What Is Free Agency?

          I realized one of the major stumbling blocks, especially for LDS members to get over, is that of FREE AGENCY. It is supposed that free agency is inviolate. That God will never require us to lose our agency. But is that really the case? Man was given his agency in the Garden of Eden. That means that its purpose was intended for this earth life alone.
          It is further supposed that only Satan desires to keep man from free agency. That it was his plan to deny man their agency from the beginning. In point this is true. However, the difference between the plan of Satan and that of Christ was that Christ allows men their agency to choose and Satan would not allow it. And yet the gospel requires us to submit all our heart, might, mind and strength unto God to take upon us the name of Jesus Christ. What becomes of free agency after making such an acceptable sacrifice? It is gone!
          This means that we are required to lay down our free agency as an acceptable sacrifice of a contrite spirit and a broken heart. To enter into the kingdom of God where it is HIS will that is done and not our own how could it be otherwise than that we forsake our own free will to become subject to the name of Jesus Christ and have rights with God in his kingdom, or in other words righteousness. We become the sons and daughters of God when our will is swallowed up in the will of Christ just as his will was subject to that of his Father.
          So it is this that makes the proud stumble and the stubborn rebel against the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is why they invent another gospel that is pleasing to the carnal mind. That mind is full of pride and self will and wants to be free. To enter a kingdom and become its citizen you must submit to the dictates of the King.
This is what needs to be repented of. Sins too, of course, but the natural man's free will must be placed upon the alter for God to savor a sweet sacrifice that is meet for his kingdom. And of course it required the utmost faith in Jesus Christ, that he is a righteous judge and will always command that which is for our good. That is where faith in Jesus Christ is put to the test. Do we trust him with our agency all in all. Well? Do we?
          And what of those who are made partakers of the heavenly gift, even the powers of God's regeneration and turn from it and become self willed and anger and blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, putting Christ to an open shame? Perdition awaits where all are  forced to partake of the second dearth.  So the free agency of man would be serious liability to keep under such a threat. Better to use it for what it was intended and that is an acceptable sacrifice.
          After we receive the gospel and are wrought upon and cleansed it is a constant dynamic to keep ourselves  perfect in Christ by our continual subjection against our own free will. God does not remove free agency from us. It is however, always required of us to submit. Thus we worship God and his Christ forever with a vitality that is never stale or rote. The gift of God in bestowing upon us free agency and our submitting of that agency unto God, by faith, turns all the love turbines of eternity and keeps spiritual entropy form having any claim upon us. This is really good stuff that makes alive and vital our love of God and even that of our neighbors as ourselves. Rejoice that you can partake in such eternal dynamics and live in a fullness of joy.

What hinders Zion? (posted on another site)

Nightlion (new 9/5/09) « Thread Started Today at 12:53am »

This site has in mind what I have been about for finishing up now on forty years. Rather than consideration of any of the needful infrastructure to build up a population center for Zion, I have studied and evangelized the spiritual foundation of Zion. The results are flat. Nobody is interested in the spiritual rudiments of Zion. Why? The short answer is because the is no faith on earth. The long answer combs through the years of LDS hypocrisy and traditions that say Zion, and sing Zion, but will not do Zion. Again, but why? They do not seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. They seek first rather their own lives, what they shall eat, and what they shall drink, and what they shall put on for raiment. These are the things the Gentiles seek after. There is no Zion therefore. Zion cannot be built except by the law of the gospel of Zion. The gospel of Zion is not the conduct of life of those who inhabit Zion. The gospel of Zion is their letters of patent. The gospel of Zion is what warrants the children of God citizenship within the kingdom of God upon the earth. Only to be born again of water and of the Spirit constitutes the gospel of Zion and the gospel of Jesus Christ. LDS are fond of preaching the living of the gospel. They imagine that they are born of water and of the Spirit. By deceit they profess to know the Lord. This is a grave error. For it presupposes that the gospel is not a rite of initiation and that the gospel is not entering in at the gate to stand upon the rock of Jesus Christ. They assume that they have their entire lives to live the gospel and inch by inch perfect themselves until they are worthy and able to abide in a state of Zion. The Lord makes saints by the visitation of the power of the Father in the promised baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost. This makes Zion alive in those who receive it. This changes the heart of man to love God with all the heart, might, mind and strength. Only by this gift of grace can a human soul build up and establish the purposes of Zion. Every other way must fail and fall away. Drawing therefore a line in the sand between saint and non-saint will cause the fearful and unbelieving to shrink away and persecute and mock and vilify that which they do not understand and what they will not seek. Become Zion and watch them react like a village gone mad. It has followed me these many years. Zion is for all eternity. Anything that is not done by God's law and in the name of Jesus Christ will be shaken and destroyed. There is no end to the numbers who will join any cause who are never required to accomplish a standard of performance that must qualify them to begin. Having an uncompromising standard of receiving the power of the gospel in the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost has, to date, disallowed everyone. There is no standing criteria for how one is to go about being truly born again after one hundred and eighty years of the existence of the only true church. Fantastic! There is no class you can take to teach you how this is truly accomplished. There is no handbook. There is no living examples of LDS leadership who can say with certainty how it is accomplished, manifesting in word and deed with even a single conversion to equal what has been written and known about it in all scripture down through out the long history of man upon the earth. Alma the Younger did little else with his life. So long as pride endures, and the age of wonders increases to overbear upon that pride, man will never repent. He will not fall down as the king of the Lamanites did to give away all his sins and all his possessions to know that there is a God. The gospel is to know God. The manifestation of the visitation of power truly witnesses that God is real and you thereby know him. You would think the LDS Church would have excelled at this from the beginning and would shine today as fair and the sun and as clear as the moon and as terrible as an army with banners before the world. But it has denied Zion and only used its image to enhance rhetoric. There never was Zion from the authority at the top down in LDS history. Thereby the people think it apostasy to presume Zion otherwise. I suppose that Zion today must be apostasy from the LDS Church. Who can hear it? Who will do it. The Lord waits.

