Free Will

“Love God and do what you want.”

It’s probably my most favorite Martin Luther quote.

Rather than getting hung up on the is-this-God’s-will-for-my-life question (like so many do) resting in the comfort of his downright all-around big-ness.

Sovereign.

This is not a pithy word. Something which means supreme ruler ought to catch us, shake us up a bit and toss our brains around to get the idea that the one this adjective describes is the supreme (i.e. better than everything) ruler (i.e. in charge).

“O but wait, I may choose the wrong person and end up messing up the will of God.”

…

There’s no nice way of pointing out the massive logical inconsistency wherein one confesses to believe in a 'sovereign' God whose will can be screwed up by his subjects. It’s just ignorant and amazingly prideful to think the creature can highjack the Creator.

“But free will…”

If an example can be given where a will is free then I’ll believe free will to be true. But until a will is not in reaction or precaution to any outside stimuli I cannot submit to the idea or ‘doctrine’ of man’s free will. (Even outside of Christianity I cannot see free will as true. We eat, beacue we need it, we sleep because we need it, we procreate because of biology. Outside stimuli crontrol us even outside of Christianity.)

Rather submission to the Sovereign God is a bit sounder than that of my own flimsy desires.

Love God and do what you want. It’s a twofold deal. First, love God. Second, do what you want.
You see a fundamental change within us is required for a dead sinner to love the Living Perfection, which is God (Eph 2:1-10). First there must be life given to the dead (John 3:1-21), and then the sinner must be washed clean of their unrighteousness (Ezekiel 36:24-27). But none of that is contingent on the will of man.

Love God… and do what you want. These two things are completely apart from the will of man. If I am free I will not love God (1 John 4:19). If I am free my wants are a slave to sin. God loves us, therefore we love him. God saved and now we are slaves to him (Eph 2:10).

“But I don’t like that.”

I don’t like that I don’t have an iPhone 4s, but that won’t change the reality of my having just a sad little iPhone 4. I don’t like that it’s cold outside but my not liking it won’t change it. I don’t like whinny people, but people whine (… I whine).

Are you catching my drift? What we like and don’t like won’t change reality.

It’s a trust deal in the end. Do we trust God to change our wants to be more in line with his own, or do we trust ourselves to see ourselves through our lives?

I’d submit if one fears messing up the plan of God, then one is trusting in themselves and not in God.

He is either the Soveriegn God (in complete control of your life) or he is not God.

The Narnian Church

I was talking with a good buddy this weekend after church and somehow (not quite sure how) we got on the topic of Narnia (‘cause all good conversations should digress into literature or theology). Yet while we were talking I had an idea.

We love the stories of Narnia, all of them, they’re beautifully captivating, children going to some other place and becoming kings and queens and animals talking. Romantic to say the least, imaginative, for sure, since we’ve all desired at some point or another to be royalty.

The kids in the stories go from reality to Narnia, and then in the end Narnia is what is made whole and beautiful.

This mirrors the Church.

We are able to go to the Church, to be apart of her and to love her, but she is not the place we’re going. Yet she will be made new (more beautiful and more splendid).

Worshiping together, fellowshipping with one another, marveling at our God. Will be new and better and more wonderful. The Church, the thing we love and rest in when the realities of the world are too much, she will be made wholly new and wholly perfect.

Because the Church we now know is just a shade of the Church that will be.

Because the worship we now give is hardly a drop in the bucket of the worship we will give.

But if you hate the Church, then this poses a problem. ‘Cause why would you want to spend forever with a remade Church?

My only response to this is, is this: be careful whom you hate (or strongly-dislike, or don’t want to be apart of… etc). The bride of Christ surely is not one to hate. To claim Jesus as your Savior but hate the people he saved is hate yourself.

God Created Reality

Have you ever felt thwarted at your every turn? Having thought you’d done everything correctly and been as wise as possible in your decisions only to realize you’d failed? Attempting to grasp at the reasons for your failure but even in that failing to understand the breaking point.

Is there a proper way to respond to this? Is anger at your misunderstanding proper? What about confusion? What about complete indifference? Quite frankly, I don’t know what the right response is for those in this station. For in some sense anger seems correct because you desire to understand, but in some sense is your misunderstanding worth being angry over? Confusion seems proper because you have no idea what’s going on, but we linger here too long. Indifference seems most right in my mind, even though it might mean not learning a lesson at this exact moment.

Here’s my answer: sitting in a library looking at birds play while listening to some dang good banjo playing. That’s my answer. Trying to understand one thing: God created reality. For his own glory because that is (really it is, truly) my good.