Nature of God and Freewill

From the Mecca of Mormonism, Salt Lake City, Utah . . . This is HEART OF THE MATTERTGNN’s original show where Shawn McCraney deconstructed religion and developed fulfilled theology. long

I’m your host Shawn

PRAYER
49L Two Things Even God Can’t Fix
Taped
Aired September 7th

God is a consuming fire. He created heaven and earth from nothing. Nothing came before Him, nothing supersedes him. He is all powerful. He is all good. All Light and no shadow. And he did this thing – he created Man in His image. Male and female He created He them. Now, Jesus said that God is Spirit – but we know that Man, whom God created out of the dust, is not spirit – “dust thou ART,” God said, “and to the dust thou will return.” But God created Man in His image? Interestingly, in the creative composition of Man, God inspired Him, if you will, to life. I use that phrase purposefully, inspired, because the living God, who is Spirit, breathed into that inanimate dust, and when he did it (Man) became “a living soul.”

In other words, God’s spirit or breath, entered incarnate dust, and Man became a LIVING SOUL – a mind, a will, and emotion of his own by virtue of God’s breath animating or inspiring the clay. This is how man was created in the image of God – he was man three expressions in one being. He was a mind, with a will and with emotion. Man could think (mind) on His own, independent from God; he would move him or herself to action and attitude (will) and he could feel things (emotions) that contributed who he/she is. These elements introduced something to the human creation that other creations were limited in – free will. And this made human beings autonomous.

Limitations of God's Power

Now, more and more people suggest otherwise – they suggest that human beings are determined entirely by circumstances and genetic design. And while I do agree that much of what we are is determined by such, the capacity to choose, while hindered in ways, remains in most. And in the end, we are all therefore responsible for the choices we make. I suggest that this gift is so precious and godly, that it is the first of two characteristics that God cannot interfere with. When I say, cannot, what I really mean is will not, because if He did it would somehow interrupt the way He has done things from the start, making Him a respecter of persons, making Him an interloper and therefore making Him responsible for the end destination of all souls.

And so that is the first thing that God cannot change – the freewill of any individual. If they seek His interference, that might be another thing – might. But the ability to choose and be is intrinsic to the nature of being human and in the end that ultimately makes us all responsible for our choices, acts and quite frankly, our respective destinies. Hand in hand with this reality we are presented with the second thing with which God cannot change, thwart, change or fix. This might seem like a no brainer since freewill is in the hands of each individual, but this one does not stand so much as an irrefutable fact of human creation but it lies more in the realm of choice people make with and through their freewill.

The Unyielding Nature of Pride

In other words, I submit to you that in the face of this freewill choice some people make God’s hands are absolutely tied. Bound. And there is nothing He can do until this attitude changes by the freewill of the individual. What is it? What can’t God himself do anything about? What is the choice humans can make that renders Him incapable of helping, changing, fixing or saving?

PRIDE

I submit to you that God can help and work with and fix and save anyone from anything, He can heal and redirect, and console any and all freewill individuals with the exception of those who choose to operate by pride. I’ve learned this firsthand in my own dealings with individuals over the past four decades. Someone is an egregious sinner – help is possible. Someone is struggling in the faith or in a marriage or having a crisis of faith – a humble heart before Him makes all things possible. But show me a proud heart, arrogance, bold justification for sinMissing the mark of faith and love—no punishment, just lost growth or peace., rationalization for self in marriage, or proud condemnation of God’s will and ways and I am telling you, God Himself cannot engage with such –

The Impact of Pride on Faith

and they will ultimately find themselves alone.

See, the existence of pride or humility is in the free will hands of each individual. In other words, by freewill, each person is free to humble themselves (that is why there are commands to humble thyself in scripture or the presence of things God might do to help us choose humility over pride) or NOT. To refuse to humble ourselves is to embrace pride – and that serves to shut the door on God’s ability to work, reach, help or heal.

Over the years I have been involved personally with a young man in the faith. We were friends based on our united love before Our God and our devotion to Him through Christ. He possessed a real zeal for truth and sought to walk with other believers in faith and love. People were not always nice to him in the faith and so in time their failure to fully embrace him and his needs began to wear on his dedication to Christ through faith. In due time he began to take his eyes of the King and His Kingdom and to look to Man, to this world, to this Kingdom and all it has to offer.

The Journey from Faith to Pride

He started taking PRIDE in His sexuality – being gay though not practicing. And began to say things like I’m proud to be gay. I’m proud of how Jesus made me. And of course his dalliance’s with the Pride Parades and outward expressions of his homosexuality became more and more of his focus. He would, at times, ask me about my thoughts on homosexuality and I always said the same thing – I don’t think homosexuality is an issue with God, but I do think pride in homosexuality is. Just like I don’t think my love of women is an issue with God, but pride in illicit engagements with them would be.

That wasn’t enough. He couldn’t just be gay. He had to be outwardly PROUD of his gayness. That has not work out well because from there, and with that attitude in hand, he began to take longer looks at this world, and its problems which amounted to less and less of a focus on Him and His kingdom. Soon he began to express super humanism views, and actively engaged with all sorts of social issues, wherein he found a community of souls ready to receive him and His person.

