This is not what I have been saying but it brings up an interesting question in my mind. Let me ask you and others a question: if you could give God 100% control of your life would you do it? And, if so, then wouldn't you be merely a "puppet" of God? If not, why wouldn't you give God control?
'Since you are not sovereign in your existence then you have all to boast of because your god made you for salvation while making others for hell. What a mystery that you even bother 'going into all the world to share the Gospel of God's Grace in Christ'
You assume that everyone wants to go to heaven. We share the gospel to others because we commissioned by our Lord Jesus to do so. Now whether anyone listens to what I have to say or calls me a quack, heretic or something worst; it doesn't matter. As long as I'm faithful in spreading what I happen to know is truth based upon what the scriptures teaches and in alignment with historical traditions (e.g. not Catholic traditions mind you).
In all seriousness and with a humility I cannot even express in writing, if you are not given sovereignty over your choices then none of the other items in life amount to anything greater than puppeteering you along a timeline.
Leaving aside the "puppeteering" charge for a while, this statement is where your error is and often why I'm so opposed to "free will". I can trace any heretical view back to "free will". Please note the denial of God's sovereignty over His creation in your statement. You believe that God has given you some of His sovereign powers. How much of His sovereignty did God give you?
Sorry, but I have never believed that God gave up any of His sovereign rights. He is the Master of the Universe and in total control. To think that God acquiesce partial control is not scriptural.
Joh_2:24 But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people
(1) FIRST, I have not denied God's Sovereignty over His Creation. That is just plain false. In fact I have affirmed His Sovereignty and nothing I have suggested to you is to the contrary. Don't frame a falsehood over what I have posted, so that you can try and attack your own mischaracterization.
(2) Second, you are apparently unable to comprehend that when God gives us free will and thus freedom to choose to love Him or not that such a GIFT subtracts nothing from God's Sovereignty.I will presume that you love someone, some other human being not you, so do you lose something of yourself when you love someone who is not you? Is something subtracted from you when you love someone else? The Bible teaches that in fact when we love others, it adds to us!
What Jesus gave as the two great commandments are absurdities if we believe we have no choice but to love God and love our neighbors, especially if love subtracts from us, somehow! To even entertain the lie that in loving someone else we lose something of our self is a lie whispered straight from the sulfurous mouth of satan!
(3) And third, God gave me NONE of His sovereignty in the sense of subtracting something from Him, because I cannot step outside of the Universe He created to exercise any degree of omnipotence over what He is Sovereign. even as I am free to choose to love Him or not, I have subtracted no sovereignty from Him in either act.
He created me in love, such that I may choose to love Him. Early int he letter to the Romans, God tells us that even the creation itself bears witness to His existence and the beauty of His work shows His love for us. John 3:16 says God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever ... Had he not created me with the ability to choose to love Him then we are but puppets, lead soldiers placed upon a game board. What God declares as His living Love for us becomes not a gift at all if we have no choice but to take it. It becomes a command, and commands are not delivered for love they are delivered for obedience. But of course if we start down the road of comprehending obedience before we learn what Gift means, well, that's grist for another mill.
If you cannot, or refuse to, see the reality of that cross being a gift offered to a free will because you somehow feel more secure in the notion that God created you with no choices in your destiny, then I can see how you have yet to comprehend the 'love letter' that is The Word made flesh Who dwelt among us.
You asked, "... if you could give God 100% control of your life would you do it?" Are you so dense that you don't yet realize God being the Creator and the attentive Sovereign of His Creation ALWAYS has the means to take 100% control, but --and this is crucial for you to understand, as it is fundamental to what the Bible teaches from cover to cover-- though God can take 100% control of results at any moment in any life at any place in The Universe, He has chosen in His Grace to not do so, so that you or I can have the illimitable treasure of His Life if we by our free will choose to accept it.
For the sake of the following thought experiment, assume that I have billions in my bank accounts. If I take $1000 out of your checking account merely on my own whim and offer it to you as a free gift, is it a gift? ... If I take $1000 out of my checking account and offer it to you as a free gift, is it a gift? What if you choose not to take what I offer from my account, is it any less an offered gift? Now apply the following clue: if I own the bank in which you have your checking account, what does that do to the first notion where I take from your account and offer it to you as a gift?
So you don't have to strain at gnats and swallow camels, I'll explain it to you: if I own the money in your checking account and offer it to you as if a gift, I'm not offering you a gift, I'm just showing my power over all the money in the bank.
Let's try a more difficult concept now ... If you fall in love with someone, are you going to demand they love you back? Can you compel them to do so just because you demand it? Well, you say, demanding someone love you to get their love is not in your power to do. You cannot force another human being to love you, but you believe God can do just that. You have based you premise in this thread on the notion that God forces love from you toward Him. Now you might object, asserting that I am changing the focal point, but did you not just pose a question to me that has at it's basis the notion that I have a right to choose: "if you could give God 100% control of your life would you do it?" Isn't your question absurd if I have no free will to give such control? Do you yet see how the notion you would have me accept makes 'giving', 'gifts', 'redemption', and 'love' non sequiturs?
If you want to be but an automaton predestined to whichever fate comes, no one, not even God will stop you from plunging into the abyss. BUT, if you choose to take His offered nail-scarred hand and be pulled away from the abyss, you will have, immediately, eternal life in Him. If you choose to argue with Him over offering you a gift, then you will be led astray by the one who is appointed as accuser of the brethren. God offers the gift of Salvation, now, at the moment you read these words. Please accept it as His Graceful Gift to you, for when you do accept the gift you magnify His Son Who died for you and died for any WHO WILL ACCEPT The Grace of God in Christ. If you wander off muttering to yourself that God is Sovereign and you really have no choice to make except what the strings upon you dictate, then you will lose this opportunity to have the gift, for your denial that you must choose, well that denial denies His Son the Glory in His work for you.
I write of course to those who read this essay, not just to you, HarleyD, for I do not know your heart, only God does. A promise from God is not a Promise if He gives no room to accept it or not to, it become a command not a Promise.