our four walled cell as much as we like, yet we are held in bondage to the four walls of the prison cell. How free is that?
Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? "The sinful nature is incurable, which is why Jesus' message is unique. He came to give us new life as new creations, not to 'restore' the old one. His resurrection, revealed His power to overcome death, as He said He would raise Himself up after 3 days, and He did. It's this power that He gives to all who come to Him and receive Him to be able to put the old sin nature down and pick up and walk in the new nature. You are not free until you have received the Way to freedom offered by Jesus Christ. And no other could offer this to their fellow man, as they were mere men also.
Only Jesus raised people from the dead. These people who had died, did not have the freewill nor the power to raise themself up from being dead, even Lazarus whose body was already decaying. But Jesus raised Lazarus up, and then Himself from the dead.
And what of homosexuality. I know that it's not harmony to be homosexual. The Masculine energy must be balanced with the Feminine energy. But I can't help myself I like men better. I don't want to be gay but I also do not want to date the manly feminist women we have today. Cheating on their husbands and turning them into Cuckolds. Making them support them and other children. or making all the choices and ruling the house with a bad attitude. Everyone suffers. I also do not want to give my baldness genes on to my off spring. I believe in Eugenics! So I want to live a life that I don't want to live as me. This is very tough for me.[/color]
You've given a perfect example of the fallen, sinful nature of mankind. Women as well as men are cheating on their spouses left and right. There's nothing sacred about marriage any longer. And look at how many 'spiritual' teacher's try to justify this by this saying things like man is not meant to be monogamous, etc...usually coming from a person who has a sexual addiction by the way.
The Bible does say that homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of God. I myself have wondered at this as I have known many gay men who have been the most wonderful and loving friends.
God is a God of the living. And if two men had been created or two women, there would be no life on this planet right now! Just think about this for a moment. You nor I would be here writing or reading, we would not be a possibility, as procreation is not possible with same sex union.
Whatever a person's sexual preference is, the Bible is very clear about sexual immorality, and this includes all of mankind, whether gay or straight. And this is where I will call all to look carefully at this idea that we claim to have freewill. When it comes to sex, it's pretty obvious, that most of us do not have the freewill to turn it down and walk away, even flee from sexual temptations.
If this is true of you, then the next time you are faced with a temptation, may you remember this idea that you are not a free agent if you give into the tempation and this is because you have a sin nature as God said we do. And the way you justify your actions will reveal man's tendency to 'hide' behind his or her figleaf from God, and cast blame on someone else.
If you say, 'oh, it's a natural urge and impulse', then you are agreeing with God again. This is a natural impulse of the carnally minded soul, whose is in bondage to the urges of their fleshly nature, acting just like animals do, who have no control over their fleshly urges, souls without the Living Spirit of God empowering you to live by God's standards of holiness and purity, are not free at all...
Being slaves to their fleshly desires and appetites. Their very nature deciding their will to do these things according to what the Bible explains is the basis for all the ungodliness that is prevalent in these days that are continuing to grow darker as the hearts of mankind grow darker.
And God who is All knowing, is in control of the Heavens and the earth, having set the boundaries of what is acceptable to Him, as well as revealing to us what is necessary in being able to have relationship with Him. And we just don't like this in our current nature, so we have been very busy doing everything in our 'power' to erase any idea of there being a God at all. Just look at how many ways there are now, and how they all deny what is written in this one Book. As the article I shared above about the uniqueness of Christ says, all these other ways either deny the Cross of Christ or His Resurrection in His body.
Again, validating Jesus' words, first spoken of in Isaiah 35:8,
'And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it.'and Jesus Himself saying,
"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it." Matthew 7:13And The Father says, we must meet the standards of Jesus Christ, who was tempted like we are, yet without sin, in order to have a place in His Heavenly Mansion, where no death nor impurity is allowed.
Grace means unearned. It's the way it was always meant to be. By Grace. Adam thought he could do it, be righteous of his own nature and leave God out of it, and well, here we all are. We are living in the end of the age days which actually began when Christ Jesus was born. We are much closer now than we were when Jesus was born and walked this earth the first time.
And God our all knowing Creator, that we do not have any ability in and of ourselves to set ourselves free from our sinful nature, due to it becoming ingrained and so is reproduced into our very cells being passed on since Adam fell, chose to become Jesus, God taking on form in human flesh, Who would come to destroy the old nature, by overcoming the end product of this defiled nature which is death, death and decay is anti God, and we can see people and animals and things decaying and dying all around us everyday as the evidence of sin entering this world.
This is why we will not be without excuse, because we see the evidence of God's Word all around us everyday.
Only Jesus can give us a new nature, because He rose from destroying the grips of death, which could not hold Him prisoner, and this is explained in Colossian 1:12-14:
..."and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."So, in conclusion, God does not send people to hell Louis. People send themselves there, due to refusing to accept the unearnable gift of God's Son, Jesus Christ, who came to redeem us. He came to buy us back, from the introducer of death into the original nature of the first Adam which has affected everything in all the creation which is passing away.
And since death was the outcome of the first Adam's choice, it would take a Life to buy back the deed sold under death.
Jesus paid the debt for all mankind, He was willing to buy back His Creation by paying the ransom, His Life by shedding His blood to cover the wages of sin, which is death.
And He had to be sinless, in order to do this.
Now, it's a matter of Who you are going to believe.
Those who don't believe Jesus was sinless, are people who are not and since they are not, they cannot believe anyone could be any different then they are.
And this is freewill?
Freewill is when you have been changed in your mind and your heart knows that you can choose, and this can only happen when you believe God has done what He says He has done.
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” No longer being of this world and God's Spirit dwelling in earthly jars of clay, our bodies, gives us the Breath of Life to be strong enough to leave this world behind for the New One by responding to Jesus when He says to you...
Then Come, and follow me. ~♥~
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