Hi all,
In my teen years after my dad left our family, I worked several different jobs. They included farm work baling hay and painting fence posts, de-tasseling corn, cutting weeds around an old factory, making pizzas at a restaurant, delivering furniture, and even working as a camp counselor. 
 
But I had a friend who grew up wealthy and only worked 'soft' jobs if at all, knowing he would grow up to inherit the family business. He didn't know what he had, or what it was like to suffer lack. 
 
Free will allows us to know all we have and what we don't have 
In my work I learned my physical abilities. I learned to control my emotions and how far I could push my body. I learned to budget money and know the value of a paycheck. I learned many life-lessons by using my free will to work and earn money. Exercising free will gave me that experience. 
 
When Paul wrote to Timothy in II Timothy 2, and told him to work like a soldier to please Him who enlisted him. In that day the Roman Empire drafted men who had the toughest lives. They wanted farmers and ranchers and shepherds, construction workers and laborers. They wanted young men who knew the rough life for they knew they could endure the hardship that goes with being a soldier. 
 
In our day a Christian may look at their rough life, their horrible upbringing, the mistakes they have made or injury inflicted upon them, and think that disqualifies them in the Lord. Some even doubt that He would want them. They mistakenly think because they struggle with their past God does too. They are wrong. 
 
He doesn't struggle with your past, He values it because He knows that is what makes you a great soldier in Him. Jesus died and was resurrected so you could know the power of overcoming your past.  You know the devil, you know your own weaknesses, you know the grace of Christ. You are exactly who He is looking for!
 
By your free will you have discovered the heights and depths the world has to offer, and have found Christ! The exercising of your free will is the means by which you have discovered what you have in Him. If you merely coasted through life you would never know what He has given you, and that there is a hell to lose and a heaven to gain. 
 
Free will gives purpose and meaning to life
Purpose is the belief that something has a use or reason for being. Meaning is the value we assign to that. It means having free will given by our Creator proves we have a purpose, a reason for being. Additionally, knowing we are in Christ gives us meaning - we are children of the Father, nobility in His kingdom. We have purpose and meaning. 
 
Many Christians come to the Lord searching for purpose and meaning for their life. We come 'as we are', meaning very often we come to Jesus valuing our lives based on our life experience, looking over our shoulders at our past. But we must exercise that same free will that led us to Christ by doing what Paul had to do: "I don't count myself as having attained...but what I do is this...forgetting those things that are behind; I press toward the mark for the high calling (invitation) of God in Christ Jesus.' (Philippians 3:13-14)
 
He is waiting on you
Because we are 100% responsible for our lives, we can move in any direction we wish. Some people come to a standstill in life waiting for God to tell them what to do. Most often though, He responds to our decision. When I was a teenager after my dad had left our family, I was looking for what I wanted to do with my life. I took art lessons, SCUBA lessons, flying lessons, and dropped out of them all because I was looking for that one thing that would fulfill me. 
 
When I met the Lord I went straight to the Father and found total fulfillment and purpose. Though at the time I doubted that Jesus and the Father would even want my offer to be in their service, at least I knew I would end up in heaven. But He was simply waiting for me to work through my thoughts and my emotions, eliminating the possibilities of what I'd do with my life, until I found Him. 
 
I could have followed through my high school plans and studied to become a Marine Biologist, and I would have been a great Marine Biologist who was a Christian. He would have been fine with that. I could have followed up on my college major, which was Recreation and Parks Management with a minor in Wildlife Management. I could have been a Park Ranger guiding people to the natural wonders of nature, and He would have been fine with that. But He let me work through the mechanism of free will as I eliminated what I really wanted in life, to walk with Him and help others know Him as well.  
 
It was free will that caused me to search for that purpose in life. That means exploring for the purpose, why we were put on the planet, is healthy, even godly, for in that process we discover what He has put inside us, and what He has not. 
 
Free will forces us to make choices
Adam and Eve were created and purposely placed in a garden that made them use their free will to choose Life or death. Israel was purposely brought out of Egypt to receive God's Word, and then told 'I have set before you this day life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life...' God was forcing them to make a choice. 
 
In John 6:1-13 a group of 5,000 men plus women and children came to Jesus, and He wanted to feed them. "He said to Philip; 'Where are we going to buy food so we can give them something to eat?' This He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He was going to do." 
 
God does not test us with evil; He tests us with choices. He sets before us choices and then watches us to see what we choose. And because we choose either wisely or unwisely, either the path of life and blessing or the path of death, we are 100% responsible and cannot blame Him for anything. He will always do what He can for us, based on what we choose. 
 
Free will allows us to know what we have, and what we don't have. Free will gives purpose and meaning to life. Free will forces us to make choices, forces us to be responsible for our actions, and in all these things we grow as human beings, and grow as human beings in Christ. Free will also means we have emotions, for robots have no emotions...and we'll pick it up there next week to close out the series. Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at cwowi@aol.com

Hi all,
Having established that we are sovereign beings and neither God nor the devil can make us do anything, we find that means we are 100% accountable for our actions.  We are sovereign, yet we are created, not self-existent, which means we are first and foremost accountable to our Creator, then secondly to each other. 
 
We are 100% accountable for our actions
We are responsible for what we think, what we feel, what we do. No matter if we live in a palace or a prison, we are responsible right now, today, where we live, for our thoughts, emotions, and actions. And there is provision to walk with Him in each of these areas, if only we will. 
 
In the Christian marketplace are all sorts of 'ministries' that are built around the idea someone else is responsible for our current condition. The common theme of each is that someone else is keeping me from being all I can be in Christ. For some it may be a great-great grandmother 2 centuries ago who let some spirit into the family and now that generational spirit is keeping me from being all I can be in Christ.
 
It may be that something happened to me when I was a child and so damaged me emotionally I am doing thus and so in my life and therefore cannot feel, sense, or be close to God. 
 
It may be God allowed some person in my life that did thus and so to me, making it hard now to trust the Lord.
It may be a man or woman of God I trusted fell from grace so that is why I stopped believing in God. 
 
There are all sorts of reasons which are at their core, nothing but excuses for not being 100% responsible for where you are right now in your thoughts, your emotions, your actions. Of course others do things that effect us, but we are to be as Paul stated in Philippians 4:12-13: "I know how to abound, I know how to be humbled, I know how to have abundance, I know how to have lack. I have entered a new dimension and can be independent of my circumstances, for I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." 
 
Don't shout me down now just because I'm preaching real good
New Testament truth says all things start anew once our spirit man is recreated in Christ. Stop trying to find the 1 spiritual key that will unlock heaven's vault of riches and provision for you. If we are ailing from an emotional or physical condition handed down through the family, the reason isn't important because what IS important is 'by His stripes you were healed' - that statement of I Peter 2:24 does not come with an asterisk stating 'except in cases of generational curses or involvement in the occult by family members in the past, or what someone did to you when you were a child.' 
 
There are certainly more mysteries in life than there are answers, but I am not charged with finding out each mystery about past generations in my family, but rather charged with walking with the Father and the Lord Jesus today, right now, where I am in life. There are many things we won't know this side of heaven. Rest in that and let it go. 
 
Remember the Ephesians who burned their books on the occult in Acts 19? Where in his letter to the Ephesians do you see Paul talking to them of their past, or their family history that opened the door to the occult or what past ancestor caused them to be in this or that condition, or their childhood to explain their condition in body or mind? 
 
There are none. He says simply to put on Christ and walk in Him - that is New Testament truth. Be responsible for you, and if there is a mystery as to why you aren't healed, or why you have such emotional difficulties, then seek Him for the answers, draw close to the Father and Lord directly for they live in you, and don't seek some formula or some 'spiritual specialist' to solve your issue. Consult others yes, but keep at the core your walk with Him. 
 
