Hi all,
“If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?”
I don’t remember what I did, but I remember mom’s stinging question. She was trying to make me realize I was responsible for my actions. She was telling me my free will combined with common sense and rightness were more important than what my friends were doing.
Angels and humans are spirit-beings created with free will
It seems from scripture that spirit-beings are eternal, have the ability for spontaneous speech rooted in their spirit, and have free-will.
This makes sense as Hebrews 12:9, Zechariah 12:1, Isaiah 42:5, Psalm 104:30, Job 33:4, and Deuteronomy 32:18 all state the Father God creates us by His Spirit. Therefore we are eternal like our Father, develop thoughts expressed in speech like our Father, and have free will. We are all created ‘alive to God’ like Adam and Eve were, naked and innocent, having to exercise free will on whether they wanted to follow life, or sin.
(This explains why the Bible says nothing about just ending Satan’s or an unbeliever’s existence. We are spirit-beings, a spirit cannot just be ‘ended’, as far as we have been told, because we were created from the eternal Father.)
We are therefore sovereign beings. During a visitation in which the Lord was teaching me about angels and demons, He asked: “When you see a demon, what does it look like?” As I described demons I had seen, large and small, how they seemed to be a rather shriveled shadow of some former self, the common trait I said was; ‘They are always naked’.
He said, “Very well. And when you see angels what do they look like?” I described their various heights, skin colors, hair, robes and styles of those robes, and such, but the common trait was; ‘They are robed’.
He said: “When Lucifer rebelled he and the angels who followed him were stripped of their righteousness, sealing their decision. The angels who stayed (retained their original) and were given robes of righteousness, being sealed in Me by their decision. Similarly, people who choose Me are sealed by the Father’s Spirit and given robes of righteousness…” (II Corinthians 1: 22; Ephesians 1: 13, 4:30; Rev 4: 4, 7:9, 13-14, 19: 7-8, 14)
What the Father spoke to me about it when I was a teen
I had been reading Colossians 1: 12-13: “Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of His holy people in the kingdom of light. Who has delivered us from the authority of darkness and transferred us (translated us) into the kingdom of His dear Son.”
He said: “Your body gives you authority in the earth as long as it lives. But when the body dies, your spirit and soul automatically become subject to the kingdom you’re a citizen of.” (Yes I know poor grammar, but I was a kid and that’s how I talked, so that’s what He said.)
There are many testimonies of people who have had near-death experiences, in the midst of the process of dying, in the last gasps of their body, being pulled downwards into darkness and terror, who remembered Jesus and called out to him. When they did, their downward motion immediately stopped. Sometimes they report a hand of light or a being of light, or Jesus Himself, pulling them back up and into their body, now to live and tell their story that others may choose to believe.
Your body gives you authority in the earth. But your citizenship is set by the ‘condition’ of your spirit. Either it has been recreated by the Spirit of God and you are now a citizen of the kingdom of light, or you are of darkness.
“For you were darkness, but now you are light. Live as children of the light live!” Ephesians 5:8
If all that happened were your sins were forgiven, you’d still go to hell.
That’s because it isn’t the forgiveness of sins only that allows a person to enter heaven. It is the cross AND the resurrection, which brings the recreation of the spirit.
Legally, hasn’t the Father forgiven the sins of every person who has ever lived or ever will live? Yet how many millions are still rejecting Him, deciding for hell? Sins are forgiven, but that doesn’t mean everyone automatically goes to heaven.
No, every one of us must decided, of our own free will, to believe in Jesus. What is it about that act of free will that allow us into heaven? It is the fact our spirit man is at that moment, recreated by the Holy Spirit, making us able to be a resident of that pure and holy place called heaven.
The cross paid for our sins; the resurrection provided the power to recreate our spirit man.
Both are required: “For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory and power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.” Romans 6:4
“That the eyes of your understanding would be opened, to know….His (Father’s) great power to us who believe. It is that same mighty power (working in you) He exerted when He raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His own right hand…” Ephesians 1: 18-20
The power the Father exerted to raise Jesus from the dead, was set in motion at that moment in time some 2,000 years ago, and has never stopped. It has never lost its power, and is the same power working in you and I to conform us into the image of His Son. The angels said “He IS risen.” That is an eternal condition – IS risen. The power that raised Him into that condition of eternal ‘risen’, is the power working in our spirit man to this day.
Let that sink in. The power that raised Jesus from the dead, is that exact same power working in your spirit right now. All we have in Christ. Every experience you’ve had in Him, every time you’ve felt His presence – all that Paul said, is the same mighty power from the Father that He exerted when He raised Jesus from the dead some 2,000 years ago – that same power is in us!
Next week will pick up from there, especially about our sovereign will and fighting for and learning about our free will. What do we do with all that power in our spirit?
You are a sovereign being. You are eternal. The power that works in you is the exact same power unleashed on resurrection day and will continue until your own resurrection day, and beyond! Your spirit has been recreated by the Spirit of God. That makes you a citizen of heaven, and no man or demon has the authority or power to change that.
Until next week then, blessings,
John Fenn
