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Free Will

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graceman:
Kennymac...I particularly liked your story.  I'm thankful that God is delivering you from the BIG LIES concerning where life comes from.  Thanks for sharing your testimony. :)

Phazel:


Thanks everyone for the encouragement.  I slowly come to more understanding and try to see the truth.


In some ways its like this.

I read and study and I feel the way I feel.   I think about giving up, but I do not.  I see others who have given up and thats when I start thinking more about choice.


But....

More and more I see that Gods purpose is beyond this life.   I cannot help but read scripture and see that because I cannot stop reading and searching Gods truths even when thinking about giving up, I can only conclude that God is drawing me and I can onl;y think this because God has allowed me to think it.

My individuality comes as a result of my understanding of it, rather than saying I chose to do any of it on my own.

I think of others who have given up,   but did they?  or does it seem like it because we are bound in the deception of choice.  If  Gods purposing everything, then what they did was a part of Gods plan.


I still have a long ways to go, but hopefully I am not one of those who God allows to give up.

Deborah-Leigh:
Hello Phazel

I think you are starting to get it! You are starting to see who you are as reflected by the choices that you are making! :D And more importantly you are starting to see who God is in His Sovereignty!  ;D For me this is called judgment. 1 Cor 11 :31 For if we searchingly examined ourselves, detecting our shortcomings and recognizing our own condition, we should not be judged and penalty decreed by the divine judgment.

Welcome to the body of Christ!

Peace to you

Arcturus :)

Kat:
Hi Phazel,


--- Quote ---If God is the only one who can grant me this faith, why do I desire it while it seems to elude me?
--- End quote ---

It takes time, if your eyes are being opened, you are in the race.
I like what Arcturus said,


--- Quote ---If at first you do not understand….then try….try and try again. Reading the papers on the Myth of Free will is so easily written and is a clear step by step meditation that you can digest bit by bit.
--- End quote ---

Every time you go back over it you will gain more insight, but it takes time for all this to soak in  :)
But take comfort that you are in the race, and the prize will be worth it.

1Co 9:24  Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.

Salvation is a free gift for all.
But there is a prize,
it is only for those few that God has chosen to "run that you may obtain".
And God will give us the encouragement we need, so that we will press on.

Phi 3:14  I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

This prize is only for those who God shows that Christ did not die to the flesh,
so that we could live in it, but that He died to the flesh so that He could live His life in us.

Gal 2:20  I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

This is what it means "who now rejoice in my sufferings on your behalf, and I fill up the things lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, on behalf of His body, which is the church;" Col 2:20.

Christ did not suffer so that would not have to suffer.
He suffered so we could be counted worthy to suffer with Him and, "fill up...the afflictions".
We are predestined to endure,  "If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us." 2 Tim 2:12

Phi 1:29  For to you it is given on behalf of Christ not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake,

We are "... joint-heirs with Christ; so that if we suffer with Him, we may also be glorified together."
Rom 8:17  

We can not fully comprehend how great a privilege it is to be among the elect,
the blessed few who press on to obtain the prize.

mercy, peace, and love
Kat

JDH:
This is going to sound odd, but isn't possible that we have free will and don't have free will at the same time depending upon perspective.  Let me illustrate.  If you are in a car traveling a hundred miles and you throw a ball in the air, to you the ball is not traveling that fast.  To an outside observer it is traveling at least a hundred miles an hour.  Now take the idea of free will.  Within the space-time continuum all of our actions are of our own free will.  This however is assuming time exists.  Now in God's perspective, time doesn't exist. God was and is and will always be. This would mean that God knows all that has and will happen, in fact he deemed it to be so.  That being the case though, is it not possible to have free will within our microcosm.  It is more of a human concept to say that we have choices that we must make.  That does not necessitate that it be true outside of time, only in our own universe.
Just a thought

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