Free will and Heaven

[cmnahrwold]

When we pass on and go to Heaven is there free will? According to Dave on Justlife.tv, he says that God will not force us to love Him. How will that play out in Heaven? Are we in a sense forced to love God when we enter Heaven? We become like robots? How is that true love? Adam and Eve lived with God, and they choose to rebel.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons why we struggle and suffer so much in our lives. This is a bus station in which we truly learn to choose and love God no matter what the outcome or sacrifice. Through Jesus Christ we are justified, through the Holy Sprit we will become sanctified to be more like Christ. Once we pass over into Heaven, we will have the same heart of love as Jesus did?. We won't be like robots, but like a young child finally embracing our true Father.

[SERay]

I wrote touching on that here: http://www.eternalpath.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38

It’s the age old debate of predestinations, freewill or in theological terms, do you adhere to Calvinism (irresistible grace) or Arminianism (free will to choose)?

Based on what I have understanding of, when we die and go to the temporal heaven where souls await, we will not operate from corporal bodies as we know them, and our thinking will not have any earthly bent. We will not be given to the pull of the flesh or the sin nature, we will instead reciprocate a innate desire to worship the Creator from our souls. No force required, it will be natural. Picture being fully released from all the shackles on earth, worry, aging, impulses, anger… we will be fully separated from all those earthly ties. We will carry memories, however we will understand the conflicts, hardships and pain as the Creator sees them, and not grieve in a way that we might now. Additionally, like a indelible stamp, we will carry the nature of our character, thus how we will recognize others.

Remember, we are promised glorified bodies like Christ’s, therefore are first death experience will reshape into something else later. This is what I understand without digging through scriptures to proof text every statement That would take too much time right now.

[cmnahrwold]

More Thoughts

But was is the point of all of this on Earth? I don't mean to disrespect God and His grand plan for us, because I know it is the best plan, but I can't help but to wonder why? After the Adam and Eve debocle, why didn't He just wipe the slate clean and create phase two in which you described: "When we die and go to the temporal heaven where souls await, we will not operate from corporal bodies as we know them, and our thinking will not have any earthly bent. We will not be given to the pull of the flesh or the sin nature, we will instead reciprocate a innate desire to worship the Creator from our souls. No force required, it will be natural."

I know, I know, I must be a humble servant like Job finally learned in the end of his book and accept that God is all powerful and all knowing for our greater good. I wonder if we just have to experience this World to truly appreciate what we will someday have in Heaven. Somedays I just want to die early to get away from this mess we call life.

[SERay]

Extended Thoughts

Those thoughts you are reflecting on move into some serious mystery.

Scriptures imply God created everything with US in mind… now you must realize that concept alone is immense! He is said to have created us in His own image, again not talking about our bodies in particular, but our ability to think, create, rationalize, theorize, love, feel… etc. The soul image. Our bodies are merely soul conveyances which were designed to coexist within this planetary sphere, subject to its physical laws and related substances for existence.

As much as we yearn for a cohesive family unit, the Creator is said to have desired for a family of children to interface with in a physical universe. He didn’t need us, Scripture implies He created us out of His good pleasure to do so. Now think about having 20 kids and 18 of them went bad… would you wipe them out even though logically, it would probably make sense? No… you would love them because they were your children. Yes, at times, the Hebrew’s theophoric Yahweh was said to resort to radical purging for the sake of cleansing the human race. Like you must discard rotting apples to preserve the good ones. The Creator doesn’t operate with this type of contingency now, but is subjugated to a covenant of mercy. But we still experience the unfortunate calamities of life by means of nature, aging, corruption of environment and the terrors betrothed by evil imaginations.

I will be bold here, very bold actually … I think personally, that God is a universal power (not the pantheistic metaphysical pagan type), although contained as a single entity… much like the aspired Trinity being described as separate but one. He is not our human form as we think, but a soul type. A transcendent essence, expressing itself as a vibration pattern found in all life, although spiritually separate. Did you know the earth has a resonant frequency (vibration) of approximately 8 Hertz? All life forms vibrate at a frequency, and it seeks synchronicity or harmony in its environment… this is proven science. Insert a person of a certain vibration (biorhythm) in non-synchronous environment (bad relationship for example) and you will have problems, at all levels. There all immutable laws, break them, and there are results. Discover the laws, be subject to them and live at your maximum potential

Anything that contains a living cell is still responding to the words that started it all. His Genesis commands that brought forth substance from the ether. Even though said millenniums ago according to our time, that “breath” or pneuma word still propagates every millisecond, new life… down to a cell splitting or an embryo being fertilized. In association with this life is a opaque energy of His spiritual presence residing simultaneously adjacent to the physical dimension, within the same complex dynamic of any pattern of living cells. Many painters have depicted this spiritual-physical dualism, illustrating the saints as glowing. Implying God’s spirit was co-dwelling the same space, radiating from the corporal.

But when the fall of man occurred, this simultaneous collective was breached at a soul level, immediately the man-creator connection was severed. The intimate cohesive oneness fell away in much the same manner as the thin protective ionosphere dissolved during the global deluge. Leaving the earth vulnerable to toxic radiation which decreased mankind’s life spans to 130 years. The grand designer of all holds to certain principles and he is indeed the master mathematician. I understand there is an equation that must be completed before He can in fact restore the early blunder made by our created parents. A curse of sorts, a time of reckoned must be passed through in alliance with the fixed laws of this physical realm and the indiscernible laws of the spiritual. This period is undeniably nearing a close to those of the faith.

From the Creator’s position, the fall occurred only a second ago, so what we think is a long time is actually nothing from where time does not exist. The parallel dimension of no space, time or matter, where our spirits will translate once ejected from our expiring bodies. This dimension which has no measure because it has no physical content, is adjacent to us, in us and around us. If this was not true, our soul could not co-habitate a physical body, however it is undeniably and intrinsically intertwined with matter. But again, the spiritual realm is not connected TO matter, it is merely parallel to it, in a seamless way. The spirit cannot be one with the physical or it could not be feasible conduit for our spirits over into a heavenly realm. This same conduit can also lead opposed to the heavenly realm to a place of desolation. We can resist the laws of the physical to some measure, but when going by way of the spiritual, we will have no ability to alter our course when passing over. In abbreviated terms, I think our spirits will “slip-stream” to their inclined destinations, sometimes by aid of other spirits meeting us as reported by NDE (near death experience) testimonies.

I know all this might sound like the twilight zone, and it does… but after years of study in various areas, this is my frail conclusion, albeit very weak for lack of empirical evidence or personal experience. Only scriptural revelations and reality as it presents itself.

[Joe]

To Live or To Die

Your writing was inspiring Eternal Path. The reference to the “breath of God” and new life every millisecond was most refreshing. I do believe He/She is a most loving Spirit that is alive and with us all times, all ways.

Cmnahrwold who sometimes wishes an early death might begin to think of all the many ways he can be of greater service to God in love and harmony. True understanding and reason is only revealed through Him who created all things, so seek Him in all things. After Merrilee died in June 1999, I wondered just why am I here? I wanted to be the one taken, not my wonderful wife. I began to slowly look at living each day of my life as the “last” day. I wanted to be prepared to be one with Him, through Him, and in Him, and know that Merrilee is too. I stopped wishing for an early death and began to at least try to free myself form the bonds of slavery to pain and suffering I have committed and was living in. Your own past might just be a similar experience as are all other who have let the truth set them free. Blessings my brother.

[Joel]

In the next "life" we know that all things have passed away and there are no more tears. ref: Revelation {21:3} And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God [is] with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, [and be] their God. {21:4} And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. {21:5} And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. KJV

We also assume that relationships as we now have aren't present in that life:

Ref: Matthew {22:29} Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. {22:30} For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. KJV

Mark {12:25} For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. KJV

We also know that God is worshipped by choice and that there are lots of folks going to be there

Ref: Revelation {21:22} And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. {21:23} And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb [is] the light thereof. {21:24} And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. {21:25} And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. {21:26} And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it. {21:27} And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither [whatsoever] worketh abomination, or [maketh] a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life. KJV

We see there are going to be nations, and a great city which by measurement is 1,500 miles high, wide and deep. No one knows why the great city of New Jerusalem will be so large. It could be symbolic, but we are given these dimensions. We are told of kings of the nations bringing their glory and honor to this city. The scriptures inform us that we will 'be as the angels which are in heaven', but that doesn't necessarily me we will be spirits. Rather than spirits I should think that the glorified bodies will still have a free will. After all, God's likeness includes free will. We were originally created in his likeness, and will have a glorified body of his likeness with all former things passed away. Consider sorrows, emotional scars, impure memories, temptations, etc no longer existing. The works of the flesh as we no them will be gone. This wondrous life God has presently provided us is our one chance to overcome the fall of Adam, deny the works of the flesh, unite with God's spirit, and prepare for an eternity with the master of all creation. If with our free will in this life we choose Christ over the worldly pleasures, then we also choose servitude to God throughout eternity with all former things passed away. Many thins we know now may never be remembered then, but many things we remember now are often of sorrow. How will we be able to want or desire anything more than to be in the presence of God? How could we want relationships? How can we be lonely?

There are many questions that we won't have the answers to until that time has come. The reality is that when that time has come, we may no longer remember the present questions and not need any answers since the God of all answers will dwell among us.