Heart of the Matter: Changes on the Horizon

Live from the Mecca of Mormonism, Salt Lake City, Utah, this is Heart of the Matter. Where we are learning together how to live in the age of fulfillment. And I’m your host Shawn McCraney. Let’s begin with a word of prayer.

Show 42B

He Love You So Stop It!
September 29th 2020
LAST LIVE SHOW ON TUESDAY NIGHT

Well tonight brings us to a landmark moment in the history of HOTM. It is almost October and we have historically made changes in October and this will be a significant one that will not change much. But you are watching the last night where Heart of the Matter, since March of 2006, is going live. This means that we are going to pre-record all of our future shows and disseminate them out once recorded.

We are not going to edit the shows or spend time trying to refine them for you but we are simply not going live – which means we will no longer be taking phone calls. We are doing this for a number of reasons. Since going off of live television our call-ins have greatly diminished. Many people do not care to watch live but instead tune in later. Many people do not want to call in but are willing to write comments – which will serve us still in the future. By pre-recording all of our stuff on one day of the week, Sundays, we all have the rest of the week to focus our attention on other matters. And relative to other matters, we do have some fantastic things in the works that we will be bringing to you – so stay tuned. God is working some things out. And I think they are going to be pretty great. Finally, we are going to renumber our shows – or retitle them for ease. So our Monday show will be HOTM SHORT and TUESDAY SHOW with be HOTM LONG – every week, Heart of the Matter, the long and the short of it.

Important Ministries and Outreaches

Okay, so we’re gonna hit on some topics and then read your comments but first some shameless promos – Talking to Mormons. Checkmychurch. ExMormon Files. Ministries. Outreaches. In operation to equip you, protect you, and inform you – especially relative to Mormonism and the predatory nature of many brick-and-mortar churches.

I know each of the people who run them, and I love and trust them with the information they disseminate to your souls. I also want to promote the Radio Free Mormon podcast as the host recently interviewed me and I think it is a really good summation of where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going. You can check that interview out on our YouTube Channel, or by going to the Radio Free Mormon site.

As an update we are working really hard to accomplish a number of other things in this ministry as we believe, at least I believe, that the benefits of all of our information will come to light in God’s time and when the world of Evangelicalism comes to a screeching halt (it already has its foot on the brake).

In the meanwhile, as God provides us the time and ability have the following in place:

• Over 800 recorded shows
• Over 800 recorded verse by verse sermons
• And eight books

And we have yet to come:

• More shows
• More sermons
• A twenty-two volume set on the Book of Revelation and my magnum opus
• The TVAR of the New Testament

We covet your prayers and appreciate your every sort of support. Behind the scenes we also have some private things happening that have the potential to really help get the message of Total Reconciliation in this age of fulfillment to the world and we do ask, outright and without hesitation, that you petition God that we stay His course in the months and years to come.

Before we jump to the comments I want to ask you all to take a minute and really look into your hearts, with God shining a light to aid your inspection. And while you are doing this let me ask you a question:

When it comes to God do you act in order to be loved or do you act because you love Him?

If the former, that you act in order or as a means to be loved by God, to have him love you or to continue to love you, or to love you more, I want to do something I typically shy away from – but tonight will take the liberty to embrace – and that is I am going to speak for God.

Understanding God's Love and Justice

can tell, this is what He would say if you do things as a means to try and get him to love you more.

STOP IT.

The reason is because God already, always, completely loves AND receives you – as you are. He cannot love you more, he will not ever love you less, there is nothing on earth you can do or say that will increase or decrease his love – for you – hearing my voice. Ever. His love is eternal and it does not wane or change based on circumstances, failures, evils, or rebellions. And he loves you so much, he gave you – a member of this world – His only human begotten son.

When you take your last breath you will know first hand of His love – this I guarantee (by faith) and all reservations that you might maintain will disappear. So stop trying to earn your heavenly fathers love. However, if you act because you love Him? Praise God. That is where you want to be – acting, speaking, doing out of love for Him. See, when we love someone, we seek to please them, don’t we. We strive to do thing we know will cause them joy.

Love vs Obedience

There is a big difference between doing things to get God to love us and doing things because we love him. Learn the difference and you will learn the difference between being in a relationship with him and being in religion.

In the age of fulfillment, with Yeshua having had the victory over all things everywhere, we might wonder – is God still just? I mean nearly 2000 years ago He took on mortal flesh, overcoming it, and the Law, and sin, and then gave his life for the world – if this is the case, do the evil, whose sins have been paid, still face judgment? Why would they if sin has been completely paid?

I would suggest that though the price for sin has been paid for all everywhere forever more, reconciling the world to the Father, that God remains just, and will act judiciously in the eternal lives of every human being, not ever being a respecter of persons. So those who choose to do evil, believer and not, those who choose to love self over God and others, who choose to cause harm and pain in this world, who reject the light while embracing the dark, will, though the payment for their sin has been paid, still face God’s perfect justice – in and through afterlife rewards, specifically, in and through their respective resurrection.

The Unchangeable Nature of God

God does not change, folks. Every. What and who he is, is not in a state of flux. That is what makes him different from human beings. I hear RC Sproul teach this once and I thought it was insightful – that we often refer to God as a Supreme Being and then to ourselves as Human Beings. The difference between the two beings is found in the word, Being.

See, as a Supreme Being, He is. He be’s. He does not go backward or forward. He is being. That is why he told Moses that His name was I AM – a word packed with meaning that says He is – completely. A human being cannot ever say that. Our being is human, and to be human is to constantly be in a state of flux. People say that we start dying the day that we are born, right?

Our minds change, our ideas change, our skin changes, our teeth and body and hair and beliefs all are in a constant state of flux. This state is VERY very different from the Living God. He does not change.

Which is one of my arguments about Jesus of Nazareth, the Man, born of a woman NOT being God. He was not. He was a human being. What was in Him was unchangeable, but what housed him – pure human – which after his resurrection completely morphed into the Supreme Being. But before that, a man with God in Him.

Anyway, since God is unchangeable, he is forever loving, light, life, merciful and just. He forever hates sin and darkness and evil. He has not changed at all toward such. And being just, along with merciful, he will forever respond to all people justly and mercifully. And taking all factors into consideration of every individual, God will reward each of us with our afterlife status, merited by the

Love and Afterlife Beliefs

Love we chose to share and give. Those who insist on doing evil will be rewarded mercifully but justly with their eternal personal afterlife habitation, and those who chose the insufferable nature of agape love will receive the same. I have the strongest tendency to believe that at death all will enter into the eternities relative to where they came from.

Afterlife Experiences by Belief System

If you existed this life a Mormon you will experience, as a heavenly new-born, a person existing by Mormon thought. That if you exit this world a Muslim, or a Jew, or a Baptist, your introduction to that place will be as such, making the transition to the new life above more gentle and easy. I also suspect that in time, or whatever passes up there, the eyes of the evil will progressively become open to new realities in heaven, and that perhaps they will realize that what they once esteemed as glorious was in reality a shadow of what could have been.

Fairness and Mercy in the Afterlife

I reject the notion of people dying and God laughing as he punishes them in fire but embrace the reality that God is fair, is just, is good, and is merciful and will reward all (believers too) according to their choices.

So let’s go you your comments from the past few weeks: