Everything that lives receives its life from our Heavenly Father.
Everything that breathes receives its breath from our Heavenly Father.
Our Heavenly Father is the Holy God of Israel.
In the first of the Ten Commandments that God wrote with a visible finger onto stone tablets in the presence of Moses, He says, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 31:18).
It is true that much of humanity throughout history has failed to take the First Commandment seriously.
God is simply stating the truth when He has claimed to be the One True God. Of course, He knows better than anyone else that all other claims to the contrary are false (Isaiah 45:5).
Anyone or anything that is referred to as God or as a god, whether it be a fallen angel, a human, an ancient moon god or an inanimate object with a face painted on it, is not a god at all and has no power whatsoever. All would-be gods are false, and even the ones with followers in the billions have no more power than a doorknob. Actually, and literally, a doorknob has considerably more power and ability than any false god and also serves a much greater purpose. A better analogy would be this: A false god has no more power than a speck of dust in the wind.
The One True God, the Holy God of Israel, is the only God there is, and He is the Lord of all creation (Jeremiah 32:27).
He spoke the earth and all creation into existence, and He sustains all of creation to this very day. That includes the entire universe and beyond (John 1:1).
That would encompass whatever is on the other end of black holes as well as any parallel universes, other dimensions or even twilight zones, and any never seen or hidden places of any kind.
Without the Holy God of Israel, our Heavenly Father, the Great I Am, He who declares the end from the beginning, there would be nothing. Nada, nyet, zip zero. No life, no planet, no people, and no universe. Just a big empty, lifeless void of silent nothingness.
Anyone who saw the cartoon movie called “Yellow Submarine” might recall a scene where the Beatles song “Nowhere Man” was playing. In that scene, the Nowhere Man was lured into the Nowhere Land, and in that place, there was nothing. Nothing at all. It was a nowhere land for nobody.
There was also a SpongeBob cartoon where SpongeBob and Patrick got stuck in a place just like the nowhere land. Just a big white void.
In both cartoons, we get a glimpse of what nothingness looks like. The blandness and boringness (if that is a word) of it would be truly suffocating, even as it was for cartoon characters.
If not for our Heavenly Father and His Son and the Holy Spirit, there would be no creation and none of the beautiful things that make up creation. There would be absolute nothingness. The only difference between any of us humans and the aforementioned cartoon characters is that we would never know the difference. And yes, in case you missed it, The Nowhere Man, SpongeBob, and Patrick all managed to escape from those zones of nothingness and back to their cartoon realities of the Yellow Submarine and Bikini Bottom.
However, there is an Actual Creation, and we humans are in it. We are in it alive and breathing, and we have free will choices to make here in this creation. Choices that determine our eternal destiny.
Since our Heavenly Father, through His Son Jesus, spoke all creation into existence and then created human beings in His own image, He can do whatever it is that He sees fit to do with His creation. After all, it is His creation (Genesis 1:27).
It’s like the potter and the clay. Does the clay dictate to the potter what form it will take, or the size, or the color, or anything at all? No, the clay has no say in the matter.
We humans have no say in the matter as to how our Heavenly Father, the Holy God of Israel, captains His universe or the timing He uses to carry out His plans. And why should we? He created the universe, and He owns it. It belongs to Him. It is His universe and His Earth. He is the potter, and we are the clay.
Any human that believes and behaves as if it is the other way around is most likely existing in the upside down, inside out, and delusional false reality described by the Old Testament prophet Isaiah in Isa. chapter five, verse twenty. That mindset is where a human being sees things backward. That place where a person, by their own choice, can sever their hearts and minds from truth and at the same time believe themselves to be fully enlightened or “woke,” actually seeing and being convinced that good is evil and evil is good.
Our Heavenly Father, the Holy God of Israel, created humans and bestowed in each of us the ability to make choices (Genesis 5:2). Free will is what we call it. This free will that our Creator bestowed on each of us when He created humans in His image is without limits.
Yet, God has provided plenty of guidelines for us, such as the Ten Commandments, the teachings of Messiah Jesus to love our neighbors as ourselves, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and many, many more. Guidelines to encourage us to make wise decisions and choices.
But still, our free will is without limits or restrictions. This gift of free will without restrictions implies true freedom.
How we as humans use or misuse this freedom is up to each one of us as individuals. It can be used either for the greatest good or the greatest evil or anything in between. So many of the wrong choices humans make and have made throughout history hearken back to the Garden of Eden.
Never, in the six thousand or so years of recorded history, have men and women stopped falling for the original lie that the serpent fooled Eve and then Adam with (Genesis 3:1-19).
Jesus said the gateway to the truth was narrow (Matthew 7:13-20), few would find it, that the way to destruction was wide, and many would go down that road.
What other reason would there be for that statement other than the fact that so many human beings, through their own free will, continue to fall for the original lie that “knowing good and evil will make us like God and that we will not surely die if we eat of that fruit?” (Genesis 3:4).
People who have bought into the serpent’s original lie in the Garden end up deciding for themselves what is good and what is evil.
Eventually, because they have discarded the wisdom of God and relied on their own foolish thinking, whoever buys the lie can easily become a walking definition of Isaiah 5:20 without even having the slightest clue as to what has happened.
Actual pots of clay have no ability to denounce the potter, but human pots of clay possess the free will to denounce the ultimate master potter. The very Creator who spoke all of life into existence.
When they do, they shatter the first commandment by recreating God in their own image, and that is exactly what Lucifer, when disguised as the serpent in the Garden of Eden, had in mind. The results are a disaster. Once a person becomes their own god, they then lose the ability to understand that they are lost and in need of a savior, which leads them to reject the offer of salvation, usually with arrogance and mockery.
There are all types of false gods, including deluded humans who are convinced that they are wiser than He who spoke the universe into existence.
Free will has no limits when following the original lie to its logical conclusion by traversing the wide road to destruction that eventually leads to the White Throne Judgement and then eternal separation from Our Heavenly Father, the Holy God of Israel, and thus a reservation in the Lake of Fire.
That terrible place that was originally designed for Lucifer and the other fallen angels that followed Lucifer in the first rebellion against our Heavenly Father. Lucifer, also known as Satan, is the same one who told the first lie to Eve in the Garden (Matthew 25:41).
Because of satanic-inspired human rebellion and rejection of God and the gift of salvation, the Lake of Fire will also include unrepentant, wicked humans.
What about the other side of the coin? What about using unrestricted free will to reject the lie that we can be like God?
What about believing everything that God says and believing nothing of what Lucifer or any of his minions say? What about using our God-given free will to do the exact opposite of what Lucifer/Satan would have us do?
The few who enter at the narrow gate, however many that may be according to Jesus, have done just that.
The first step is to recognize that our Heavenly Father, the Holy God of Israel, is God, and we ourselves are not. We have never been God, and we never will be. To humbly know that He who created all of life is so much greater than you and I. To know and be grateful that He is the potter and we are the clay.
To trust Him to make each one of us into something beautiful and worthwhile.
To allow Him, the Master Potter, and of our own free will, to mold us into someone who is faithful and true so as to be able to live forever in an immortal body. Someone who will gladly and graciously, throughout eternity, share the wonderful gifts our Heavenly Father has uniquely bestowed on each and every one of us. To allow our Heavenly Father, the Holy God of Israel, to create in each of us a new heart.
A heart like His heart. A heart that puts others first. A heart that does not wish to see any perish and yet, at the same time, despises wickedness.
And it starts by using our unrestricted free will to recognize what Jesus, the Son of God, did for each one of us 2,000 years ago on that cross on top of a hill called Calgary.
Our free will allows us to understand just how amazing and enormous our Heavenly Father’s love for us is when we see clearly the magnitude of what actually took place on that cross.
When Jesus said in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s own life for one’s friends,” He meant it, and He proved it there on that cross. Jesus, God’s only begotten Son, the same Jesus that spoke creation into existence, was willing to take upon Himself the confines of a human body and allow that body to be beaten mercilessly, nailed to a cross that would lead to death through suffocation, and while on that cross, absorb every sin that you and I and all who have ever lived or will ever live has committed or will commit, upon Himself.
Jesus was the only one who had the power to do such a thing, and He did it. He didn’t have to do any of that, but He chose to do it. And He did it because He loved us as friends who were worth laying His life down for. Even if we did not deserve it.
He died for us on that cross and was laid in a tomb. After three days, He rose from the dead, spent 40 more days on earth with His disciples, and then ascended to heaven to prepare a place for us (1 Corinthians 15:3-8; Acts 1:9-11; John 14:3-10).
We, being all who of our own free will, graciously and thankfully and with repentant hearts, accept His free gift of salvation along with the many beautiful eternal promises He has made to us as believers. Promises that are a part of our Heavenly Father, the Holy God of Israel’s amazing plan of salvation and eternal life. Eternal life in awesome immortal bodies free of pain, death, and the temptations of sin. Eternity in an indescribably wonderful place that will be separated from evil and all the cruel lies that accompany evil. These promises our Heavenly Father has given to us are to be cherished in faithfulness.
The intelligence and the wisdom and the amazing gracious love of God our Heavenly Father, the Holy God of Israel, is beyond human comprehension. The best that I can do is thank Him, praise Him, and adore Him.
One other thing I can do is ask those of you who do not yet know Him to invite Him into your heart and into your life.
It will be the greatest and wisest choice you have ever made with the free will our Heavenly Father has bestowed upon you. Romans 10:9-10 describes how to begin your eternal relationship with our Heavenly Father, His Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit who will lead you to the truth in all things.
‘If you declare with your mouth “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Blessings in the name of the Lord,
Rick Segoine