When we stand before the Lord to give account, it is not a heaven or hell judgement, but an accounting of what we have done since knowing Him. Paul told the Corinthians in I Corinthians 3:1-15 that some are mere babies in Christ eating the milk of spiritual things when they should be eating the meat of things. But because they refuse to grow out of envy, strife, divisions, and if they carry those things in them to death, they will be as wood, hay, and stubble burned away when they stand before Him. Paul urged them to lay those carnal things aside and grow up in character in Christ, forming spiritual gold, silver, and precious stones to adorn their lives.
 
No matter what has happened to you in life, right now, right at this day, lay that aside to worship the Lord and from this day forward take responsibility for your thoughts, your feelings, your actions. Come up to His higher ways and thoughts as we are told in Isaiah 55, forsaking your ways and thoughts. 
 
In short, we walk with God because He is God, not for what He will do for us. Purify your motives, we are 100% accountable for ourselves.
 
Free will allows us to make mistakes
The fact we are allowed to make mistakes also means God is in the process. As I've said before; "Very often God isn't in an event, He is in the response to an event." 
 
That means a person can meet Him on the path they took to avoid Him. 
 
It means He enjoys the process. In a quantum physics way we could say God is a Spirit with a Spiritual body and heaven is more real than the physical for the unseen created the seen. But it also means He has no way to experience the physical world except through human beings. In Himself in that Spirit-realm He is not limited to time and space, but by recreating us in our spirit man and living in us, He gets to live in and experience the limitations of time and space. 
 
He enjoys this process, this experience we call life. He isn't just walking with us through life, He is living in us walking through this life, knowing and feeling in Himself our thoughts, feelings, every emotional high and low and physical frailty. Mistakes come with being a human being and He is not freaked out we sinned yet again, or think this or that weird or ungodly thought. When He looked through the corridors of time and decided to give us Jesus on the cross, He did so knowing full and well the mistakes we would make even after knowing Jesus. 
 
"He gave us resurrection life and drew us to Himself by His holy calling on our lives. And it wasn't because of any good we have done, but by His divine pleasure and marvelous grace that confirmed our union with the anointed Jesus, *even before time began." II Timothy 1:9, Passion Translation *Greek: 'Before times eternal'.
 
You are allowed to be human 
Free will coupled with this grace will do one of two things for a person: Either they will know the grace and step up to be empowered and all they can be in that grace, or they will abuse the grace, taking every advantage of freedom for personal gain. Christ has made us free not to sin, but some take that freedom as a license for sin, as Jude wrote in v4 when he urged us, 'Do not to turn the grace of God into a license for sin.' 
 
We are allowed to be human, for in giving us free will He then by that action, had to make provision for the mistakes that come with giving free will to such finite and ignorant beings. That provision is Christ, salvation, forgiveness. But we are allowed to be human. 
 
I said that to a person in a store - they came rushing down the aisle pushing their cart (buggy, for those who speak the King's English, or live in the US south) and nearly ran into me and apologized profusely. I said, "It's OK, you're allowed to be human." They looked at me with a funny look of relief, saying, 'Thank you for that'. As they slowly walked down the other aisle I realized they needed that grace and that realization that day, that it is okay to be human. 
 
Free will means we are sovereign, but accountable to our Creator. It means there will be mistakes, but God can be found in the mistakes, in the process. It means when He gave free will to such imperfect beings, He also did provide for such frailty through Jesus on the cross and resurrection. He provided the solution in the sacrifice of the cross, and the power to live above natural human frailties in the power of the resurrection. 
 
Free will allows us to have emotions, and we will never know what we have unless we learn to exercise our free will...and we'll pick it up there next week. Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at cwowi@aol.co

Hi all,
This series is not about predestination, but about what free will is, why it is, and how it benefits us - which will explain a lot of the troubles we have in this life. But predestination is an issue for some, so let me address that before getting into our subject. 
 
Predestination is the belief that a person has free will in this life to sin or not sin, but they do not have free will to choose heaven or hell. They believe God has 'predestined' them to either heaven or hell. 
 
