Hi Michael,
What do the Scriptures say about this free will stuff:Php 2:12
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but
now much more in my absence, cultivate your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Php 2:13
For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Below is something you could read to put things in proper perspective about
WHY GOD DOES ANYTHING.Excerpt from: Who and What is The Fatherhttp://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,4472.msg34384.html#msg34384God puts us in the same situation, we have to live our lives. You may say, well I’ll just kill myself. Not unless God wants you to, you can’t kill yourself if God doesn’t want you to. Everybody that ever killed themselves, it was after God said... okay, now you are going to kill yourself.
He is in control of EVERTHING, through circumstances. He doesn’t make anyone kill themselves against their will, no. But He puts them into situations where they can’t tolerate life anymore and their own will becomes, I want to kill myself.
[Someone ask the question: Is that why Christ was always in prayer?]
Well yes, it’s like the old saying; act like it all depends on you and pray like it all depends on God. That’s the way you should live your life. He could not help but pray.
What appears to be contradictions are not contradictions, when you have a higher spiritual understanding of what it’s talking about. Let me show you a perfect example and it sounds like a contradiction, but it’s not.
Phi 2:12 “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”
Doesn’t that contradict this whole thing... we’re saved by grace and not of works? Now we’re to work out our own salvation? What is that? How do you explain that “Of Myself I can do nothing” (John 5:30)? And He said YOU can do nothing (John 15:5), to the apostles. Then Paul says “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” Well it does sound like a contradiction. But read the next verse and He tells us why. "For" now that word always means ‘because' or it’s another word for because.
Phi 2:13 “For (because) it is God who works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”
Some of you probably still don’t get the answer, but it is there. "Work out your own salvation," is not the gist of that saying. He is not saying, work out your own salvation(.) No, He’s saying “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, that’s where the emphases is, on fear and trembling, not on work out your own salvation.
You work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, why? Because it all depends on God! If God doesn’t do it, it won’t happen, IT WON’T HAPPEN! So we live in fear and trepidation.
I cannot drive down the street, being the safest driver that I can be and know that I will avoid an accident, if God has already determined I’m going to have one. What it doesn’t mean is you can drive down the road foolishly... or you don’t need to wear a seat belt... or close your eyes for a while... or something like that. But you do have to act it out. Why? You have to, He makes you.
He made you come out of your mother’s womb and He made you cry. Not that He forced you, but circumstances, He brought about all the circumstances. He made you cry, makes you grow and makes you fight with your kid brother.
You do all these things and people reach a place where they get tired of it. So we have plays like ‘Stop the world I want to get off.’ It's like I’ve had enough, I’m at the end of my rope and it’s the end of the line. Well it’s only the end of the line IF God has determined it’s the end of the line.
If say you came to that conclusion at 8:30, and He knows you won’t die until your 77 1/2, then you're not going to end it.
That’s where the fear and trepidation come in. It ALL depends on God, there’s nothing you can do. But YOU have to work it out. YOU have to get up and go to work. YOU have to do all this stuff.
Then you say I don’t want to anymore, well circumstances make you.
So you think, I’ll just end it all... then your child comes up and says ‘Mommie.’ Now you say, oh my gosh I have a child, I can’t kill myself I’ve got to live for my child. You see?
So God makes you live this life. He makes you do all this, HE MAKES YOU DO IT. But not against your will. He puts you in circumstances and that’s the only way you can go. The ONLY way!
You think, 'I shouldn’t have done this or that.' That’s right you should think that way. You should think that... 'I shouldn’t have done that,' because then you're learning.
george.
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Topic: My approached to prayer has changed (Read 8080 times)