Come to Zion

The time to favor Zion has arrived. The stone cut out of the mountain without hands has been revealed. The ensign to the nations has been uncovered before the eyes of all the people. The final cornerstone has been laid. Henceforth Zion shall put on her beautiful garments, break the bands from around her neck, come out of the wilderness of darkness and obscurity, as fair as the sun and clear as the moon, and as terrible as an army with banners having put on her strength to break forth in singing:

Come out all ye from Babylon
Sing Zion's songs
And build the New Jerusalem
Begin in your heart

Lesson 1. Put on the strength and power of Zion
No man comes unto Christ except the Father draws him. John 6:44
Those who receive Christ in this world shall know God and be with God throughout all eternity.
Christ instructed the Jews to wait until they received the promise of the Father.
That promise was the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost.
There is nothing you can do to get this blessing.
It must come from God, by his own power, in his own way, and at the time of God's choosing.
It must remove from you, the heart of stone, and give you a heart that loves God.
No, it is not you falling in love with the idea of loving God. It is an act of creation that works upon you by the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost to create a new creature. You cannot discipline yourself or psyche yourself into this state of righteousness. Only God can put you there.
The results of being placed into this state of righteousness cannot be faked or pretended to.
The hallmarks are apparent to true saints. All know by precise experience the same things.
If you do not know what I am talking about then you are not yet there.

HOW DO I GET THERE?

Christ taught the sermon on the mount to answer this question. He said take no thought for your life, what you shall eat,what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on..........................But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:25...33

You are on your own. Unless you know of a true saint who can assist you, today's world, where one man can reach out to the entire globe at once, leaves every soul alone to work out their salvation, and wrestle with the Lord until he blesses them. I did it alone with no one telling me how to, or what to, or nothing. I was purely drawn to it and accomplished exactly as all scripture show. No process of any church on the planet teaches you how to accomplish this. It is too rare in this day and age. Our time made even Christ to wonder: Luke 18:8....Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

Yes. I am saying you must quit your job and leave father and mother, sister and brother and not cloister in isolation like a hermit, but go out and show mercy and compassion and charity to the world around you. Go out on foot and walk amongst the people and notice them all for the first time. Look the strangers in the eye and be kind. Seek to overcome all your prejudices and be meek and poor in spirit. Distill within your own heart a yearning for God's love to come into the world. Seek to repent and to be forgiven and more desire to have a new heart that can retain the love of God continually. Cry mightily unto the Lord in all your thoughts, cease not all the day long and into the night, day after day, until it is enough and you know that you can do no more. Pray that you might be qualified by the Spirit in your submission unto Christ at all hazards come what may in your life. Wrestle to take upon you the name of Christ with full purpose of heart., that he might bless you as he blessed all the holy men of God before you. For this is what you must become too. Equal with all by the same faith. Yes it is possible. If you are of the truth.

If you seek the Lord with all your heart, might, mind and strength he will draw you and that drawing should not be resisted. If you need to seek out a proper baptism and truly want to manifest through baptism your desire to die to this world's crafts and cares, to leave them buried in the water and rise up a new creature in Christ Jesus seek that from those saints who have done this before you. If you cannot find any pray for it with full purpose of heart. God can provide all things needful to those who believe.

If you are involved in a church that tells you not to worry and that Zion will take care of itself in its own time, realize that they are not Zion and never will be. Your baptism MIGHT be valid IF you can truly receive the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost. In the changing spiritual climate that has shifted just this year, 2009, all things must be proven again. Prove all things and hold fast that which is good.

Zion shall begin from a small effort and grow until it fills the entire world. All that is not Zion shall fall and vanish in time. The earth will be cleansed of all iniquity that it might rest for a season.

Zion declare yourself!
zruth@q.com James Q. Muir