Consequences of a Prideful Path

He began to say that they were his real friends, His real community, and proudly compared them and their “open love” and support for him and his needs with the limited love and support he was getting from so-called Christians. I watched as his pride swelled – pride for his way of living, pride for his way of seeing the world, pride for his activism and his Christian outreach for the lost and disaffected, and pride that he wasn’t just a Christian by creed by was a true Christian by deed. I began to hear him repeat lines and justifications that used Jesus name in almost everything –

Jesus fed the poor
Jesus loved the poor
Jesus didn’t even talk about homosexuality
Jesus . . .Jesus . . .Jesus . .

But What he was really PROUDLY saying was, “My way of following Jesus is better than others . . . “

PRIDE

That slippery slope took him down to a certain level. Then he began to smoke pot constantly. In and of itself, that is a personal decision for people who live in states where its legal but it became a constant state of mind. It helps me. It calms me down. I am fine with it. PRIDE

And then he decided, in this altered state, from his position of being proud to have been made gay by Jesus, from his place of walking the superior Christian walk compared to everyone else because of his active love for the lost, to pursue the wisdom of men when it comes to the existence of God.

Atheists. He explained that this was a means for him to test and challenge himself but I knew by this time he was sliding fast down that muddy slope. I knew it would not be long before he hit the only possible destination he could – and my suspicion’s were correct.

A few weeks ago he revealed to me the full effect of his pride – he was not sure that there was a god any longer, or that Jesus was what he once believed him to be.

The Role of Faith and the Challenge of Pride

told him that this did not come as any surprise and when I explained watching his slippery slide over the years was why, I was met with all sorts of utterly proud justifications for every step slipped. He mocked my views as being religious, and when I told him that I am the least religious man on earth he said that all of my views were based in a religious mindset, that what I was telling him was what the Mormons used to tell him, and that all he was searching for were facts. I learned in our conversation that faith to him was now somewhat mockable, and that he wanted to be what he said was “a man of facts” – facts that he was ostensibly getting from Christopher Hitchens, Matt Dillahunty and others. Some of the fact included the proof that the garden of Eden story was a myth and if the fall was a myth then the need for redemption from the fall was unnecessary and therefore Jesus was not needed at all. This was from the mouth of a man who just five years earlier couldn’t say a sentence without the name Jesus in it.

I tried to point out that Christians live by faith, that without faith it is impossible to please God and that faith is a choice – a daily choice. This perspective was shot down by his newly found rhetoric. Where our former conversations that orbited around every topic imaginable lasted for hours at times, this final conversation, at least from my perspective, as too much to bear – and I cut it – and him off for good – unless of course he humbles himself. As I hung up the phone I thought hard about the course of our fellowship. And I realized that for years I was able and more than willing to face long conversations about the faith, doctrine, serving others, questions and open thoughts about being gay.

Humility and Open Heart

I wondered why I had such patience and then it hit me – because the whole time my friend was humble before the Lord. He had a willing heart that was prone to putting God and his perspectives first. As long as His heart and mind were centered on the living God I had no issue hearing about his issues. He could have told me he raped city rats and if his heart was soft and humble in the face of it all, I could and would have hung with him. But when he slipped down that slope to the point where he was proud of himself, proud of his views, proud of his ways and arrogant toward other souls – especially souls who seek God in Spirit and Truth – I realized that there was nothing left to stand on between us.

There was no where for us to go. He was his own self-man man who was now operating by facts instead of faith. He was good enough in his flesh to be proud of his homosexuality. His wisdom allowed him to stay high every day, and he was profound enough in his mind to now see Jesus as a myth – to the point that he assign the good he brought to his life in years past as man-made feelings. I thought about God and His ability to reach and help and heal people and say firsthand the role pride can play in His inability to work.

The Sin of Pride

Its not sin. I don’t think sin keeps anyone out of the Kingdom. Except the sin of Pride. The sin of not humbling oneself to the dust before our maker. The sin of thinking that we as created beings know more, and know better, than the creator. Rejection of faith -pride. Reception of human intellect – pride. Acceptance and promotion of self – pride.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the Father let his son take what was owed to him and to go and use it as he saw fit – a freewill act of pride on the boys part. And the story Jesus tells is that it was only when the boy “came to his own senses” and chose to return to His fathers house, that the Father was then able to respond in aide. We have all been bestowed as creations with the ability to freely choose how we will see the world around us – from a secular position or a spiritual. And we are all responsible for whether

Humility and Pride

We will humble ourselves before our maker or if we will lift ourselves up in pride, actually deluding ourselves before Him and others that we are wiser, smarter and could do a better job than him. I’ve seen pride consume some really good souls to the point where they see themselves as stronger, better and more insightful than God. In the case of my friend I have also experienced firsthand how it's possible to get to a point with someone where reaching out, helping, loving and being a friend can only go so far—and that we too, like God, must let such souls go and to live by their own devises—all the while hoping and praying behind the scenes that they, like the prodigal, will wind up in the mud eating pig food . . and will “come to themselves, or their own senses, and humbly return to the Father of Lights.”

Upcoming Ministry Shift

Remember, we are making a major SHIFT in the ministry next year. And we are inviting any and all who want to be part of the shift to send us an email with your name and state or country of residence. We will get back to you in the future with what is going down. But just trust us now that we are making plans for the better and will announce them in early 2022.