I've been thinking of attending a Presbyterian PCA church after being churchless for a long time. I've gotten very despondent with the non-denominational and charismatic churches we've been attending. The only part that confuses me about it is the part about being "chosen". What brought me to Christ was the way my life was headed, and someone spoke to me about Him. I'm confused
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Confused, please help.
- Thread starter SavannahSage
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Beoga
Sola Scriptura
I am sorry, I do not fully get your question/confusion. Are you asking what is the Presbyterian belief concerning election? Are you wondering how election "plays out in the real world?"
I am sure your questions will be answered, just further clarification (at least for me) seems to be needed.
I am sure your questions will be answered, just further clarification (at least for me) seems to be needed.
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McWilliams
Senior Veteran
Please dont agonize over whether or not you are 'chosen'.
Do you hunger and thirst for God, to know more of Him, to please Him, be obedient to His commands? Have you seen a change in your life for better, more caring for others and for being in His house regularly? If you read 1 John and see that you pass the test you can be assured that you belong to our Lord! The key is to humble yourself, submit to His ways and forego your own preferences, read His word and pray to Him! This pretty much describes those 'chosen' ones. You wouldnt be asking the question or showing concern if He was not at work in your heart! Praise Him for that and seek His face! Learn of Him!!
May He specially bless and guide you!
Do you hunger and thirst for God, to know more of Him, to please Him, be obedient to His commands? Have you seen a change in your life for better, more caring for others and for being in His house regularly? If you read 1 John and see that you pass the test you can be assured that you belong to our Lord! The key is to humble yourself, submit to His ways and forego your own preferences, read His word and pray to Him! This pretty much describes those 'chosen' ones. You wouldnt be asking the question or showing concern if He was not at work in your heart! Praise Him for that and seek His face! Learn of Him!!
May He specially bless and guide you!
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Beoga
Sola Scriptura
Certainly. We are not given the reason why specific individuals are chosen for life and others for death. Scripture does not provide us with God's "thinking process" concerning individuals. What we are told is that every single person without exception is a sinner deserving the wrath of God. God would be justified in condemning. What the Scriptures do reveal is that God has decided to set His love on a group of people for His glory. This decision on who is chosen for life is completely dependent on God and is not dependent on something special in the individual, even God looking down through time to see who would choose Him. In fact, it is not our decision that makes us chosen, we decide to believe in Christ BECAUSE God has chosen us for life.
A simple formula I have heard is that:
A. All who repent and confess Christ as Lord will be saved.
B. I (or you as you claim) have repented and confessed Christ.
C. Therefore I (or you) are saved
Again, the fact that we do confess Christ is an effect of our being chosen by God. The fact that we are growing in Christ, bearing godly fruit, desiring to know Christ, a hatred for our sin, etc. are a result of our believing in Christ.
So I ask, do you desire to know Christ? Are you growing in the faith (in doctrine and works)? Do you hate your sin? If you can honestly say yes to these things then you can claim to have genuine faith in Christ. If you can claim to have genuine faith in Christ, and only those that have faith in Christ are saved, then you can claim to be saved, and only the ones God has chosen to save will be saved.
I hope this helps clarify instead of brings on more confusion.
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Holy cow! lol. I'm more confused, but that's okay. One more question: So let's say a person is a Calvinist and is having lunch with a non-Christian aquaintance Do we not witness, or share our faith? How does it work?
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Beoga
Sola Scriptura
Yes, we do witness, for a couple reasons.
1. We are commanded to by Christ himself in Matthew 28. There is no better reason for why we should do something (like evangelize) than God himself commanding it.
2. The Calvinist do not know who are chosen for salvation. This being the case, we are to preach to all.
3. God has chosen the means by which He brings His chosen to salvation to be through faith in the gospel. There is salvation by no other means. That means that the gospel must be proclaimed, for how is someone to believe what they have not heard. This being the case, the Calvinist, like any other Christian, realizes it his/her duty to proclaim the Gospel to all so that all that will believe can hear this gospel and believe.
Hope that answers your question and I am sure someone more intelligent and better equipped with words will come along and explain this better than I. But feel free to ask more questions.
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mlqurgw
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Electing Love
Satan and his minions are very adept at taking the glorious truths of the Word, and by appealing to the carnal mind and natural inclinations of the heart, make those things that ought to be a source of wonder and awe to be confusion and darkness. We are warned to beware of the wiles of the Devil who is able to transform himself into the appearance of an angel of light. He is crafty and subtle in his work and takes that which ought to be food for the soul and makes it taste foul and putrid. He mixes the pure Word of comfort with subtle lies and half-truths so as to destroy the good Word of grace. One of his favorite means is the beautiful doctrine of Gods electing love.
