A Life Worthy

Tag: free will

  • One-a-Day Monday 9/21/14

    number 1I’m a big C. S. Lewis fan.  His apologetics are inspired, and Narnia is the home I long to find someday.  Recently, I have rediscovered his poetry, and I want to share a bit of it with you this week.  No, it isn’t Scripture—but it will definitely make you think about the One who loves you.

    Legion

    Lord, hear my voice, my present voice I mean,

    Not that which may be speaking an hour hence

    (For I am Legion) in an opposite sense,

    And not by show of hands decide between

    The multiple factions which my state has seen

    Or will see.  Condescend to the pretense

    That what speaks now is I; in its defense

    Dissolve my parliament and intervene.

    Thou wilt not, though we asked it, quite recall

    Free will once given.  Yet to this moment’s choice

    Give unfair weight.  Hold me to this.  Oh strain

    A point—use legal fictions; for if all

    My quarrelling selves must bear an equal voice,

    Farewell, thou hast created me in vain.

    Beloved, did you ever wish that God weren’t quite such a gentleman?  That he would back off just a bit on the free will and force us to be the person we want to be and only sometimes are?

    Yeah…me too.  It seems we are in good company.

  • One-a-Day Tuesday, 2/25/14

    number 1For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son that he might be the firstborn among many brothers (Romans 8:29).

    Free will vs. Predestination…do you really think that I’m going to attack that in a two-minute devotional?

    O.K., real quick…

    It’s both.

    We have 100% free will, and God 100% predestined us to come to him.  Call it “God Math.”

    The best illustration I have seen of the concept goes like this: picture a sheet of paper—just your basic computer paper.  If I told you that I could fold that paper so that it was a triangle and a circle—at the same time—you would probably think I was nutty.

    Because you would be thinking in two dimensions.

    But I’m thinking in three.

    See, in three dimensions I can fold that paper into a cone, which will look like a circle from one angle and a triangle from another angle.  Add a dimension, and the impossible becomes simple.

    We operate in a three-dimensional world—well, four counting time.

    How many dimensions do you think God operates in?

    So let’s not get caught up in if or how predestination works.  Let’s focus on the fact that you were called, not to be a slave, not even to be a servant, but to be a son of God, brother or sister to the firstborn among many brothers.

    That there’s enough to chew on for a Tuesday.