The error of predestination was started by John Calvin, a French reformer around the year 1530, and beyond that narrow line of thought you won't find it in Judaism nor 2000 years of Christianity.
 
There are 2 main verses predestination stands on. The main one is Romans 8:29: "For whom He foreknew, He predestined them to be conformed to the image of His son..." 
 
This verse says is that God knew from the beginning who would and would not be saved, and with that knowledge provided salvation for those who would want it. There is nothing here about being locked into either heaven or hell; it just states God knows all and provided salvation for those He knew would want it. That means free will is intact. 
 
Don't we make decisions at the start of our day to provide us options during the day? In my elementary school education my mom foreknew that my school day included a lunch hour, so based on her knowledge she made my school lunch, but also made sure I had money in my pocket. She foreknew there were times I would rather have the school lunch so she predestined me to have money to buy lunch if I wanted. Her foreknowledge and predestination (determination before it happened) was used to provide me a choice in lunches, which left my free will intact. 
 
Don't we based on foreknowledge make decisions before we leave for work in the morning, predetermine if we should take an umbrella in case it rains as forecast? Don't we take our lunch to work to eat there or put in the break room refrigerator if someone invites us to lunch instead? We have a basic foreknowledge of our day so predetermine a course of action based on that foreknowledge. That's all God did with salvation, for those who He knew would believe given the chance, He predetermined to provide salvation for us.  
 
Another verse often used to justify their doom is Romans 9:13 in the King James Version: "As it is written, 'Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.'" Paul here paraphrases Malachi 1:2-3. 
 
In Malachi, and in Romans, God is talking about His choice of Jacob to be renamed 'Israel', and the word 'hate' as many Rabbi's and Christian commentators point out, is not in context the active personally directed word 'hate', but rather that He made a distinction between Jacob (Israel) and Esau. 
 
In other words, God is not talking about the predestination of blessing for one brother and predestination of hell for for the other; He is merely talking to Malachi (the last book in the OT) about the history of Israel, contrasting the histories of the two peoples they represent. Esau was called 'Edom' and the Edomites hated Israel and refused to let Israel pass through their land after they came out of Egypt, as did his other descendants, the Amalekites, who fought against Israel in Exodus 17, and God swore He would destroy them off the earth for doing so. 
 
A small number of people still believe in predestination, which serves to feed their fear and emotional turmoil, remove hope and faith from their lives, and is used to justify their unbelief. Like anyone who wants to follow God, once such a person sees the balance of the Word and allows Him to reach down inside them, they respond to His love. But some struggle for years in the error thinking God has rejected them and there is no hope for them.
 
Free will - you are a sovereign being
When the Lord God made the first man and woman and put them in the garden, He pointed out that they had free will to choose life or death, blessing or cursing, spiritual separation from God or walking with Him. 
 
He strongly advised them to choose life, and strongly urged them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, as He said in Genesis 2:17: "...for in dying, you will die." Meaning, in dying spiritually, you will die physically. Paul restated this in Romans 5:12: "For by one man sin entered into the world, and death entered by sin, so that death has passed to all mankind..." 
 
I should state that 'spiritual death' is not a ceasing of existence nor of one being dormant spiritually, rather a statement of the nature of the life that is in the human spirit. The human spirit is eternal, the only question being of what kingdom is that person a citizen? A person who is not born again can still function in the spirit realm which is how those involved in the occult function, and certainly before we were born again we felt God's tug on our hearts in our spirit to respond to His invitation. A person who is not born again has a spirit that is alive in the eternal sense, but does not have God's Life in their spirit.
 
The Lord God set both trees before Adam and Eve and stated the consequences of making the wrong choice. Centuries later He did the same thing with Israel in Deuteronomy 30:19: "....I have set before you this day life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life that both you and your children will live and love the Lord your God..." 
 
Your will is stronger than God or the devil
We are sovereign beings, with neither God nor the devil able to make us do anything. The Lord God set the trees in the garden and gave instructions, but He couldn't make them eat of one or the other. The devil had to tempt Adam and Eve to get them to sin, but he couldn't exercise their free will for them. Free will means we are sovereign beings. 
 
