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Just need to vent how about you?
Ricky:
Hello Rick, good post. I could vent, if I did, God could make Hell very real and just for me. What if I were to say, I cannot love God because I dont have free will. Who's fault is this mine or His. Everyone here would say its my fault, I would disagree. Bless you all. Ricky
Ricky:
This is what I believe. In order for a human being to truefully love God, he or she Must be sinless, Jesus was sinless. And being sinless is Impossible to do, no free will! ! Its almost like you would need free will to be able to change certain things in your life to have some kind of power against sin. If you were God would you have created life the way it is, the human answer is no. I could go on and on. Ricky
arion:
--- Quote from: Ricky on November 22, 2013, 06:49:42 AM ---What if I were to say, I cannot love God because I dont have free will. Who's fault is this mine or His. Everyone here would say its my fault,
--- End quote ---
Not so quick with the broad brush Ricky. I think that most of us would think that it isn't your 'fault'.
Joh 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw [drag in the greek] him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Joh 15:16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you............
Rom 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Salvation is all of God and not of man. We can't come to Christ on our own power, we can't love him of our own power either. God holds us accountable for the actions that we willingly [in our minds] make but in the end God is responsible. One doesn't have to be sinless to love God. I'm sure you would admit that all the apostles loved Christ and certainly the apostle John loved Christ and they were not sinless....not by far. But it wasn't until Christ gave them of His spirit that they could truly say that they loved him. They thought that they loved him, at least up unto the time that they abandoned him in garden just as it was prophesied that they would.
rick:
Hi Ricky
There is so much I need to learn, so many things to understand but after reading your post to this thread I realize what I need more than anything else is to except God’s plan, yes I don’t have a choice in the matter.
When I was apart of Christendom I believed everything was up to me to get saved, I knew and believed in hell and lived in fear because of it, I could not stop sinning in spite of knowing sin would condemn me to hell.
Now being apart of B.T. many false doctrine have been dispelled from me and I’m learning God’s truths and now know there is no hell. So I excepted there is no hell, I except I have no free will nor choice.
I’m relieved knowing everything is ordained of God and knowing that comforts me in a way that I never had all these years.
I’m not angry at God because he controls me completely and everything I had ever thought, did or said was what He intended for me to do, for whatever reason it was important for me to experience all I had experience.
A few weeks ago I had felt uneasy because all at once I saw everything as corrupt the government the religious leaders my own sinful nature and everything I watch on the news just got to me.
Then I did this thread because of these things I had experienced but after reading all the responses and learning from those responses I now know why God cause me to go through all those things I did.
Love and peace to all. :)
loretta:
Tks Kat for your kind words of encouragement. Indeed it is all thanks to our Lord Jesus that we will someday stand in the presence of God, as sons and daughters of God, fully made in his image. I have been reading and re-reading this thread as I am still struggling to fully understand this free-will thing. I must confess that I am not a very prayerful person, so whatever changes that have been wrought in my character are a result of being purged in the fire, not in answer to prayer but by the purpose of his will. The truth about the lof squares very well with my personal experience. And so does free will . In hindsight all the choices I made in life, the good, bad and ugly were not free at all. I didn’t ask to be here at all, nor did I ever desire to be in the first resurrection, I didn’t even know about it till coming to BT! So if it has been such upto now, doesn’t it follow that I will not have a choice in the matter hereafter? Ofcourse, God will not take me screaming and kicking into the his kingdom, in the first resurrection or second, but will give me a new heart that will pursue him and his righteousness. And in this I rest.
Reading Doug’s posts in this thread makes me feel like I’ve become complacent, that I'm not exerting my free-will, since coming to BT. But I’m not complacent and I don't have a free will. Rather for me, this is enjoying the Sabbath rest after having strived all of my time in Christendom to achieve that perfection that is obtainable only through the working of Christ’s spirit in us. In the lof ofcourse! I don’t believe that resting in the truths of free will and God’s sovereignty, is adopting a defeatist attitude and here’s why. I prayed as best as I knew then for a good marriage. I didn’t get what I hoped for. Those days there was a lot of overcoming, there still is, but its more relaxed. I didn’t pray to stay married for 16 years but God caused circumstances that didn’t allow me to be divorced. Am I happy? Not always. Am I an overcomer. Yes! Do I believe that God is working all things together for my good? Yes! It is the faith of the Son in me and my faith in Him (the Word) that helps me overcome. I don't have to work at it.
So how does this square with 1 Peter 2:11-12,
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
I believe that the answer is in 1 Peter 2:15,16
For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.
It is in recognizing that our real freedom is in submitting (no free will here either) to God’s will. But we can know this real freedom, only after passing through Babylon, having strived in our own will to be overcomers, which is not wrong per se. The beast as I am coming to see, not only does evil, but also self righteous deeds, leading us to believe that we have the power to save ourselves, to be overcomers.
As I see it, in the OT, the law was a mirror. In the NT, the Word is a mirror, so in Babylon, when we’re confronted as believers with the Word, we realize how unworthy we are and we strive for perfection. It is only after experiencing defeat that God shows us the ultimate truth (free will and God's sovereignty) that we can do nothing of ourselves. In my experience, God has dealt with my sins. The sins I still struggle with I know he will deal with in his time.
Just venting.
Tks everyone for sharing on this thread. I've learnt so much.
Tks Rick. Like you I'm still learning and enjoying every bit of it! :)
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