Jo555
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- Aug 18, 2024
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Forgot to finish my smoking story.If i understand you correctly, i agree to an extent.
As a Christian from what i know of freewill, or the ability to choose, before conversion, is an illusion ... But i can elaborate more on your thoughts because i think we are kinda on the same page there. And excuse me if I'm not fully understanding you. I feel like I'm struggling in French class all over again.
Merci Beaucoup.
The apostle Paul covers this in the book of Romans, chapter 7:
14 So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. 15 I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. 16 But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. 17 So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
18 And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[d] I want to do what is right, but I can’t. 19 I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. 20 But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
21 I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. 22 I love God’s law with all my heart. 23 But there is another power[e] within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? 25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.
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In this chapter, and elsewhere in the book, Paul is speaking of the ineffectiveness of the law to change us because of spiritual properties at work. These spiritual properties are greater than our knowledge of good and evil and wanting to choose good over evil. This is the state of man before faith in Christ. More to it that i can go into later, but yes, prior faith the ability to choose is illusionary. The point of bringing choice in, and the law, was never to redeem us, but to show us our inability of our own.
As i like to tell others, you can test it. Life itself confirms these things.
Like i used to smoke. I tried to quit, but i just kept going back to it because knowing it wasn't good for me and just telling myself not to smoke just made the desire for a cigarette even greater. This is how partaking if the knowledge of good and evil works, or the law. It doesn't change you within; doesn't change the spiritual property at work. In other words, it doesn't change the heart.
It was brought in as a temporary measure to show us ourselves apart from the Lord's Spirit, given to those who believe in Father's God's work through Christ.
Whether you believe in God or not, it is hard to deny the depth of wisdom in there regarding human nature and properties at work.
So i would say that prior to faith, you premise is correct. I don't necessarily believe that is the case after faith, but not sure how affectively i can debate that because I'm still learning your language.
I ended up dropping french. Hopefully i can do better here.
So the knowledge that smoking wasn't good for me and trying to quit on that knowledge had no power to overcome my desire. Not only that, but just thinking about quitting smoking apart from love just strengthened my unhealthy desires. It doesn't have the power to birth love, but strengthens unhealthy desires in me. I didn't love myself enough to quit for my benefit either.
When i began to live with others i refused to subject them to second hand smoke out of love for them so i smoked outside (although they never forbid smoking inside).
Eventually, i found myself going out there less until i had no desire for it any longer. The Spiritual force of love won out over knowledge because knowledge has no life. It can only uncover the unhealthy desires that arise in me when i am not in love.
Sometimes i still buy a pack. Maybe once a year with the intent of smoking a few cigs. I can't get past two as i find myself wondering what i ever found in them.
This is a simple example of knowledge verses spiritual properties at work.
As Christians these properties, or spiritual forces, are seen as God's love gifted in Christ, by grace through faith, versus lust rooted in the self life; lust as the result of going at it apart from God.
How's my bilingual?
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