No sinner who has been made to know his sin would ever say that he deserves mercy from God. The first work of the Spirit is to convince of sin, John 16:8. Though the sinner be as upright and good in the eyes of men or as vile and wicked as men may be, none can stand up to the righteous and holy requirements of God. The plumb line is drawn and no one measures up to its perfect standard. The best and worst all come short and are guilty before Him who judges rightly.
When God, by His Word, opens the eyes of the sinner to his sin he begins to see that all his supposed goodness and self-righteousness is nothing but filthy rags ( discarded menstrual clothes). The life he once loved becomes death unto him. The goodness he looked to becomes filth. He finds himself shackled to sin and with no relief from the burden. He finds that rather than a free man he is a slave. Rather than a good man a wretch. Rather than a rich man a beggar. The pit of filth that he once thought was clean now becomes a stink in his nostrils. His feet are stuck in the miry clay and he is in the prison house of the guilty. All that he supposed would recommend him to God he now finds condemns him. He takes sides with God in condemning himself. He finds that he is naked and that no fig leaves will cover him. He looks around to see if there are any who are worse than himself and finds none. He searches and finds that there are none righteous, no not one. He sees that there are none good and none who deserve mercy. All are as he is. If he could only find one who has done right and kept himself pure and spotless he might aspire to be as he is but there are none. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
But God, who is rich in mercy, comes to where he is and finds him sunk in despair and lifts him up from the miry clay and the pit of filth and sets him on a Rock that cannot be moved. It is God who has brought him to this place of despair in order to show him that righteousness and hope isnt in himself but in another. He has stripped him of all hope in anything of himself and puts him in the dust. He has made him to be a leper, an outcast from society, and unclean in his whole being. Mercy has brought him to this place. Mercy has made him a beggar. Mercy has stripped him of all hope in himself. Mercy has killed him that it might raise him from the dead into life everlasting. And it is mercy that points him to the Savior.
Mercy will never be found in religious works of righteousness. Mercy will never be found of them who look not for it. Mercy will never be found but only in one place: in the dust at the feet of Christ Jesus the Lord. He who was once crucified under the wrath of God for sin now sits on a throne of grace and mercy. He is the mercy seat, propitiation that covers the broken Law of God. He is that place where God has declared, This is where I will meet my people.
Continued:
Satan and his minions are very adept at taking the glorious truths of the Word, and by appealing to the carnal mind and natural inclinations of the heart, make those things that ought to be a source of wonder and awe to be confusion and darkness. We are warned to beware of the wiles of the Devil who is able to transform himself into the appearance of an angel of light. He is crafty and subtle in his work and takes that which ought to be food for the soul and makes it taste foul and putrid. He mixes the pure Word of comfort with subtle lies and half-truths so as to destroy the good Word of grace. One of his favorite means is the beautiful doctrine of Gods electing love.
No sinner who has been made to know his sin would ever say that he deserves mercy from God. The first work of the Spirit is to convince of sin, John 16:8. Though the sinner be as upright and good in the eyes of men or as vile and wicked as men may be, none can stand up to the righteous and holy requirements of God. The plumb line is drawn and no one measures up to its perfect standard. The best and worst all come short and are guilty before Him who judges rightly.
When God, by His Word, opens the eyes of the sinner to his sin he begins to see that all his supposed goodness and self-righteousness is nothing but filthy rags ( discarded menstrual clothes). The life he once loved becomes death unto him. The goodness he looked to becomes filth. He finds himself shackled to sin and with no relief from the burden. He finds that rather than a free man he is a slave. Rather than a good man a wretch. Rather than a rich man a beggar. The pit of filth that he once thought was clean now becomes a stink in his nostrils. His feet are stuck in the miry clay and he is in the prison house of the guilty. All that he supposed would recommend him to God he now finds condemns him. He takes sides with God in condemning himself. He finds that he is naked and that no fig leaves will cover him. He looks around to see if there are any who are worse than himself and finds none. He searches and finds that there are none righteous, no not one. He sees that there are none good and none who deserve mercy. All are as he is. If he could only find one who has done right and kept himself pure and spotless he might aspire to be as he is but there are none. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
But God, who is rich in mercy, comes to where he is and finds him sunk in despair and lifts him up from the miry clay and the pit of filth and sets him on a Rock that cannot be moved. It is God who has brought him to this place of despair in order to show him that righteousness and hope isnt in himself but in another. He has stripped him of all hope in anything of himself and puts him in the dust. He has made him to be a leper, an outcast from society, and unclean in his whole being. Mercy has brought him to this place. Mercy has made him a beggar. Mercy has stripped him of all hope in himself. Mercy has killed him that it might raise him from the dead into life everlasting. And it is mercy that points him to the Savior.
