It's VERY Complicated

I have written and spoken over and over that Free Will is not a biblical concept. It is not, by definition, it directly opposes the biblical view of God. There are many scriptures that clearly oppose the concept. Only one should be required to dismiss a theological concept. Ah, but it is comfortable to those who still want control.

This is all about control. Yes, the whole thing is.

The truth is, we have no control, but God has set up our reality in such a way that it can appear that we do. I know this is an impossible concept...without the wisdom from God's Holy Spirit. I write about it, to learn to explain the impossible. I know it's true, but putting impossible concepts into words is...impossible.

OK, so to start with, God Himself has more than one will. I know this sounds crazy, but if you look at Jesus in Gethsemane when He is sweating drops of blood, He says in prayer that He would like the salvation process to go some other way...yet He surrenders to the will of The Father.

OK, truth be told, this poses a question...Did He REALLY have a different desire or did He "act" it out to show us we can struggle with opposing desires with God? It is a valid question if you are not afraid to ask it.

Look, I want to know God. Like knowing anyone, tough questions must be asked! I am not afraid that I am going to find out God is not as good as I hoped. No, I am certain, every question, every bit of information about Him will only prove, in a deeper level, that God is WAY better than I could ever comprehend. This, I have consistently found to be true.

I am concerned, however, with not knowing Him well before I leave this world. On the contrary, He has over and over shown me that my relationship with Him is even deeper than I know. Apparently, it's a "human mind cannot grasp" it thing... So, there is a spiritual connection along with a simple mental and heart connection. I think the heart connection seems to reflect a mix of both mental and spiritual. Thus, a sort of confused perspective, and the reason for the statement "I know that I know" without being able to explain it.

I did say this was impossible...didn't I?

So, back to the wills of God. If He really didn't have a different will but instead, did it to teach, I have no problem with that, but it does come close to a falsehood. God does NOT lie. This is fact. So, this concept is a wee bit hard for me to accept. However, since much of this stuff is so far over our human capable understanding that it is very possible that He could have done this without doing anything remotely like a falsehood. It is just that we cannot understand it...for now.

I am OK with that possibility.

The other option is that He did in fact have a different will. So, Him being God, how can that be possible? Well, it can, because He can and regularly does the impossible. Again, falling back on "Well, I know He can, but I may never understand how it works!"

If this is the case, though, Jesus being God "in time" or being the source code of all reality, it is possible that He could in fact have a different will than The Father...who He actually is! Yeah, it can give you a headache. Though this does shine a light on many things in all of scripture. It would explain how a God who does not change...change.

Time is change. God is outside and above time. This is a biblical concept that must be swallowed to even get a glimpse at The Father and sovereignty. Without it, we will be stuck in the idea that our salvation is up to us...even if it's by a choice we make. This is my problem with free-will. Since that choice is a work, are we then saved by it?? Yes, it is a huge problem.

Salvation is given by grace through faith. It is a gift that we did NOTHING to deserve or earn...not even by choice. God, The Father, is THE Author of all reality, all decision, all events and all circumstances, from the motion of atoms to the vastness of space. ALL OF IT IS HIS. Jesus, being the Word, the Code, He is the words on the page. He is God, creating. God writing. HE IS God within the passage of time.

HE IS TIME.

Again! Impossible.

So, as God in Time, Jesus, or The Lord in the Old Testament, changes. He speaks "Let there be light" which is motion and creation of matter. He creates and changes matter..."The First Day". He also gets mad about the garden, judges bad action communicating blessing and curses to mankind as time and history flows.

HE IS the flow.

Jesus is the God we can know. The God we can relate to. The face of God that we can comprehend. He does this only through the Holy Spirit. Yeah, that one is baffling...but it IS.

So, if God has more than one will, Jesus can want things The Father doesn't, like the crucifixion. Of course Jesus said repeatedly before He got to Jerusalem that the crucifixion was why He came. He knew He was going to do it, and had to do it. He always surrendered to The Father's will. He taught it, and lived it. I believe it this is how it works, that He even did this before He became a man.

He IS relatable. One of my favorite events in scripture is when Jesus, after the resurrection, walks along with the two guys on the way to Emmaus. At the end of the journey, Jesus makes like He is going to keep going. He IS God. He KNEW He was going to go into the house and vanish before the family. Yet, He makes like He is going to keep going, forcing the men to plead with Him to stay...even though they had no clue who He was yet.