Even in our New Testament times we are told we should cast demons out of our lives, and those whose lives with demons we cross paths with who want free, but we cannot take authority over the human spirit. We are sovereign. 
 
The trouble with most Christians is timidity from having no backbone
Once you realize your will is absolutely sovereign, you can be unstoppable for righteousness. The devil is out there, and we are not ignorant of his devices, but we have no fear for he cannot make us do anything, and if he so much as crosses our path we can rise up and command him away. It's that simple.
 
We try to influence the unsaved to walk with God, but if they choose not to, there is a kingdom called hell they may go to with others who don't want God, provided out of God's good grace for those who reject Him. He gives them what they want - a place without God - for He cannot force anyone to walk with Him. It is completely our choice. 
 
Millions of non-believers conquer sin in their lives simply by exercising their free will. They determine to stop an addiction, discipline their food, exercise, destructive habits, thoughts, and emotions from their lives, all to break free from all these things by exercising their will - without God's help. They get free by exercising their free will. And their personal demons back off because they find no place for them to exercise their will over that person, so they wander about looking for other victims to influence under their will. 
 
Yet how many Christians are in torment thinking they are powerless against demonic attack in dreams or through a person, or in their thoughts and emotions? How many Christians have been wrongly taught they are weak without Christ and are subject to the devil playing with them like a cat plays with a mouse before devouring its prey? 
 
Grow up Christian! Exert your will and stand firm! Your free will can only be influenced by God or the devil, but neither can make you do or think or feel anything. Your are a sovereign being. The additional fact we have Christ in us makes us the most powerful people on the planet. We not only have a free and sovereign will, but we have chosen to exercise that free will to walk with God and are therefore empowered by Him with tools to help keep us free and help others be free in Him. 
 
Period. Paragraph. Over and out - grow a back bone! Your free will is stronger than the devil!
I'll pick it up there next week, until then, blessings,
 
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at cwowi@aol.com

Hi all,
I closed last week talking about how Gallio the Roman Senator and Judge, had refused to make being a Christian a federal offense, but the laws were soon to change. 
 
Within a few years the Caesar's changed the law, making it required federal law to worship the Caesar and proclaim loyalty to Rome. Christians died by the thousands over the next 2 1/2 centuries because they refused to worship Caesar and proclaim their loyalty to the Empire. They were executed as traitors. 
 
Worship of the State or the leader
Historically, once the process of judging one's loyalty as a citizen by a person's religion starts in a nation and culture, it progresses over a relatively short time. Daniel was initially treated well, fed the best food, the best education. But over a short time the enemies in society turned his faith in God into being unpatriotic to the King. Daniel's open worship of the Lord was twisted as a statement of disloyalty to the king and laws of the land. 
 
In New Testament times, what started in Jerusalem as a dispute among Jews about a sect who believed Jesus is the Messiah, within a few decades turned into the accusation Christians were unpatriotic towards Rome. Their values were different, their allegiance was to Jesus rather than the government; they were counter culture. 
 
In Nazi Germany laws were made in 1920 against Jews, followed by others in 1933 and 1935. Dachau, the first Nazi death camp, opened in 1933 with rapid expansion within 10 years to over 1,000 camps through 1944. Besides Jews and Christians, political conservatives were accused of being unpatriotic to Hitler. Look at China today sending Christian Uyghurs and ethnic Han Chinese to 'reeducation' camps, which are well publicized yet nations still do business with China. 
 
What to watch for is this: 
Faith in Jesus will be looked upon as weird, unpatriotic, and worse; the reason a nation has trouble. First leaders, and then society and common culture will change because they will want to quiet or eliminate in some way, the influence of those with faith. As with Daniel, Jesus, 1st century Christians, Jews and Christians and conservatives in Nazi Germany; we will be blamed for the ills of society. We will be viewed as prevention a nation from progressing. 
 
