Hi Ricky,
I need the question answered please, How is it possible to HONESTLY love God from the Heart without free will, or is that just a choice.
Here is a section from the transcript 'Free Will is an Oxymoron.'
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php?topic=5154.0 ---------
Eph 2:3 “Among whom also we all (how many? ALL - including the great apostle Paul) had our conversation (behavior-conduct) in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were BY NATURE the children of wrath, even as others.”
Excuse me, but what happened to everybody's free will in all this? By nature we’re
“the children of wrath.” But supposedly only if love comes from this free will, which by nature….is wrath. How is that good? If you love somebody through free will, that means you loved them for no reason at all. Isn’t it better to love somebody for a reason? Isn’t it better that we love God for reasons, that we have reasons for loving Him? Guess what those reasons are? They are CAUSES! But there isn’t any causes in ‘free,’ so it does away with the free will concept completely and totally.
Jer 13:23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, (no) or the leopard its spots? (no)
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Maybe this email will help too.
http://bible-truths.com/email18.htm ---------------------------
Hundreds of totally deceived and spiritually blind Christians have told me that: "God does not want robots to love Him-- He desires people to love Him by their OWN FREE WILL." Oh really? And can the carnal mind indeed love God by its own nature; its own heart; its own desires? NO IT CAN'T! And so the very thing that Christians demand as necessary for our love for God to be genuine, is the very thing that totally disqualifies it from being genuine. The natural mind is totally incapable of loving God:
"For the carnal mind is enmity [deep-seated HATRED] AGAINST GOD..." (Rom. 8:7).
It all starts with God, not with us:
"We love Him [God] because He FIRST LOVED US" (I John 4:19).
God created mankind spiritually WEAK--subject to the lusts and sins of his own heart, so that man will learn that he CANNOT love God first; he cannot obey spiritual laws and commandments; he cannot please God; he cannot accomplish anything of lasting value through his wicked and deceitful heart. (Jer. 17:9). And therefore God's ways will justify His means. The rewards and the blessings are not even to be compared with the glory that God is creating in the human race (Rom. 8:18).
And so here is the answer to your question:
BEFORE spiritual conversion man FALSELY THINKS that he has free will and is for all intent and purpose a god unto himself.
AFTER spiritual conversion man will be eternally thankful that God never gave his such a foolish concept as "free will," or he would never ever realize the marvelous highest of power and glory that God has in mind for him.
And presently, you and some few others, are in between these two extremes of human understanding. I will pray for God to grant to you "spirit of wisdom" so that you will comprehend and apprehend the marvelous and mysterious working of our God.
God be with you,
Ray