Did He do this to give them the option? The choice? The Free-will people would say YES! That if they didn't choose to invite Him, the event would have transpired differently.

That doesn't fit biblically. There are no other options. There is no multi-verse. There is only one story, one page, one book. That IS the biblical narrative.

Judas was "doomed to destruction". He never had a chance. He never had a choice...from The Father's perspective. He did from the Son's though...

Again, impossible, but true.

I could go into the "how can God judge fairly then", but Paul has already addressed this in Romans 9. It is up to us to accept it, even if we have a hard time doing so. Is it God's word or not? If you dismiss one passage, one chapter, one book...where does it end? This is how cults, false religions and the like, are formed...and there are many of them all around us.

Me, I believe God's word is true. Therefore, if even one passage dismisses a theological idea, then I scrap it. Even still, if I don't understand how a passage fits, I hold it as true until I do. Most of the time, I am stuck in the "I know that I know" place, but don't know how. Part of why I write is to chew, in words, the concepts that are "in me" that I just can't understand through any other way.

Jesus, being God, and showing that He surrendered His will, to align with The Father's will, is teaching us to do the same. He is communicating a rather complex, impossible topic, that IS.

For us, we have desires...a will. Like Jesus, from The Father's perspective, our will DOES in fact always align with the will of The Father. HE IS the Author. He wrote the story, Jesus IS the story. So, as a character, all our choices were written when The Father, from HIS perspective, laid it all out on a proverbial page.

Super Impossible!

We are always in The Father's will, but when our will opposes the perfect life that The Father has written in the Law, then we face problems and judgement. This is due to a lack of faith. For if we trust Him, then we will, like Jesus, surrender our will to the perfect plan that The Father has outlined. We can, and will only do this, if it is in fact...The Father's will. Yes, Grace comes from Him, and this IS the grace that is given.

Our choices have consequences, and He can rightly judge. Why? Because He is God. He can do whatever He wants. Our only job is to trust Him...even that choice is given...

Romans 9

10 Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac.

11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”

13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!

15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.

This is what it says. Do you believe it's God's Word or not?

Yet, within our choices, while we do align with The Father's will...do we align with the Son's?

Way beyond impossible!

OK, Here is the deal. In scripture there are many instances of men and women choosing a direction opposed to The Lord. The Father has written it. Yet the Son, pre-incarnate, is not happy about it. So, like the road to Emmaus, is He doing it to teach, or is there actually a difference?

I think both!

Yes, Spock would put a gun to his head by now.

Think about it. God is way beyond us. How in our progressive, time-based, logical thinking minds can we even comprehend a being outside of time and space CREATING time and space! The fact that He DID it is absolutely impossible, for to create Time and place with Himself in it, is in fact a change to a changeless being.

BOOM!

Again, much of this is so far beyond us that we cannot grasp it. It must be understood by the Holy Spirit.

For all of this, I KNOW it is true. It changes everything for me. I can walk knowing full well that EVERYTHING I do, good or bad is written by The Father...who loves me. I also have the Son as an advocate of sorts to stand before the Timeless One on my behalf. "I like this one, can we write Him better?"

Bigger BOOM! Spock is definitely dead.

Adding to the biblical concepts, I have seen in my walk with Jesus Christ this very thing play out.

Satan doesn't get to do what He wants. He has to ask Jesus, or The Lord as He has been known since the beginning...of which He IS, the Alpha part of the Alpha and the Omega.

Explaining this, I once had a demonic visitation. Back when I was in the two-year period after I accepted Jesus Christ. For that period, I was not walking with Him. I still believed I had my own life, my own choices...so I did. In this place, I found myself in a small single bed with a girl who I had dated for almost 2 years.

In the world's eyes, this is an acceptable time frame to do this. However, before God, this is Fornication and a sin. I woke up in the middle of the night with a great fear. So much so, that I was in a puddle of sweat. She did not wake, nor ever did, but I was terrified. Something was in the room, something EVIL.

I scanned the room and, in my mind, in a super strong way, I "saw" it. It was man-like in form, yet bizarre as well. Basically, I saw a 9-foot-tall man with a black sphere for a head and a comically toothy grin that went from one side to the other. The body was draped in a black robe of sorts. The fear was so bad that I almost pissed myself. I spoke under my breath "Go away, in the name of the blood of Jesus!"

It laughed at me.