What starts small, even on a local level, becomes federal within a few years. Fear that 'religious' people will force their values on a nation. Hatred for the principles that build nations and families becomes the norm. The State seeks to control everything. Media becomes a tool of the government. Character assassination and lawsuits directed towards selected situations, individuals, leaders, and anyone who differs with the State policy happens.
 
Neighbors spy on neighbors, laws are enacted to facilitate such things. Daniel was called a traitor after being spied on by coworkers. Jesus was betrayed by a disciple, and Peter, Paul and thousands of Christians in Rome were labeled enemies of Rome. The State tries to control everyone, and the media and culture help, seeking conformity and punishing those who are different. 
 
No matter the nation, the mob mentality wants everyone to conform and those who don't are labeled, separated, hated. In The Revelation, if you want to buy or sell, you must first state your allegiance to the system/man and then you receive a mark that allows you to buy and sell. Conformity. Uniformity. Allegiance. 
 
We see these things developing around the world today in whole nations all at the same time, and some Christians just as they did in Paul's time, will conform to the values of the ruling elite. But others will not. Thus we will see some churches going the way of the world in the name of being relevant, and some Christians who refuse to conform. We're not only different, we refuse to be the same. 
 
What Jesus is doing 
So that is the direction the world is going, but what is Jesus doing? He is moving in the opposite direction. He started in the home with Adam & Eve and has never left. His values have never changed: I was hungry, thirsty, naked, a stranger, sick, in prison, and you fed, watered, clothed, befriended and visited me. He is meek, lowly, approachable, come and be taught by Him. Jesus is about the people in the pews, not about the laser light show at the 'worship' or the coffee shop in the foyer. His idea of being relevant means taking care of people where they live.
 
He is all about everyday things like one's basic provision, connectedness, relationships, friendships. When the early church was born at Pentecost Acts 242 says their meetings included these 4 elements: Teaching, fellowship, food, prayer. Fellowship is holy, not an afterthought to a meeting as in, 'After our service we will have fellowship in the kitchen area.' They met in homes and knowing one another was important - and that is where God moved to heal, answer prayer, connect people in caring godly relationships. 
 
Without fanfare Jesus is moving in the midst of relationships among believers. We are seeing more healings, more miracles, more answered prayer in our network than ever before. It doesn't matter whether it happens in a web meeting or in someone's home, around the world the Lord is on the move. Being meek and lowly in heart, He doesn't seek media attention - He just goes about His business as He always has. 
 
In the visitation of December 2019 and in a recent visitation, the Lord expanded His comments to me about how house churches would be known as the place to go for answered prayer, provision, and miracles in one's life. .  
 
Christianity must be spiritual and have the Spirit of God moving in our midst
If we don't regularly have the Holy Spirit in us and through us towards others we end up having a form of godliness yet denying the power. It's not their fault: The auditorium church structure of service doesn't allow for everyone to move in the Spirit or receive prayer in small groups. As a result, we have Christians who know all about Jesus, but have never seen the Holy Spirit move in their midst. 
 
Worse yet, we have pastors who know how to lead a service but not how to move in the gifts of the Spirit. We have worship leaders who know how to lead a service, but not how to set the stage for the Holy Spirit to move in the midst. Many Christians know about Him, but don't know Him. They don't know the Father. 
 
We all need to know that Christ really does live in us and speaks to us, and guides us, and shows us things to come. Without Him in our midst we have a form of godliness but don't know the power thereof. 
 
Just like in the early church in Acts 2-4, just like in Rome during times of persecution, just like in nations in the last 2,000 years that have persecuted Christians, there is coming a time when many of those Christians who are in close relationships with others in home based meetings will have their needs met while many on the outside will be in need. Even in the US, we may have a reprieve, but that is all it is. Remember what the Lord told me 2/4/2001: "As it was in the beginning so it must be now; I'm moving in relationships." 
 
Sobering to think about - new subject next week, until then, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at cwowi@aol.com