Mercy will never be found in religious works of righteousness. Mercy will never be found of them who look not for it. Mercy will never be found but only in one place: in the dust at the feet of Christ Jesus the Lord. He who was once crucified under the wrath of God for sin now sits on a throne of grace and mercy. He is the mercy seat, propitiation that covers the broken Law of God. He is that place where God has declared, This is where I will meet my people.
Continued:
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mlqurgw
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Continued:
Look there on the throne and see Him who is both God and man. A man who has the scars of crucifixion on His hands and side. A man who was holy, harmless and undefiled. A man who was made to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. A man who loved us and gave Himself for us. A man who put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. One who loved His bride and made her pure and white by His blood. A man who obtained eternal redemption for us by His own blood. A man who is God. That one who rules among the armies of Heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay His hand or say to Him what are you doing. That one to whom the nations are as a drop of the bucket and the small dust of the balance. That one who has declared, whatever I have purposed it shall come to pass and My council shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. That one in whose hand is the kings heart and He, as the rivers of waters, turns it as He wills. That one to whom all of creation belongs and who has the right to do what He will with His own. At that throne is mercy, sovereign mercy.
The sovereign Lord is under no obligation to give mercy. He is not bound to forgive any by any Law. He owes no man anything but wrath. Justice and judgment are the habitation of His throne. It is He who has said to His elect, I have loved thee with and everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. He, in sovereign love, has purposed to save a people unto Himself and to purify and cleanse them by the precious blood of Christ. It is He who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ according as He has chosen us in Him that we might be holy and without blame before Him: in love having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He hath made accepted in the beloved.
It was sovereign love that drew salvations plan and love that brought it down to man. It was love that set His heart on a people and love that sent the very Son of God to redeem them. It was love that brought us out of the pit of destruction and out of the prison house of the guilty and condemned and given us life and faith in our beloved Redeemer. It was sovereign electing love that made us to see our need of Christ and brought us to Him begging mercy. It is love that has never refused a sinner who comes to Christ begging mercy. Sovereign election doesnt keep the sinner out but draws him to Christ and salvation. No wonder Paul says with absolute awe and amazement, But we are bound to give thanks always to god for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because He hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.
Look there on the throne and see Him who is both God and man. A man who has the scars of crucifixion on His hands and side. A man who was holy, harmless and undefiled. A man who was made to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. A man who loved us and gave Himself for us. A man who put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. One who loved His bride and made her pure and white by His blood. A man who obtained eternal redemption for us by His own blood. A man who is God. That one who rules among the armies of Heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay His hand or say to Him what are you doing. That one to whom the nations are as a drop of the bucket and the small dust of the balance. That one who has declared, whatever I have purposed it shall come to pass and My council shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. That one in whose hand is the kings heart and He, as the rivers of waters, turns it as He wills. That one to whom all of creation belongs and who has the right to do what He will with His own. At that throne is mercy, sovereign mercy.
The sovereign Lord is under no obligation to give mercy. He is not bound to forgive any by any Law. He owes no man anything but wrath. Justice and judgment are the habitation of His throne. It is He who has said to His elect, I have loved thee with and everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. He, in sovereign love, has purposed to save a people unto Himself and to purify and cleanse them by the precious blood of Christ. It is He who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ according as He has chosen us in Him that we might be holy and without blame before Him: in love having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He hath made accepted in the beloved.
It was sovereign love that drew salvations plan and love that brought it down to man. It was love that set His heart on a people and love that sent the very Son of God to redeem them. It was love that brought us out of the pit of destruction and out of the prison house of the guilty and condemned and given us life and faith in our beloved Redeemer. It was sovereign electing love that made us to see our need of Christ and brought us to Him begging mercy. It is love that has never refused a sinner who comes to Christ begging mercy. Sovereign election doesnt keep the sinner out but draws him to Christ and salvation. No wonder Paul says with absolute awe and amazement, But we are bound to give thanks always to god for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because He hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.
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