Still terrified, I looked up toward the ceiling and spoke to God in my heart. "Why did that not work!! What do I do!!!"

In that same way, I could see God's eyes. It is not easy to explain, but I did see them. As He looked at me His eyes shifted to the girl next to me. He communicated extremely well...I was not doing as He wanted...as He willed.

Here is the complicated part. As The Father, God had the whole scenario "pre-written". In this vein of thought, I WAS in The Father's will, but NOT in the Son's.

Yes, they are the same, but as I said earlier, both sides of this are true. How this works, I just accept biblically, mentally and spiritually, but have no clue how.

I apologized as soon as He communicated the problem. At that instant, the 9 foot comical fear source stopped smiling, and just took off both angry and terrified.

The whole event was staged.

Yes, I know this is so. Why? So, I could understand how my sinful "choices" can set me on a place outside of His grace. Even though this "choice" was pre-ordained, judgment came. The difference, in this, is that the outcome was also already decided...already written. I was going to be in that bed. God was going to send a demon. I was going to see it in fear. I was going to see God's eyes and understand their message.

I now understood that Fornication was a problem. Sadly, three days later, I was in that same bed...I am not the brightest bulb.

OK, so beyond the message communicated back in 1983 or 4, when the event happened. He also communicated a subtle message that I am still sorting out even now. The complicated "wills" of every choice from The Father, The Son and even myself.

Yes, it is extremely complicated.

So, Here, I was in The Father's will yet doing something I should not have been doing. He judged, with the sole intent being to make me better, to draw me closer, to show me His grace and awesomeness! This is what He does for His children. Those HE chose before time began.

I am one of them. He has made this clear.

The freedom! The Power! The confidence! This IS a BIG deal. I KNOW the Sovereignty of God. I know that HE doesn't change. I know that my life and future are super secure and always were. There is nothing I can or will do to mess this up.

"aaaaaaaaaaaah" a super sigh of relief.

I have also seen this expressed through a family I served in Phoenix. At the time I was a Home Group leader for the Vineyard Church of North Phoenix. The family had a sister over. She had brought one of those "Mary" candles.

These candles are a mix of Catholicism and Pagen practices. Basically, they are magic candles made to change circumstances, or somehow to offer power or control over spiritual and physical circumstances. These things are forbidden in scripture... because they falsely offer a feeling of control, not faith.

The father was upset because he told his sister-in-law not to light it. Yet, she did. Now a week after she left, their son was having horrible nightmares. This went on for days, until the mother went into the room as their son woke again screaming. When she went in, the boy pointed to the window and the woman actually saw a pair of red eyes looking back at her. No, she wasn't crazy, these things are real...written as so, by The Father.

She, like I did in my earlier event, spoke quickly to this thing. "Go away 'in Jesus Name'!" It instead spoke to her. Yes, this also happens. "I have a right to be here...the candle called me!"

This is what they told me, the very next day at our meeting. They wanted my help as their Home Group leader. It was in fact, my job...volunteer of course. As they told me the story, I could see it. I KNEW what the problem was and why the demon was harassing their son. So, I told them, "Mike (the father), the reason this thing is there is your fault. The candle is nothing. It is a lie. It is just a candle. You believed it to have power, so the demon used it as an access point into your house. If you want it to be removed, you need to apologize to God for trusting the candle over Him."

I don't think they liked what I said, but they both apologized to God right there. Then we went to their house to pray over it. I know, and knew, that the repentance of moving from faithless to faith is what removed the spirit. It never happened again.

You see, like my event in my early years, this family was given an entire circumstance in order to grow in faith. To learn that faith, or trust in God, is what He wants. It is surrendering to HIS will. They stepped out of HIS will as Lord, while acting in The Father's WILL, just to set up a learning event.

Yes, as I said, it is complicated.

So, the question is, "Who was the 'learning event' really for?"

I am of the opinion, that the event, even the terrible torment upon the child by an evil spirit, was for me to see, to understand...even as years later it becomes just a wee bit clearer.

Very complicated.

Ah, but then if you can accept The Father's FULL sovereignty, and the will of the Son being surrendered, then ALL circumstances are written by The Father to help us also surrender to the FULL will of both The Father AND The Son.

Yeah...ouch!

Still, it is comforting...in a deep Spiritual way that I know, but don't even remotely understand.

It IS what it IS.

Because HE IS who HE IS.

God, I LOVE THIS STUFF!