Sinner's Prayer?
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Terri
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I called upon Him to help me. But, I really feel like I have known Him all of my life. At what point I "became saved", I really don't know.
I believe I had the Spirit of Truth even as a small child. I was so disappointed when I discovered that people had lied to me about Santa Clause.
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Reformationist
Non nobis domine sed tuo nomine da gloriam
Today at 02:28 PM Terri said this in Post #84
I called upon Him to help me. But, I really feel like I have known Him all of my life. At what point I "became saved", I really don't know.
I believe I had the Spirit of Truth even as a small child. I was so disappointed when I discovered that people had lied to me about Santa Clause.
LOL! Well then, you have been truly blessed to have a God filled life.
God bless,
Don
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Lotar
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I am saved because of what Christ has done for me. But I must make the choice to recieve this gift.
The problem with predestination is that it contradicts the concept of free will. If you have free will, which the bible clearly preaches, God cannot force salvation on you, or prevent you from choosing it. Why? Because then it would no longer be free will, and God does not contradict Himself. Can you resist God's will, yes, and the bible teaches this. Am I saying that God is not all powerful? No, but I am saying that He does not force His will on us. God wants us to gennuinly love and praise Him. In order to do this, we must have a choice in the matter. Lets say your married (I assume you are because of the baby picture). Does it make you happy when she compliments you and tells you she loves you? I assume so. Now, would it feel the same if you knew she had no choice in the matter, she had to say those things? Even if she thought it was her choice? I doubt it. Why? Because the option to choose otherwise is what makes it so valuable. Otherwise God might as well have made robots.
God says that He wants everyone to be saved. Well if this is what He wants, and he chooses how is saved and who is not, why isn't everyone saved? Why does the bible tell us to spread the word, if God has already chosen who will and will not be saved? I mean, they'll be saved no matter what anyways, so why bother?
For perhaps the first time, I must agree with Chelcb
If this is taught in the Bible, please quote it.
Someone said something about being saved before they said any prayer. This is correct, you are saved when you make the decision, not when you say the words. So if you say the words and don't make the decision, you are not saved. God looks at our heart and our motives.
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Lotar
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Oh, and I forgot. I think it was Chelb who said something about falling on our face, and needing to repent again. Sorry, to many posts to sort through. Yes, we believe this. We don't believe you loose your salvation when you sin next, but you do need to continually repent.
If your walking down the street, you lose your temper, say some naughty word, and proptly get run over by a car, you are not going to hell. But you must make sure to continually repent.
If your walking down the street, you lose your temper, say some naughty word, and proptly get run over by a car, you are not going to hell. But you must make sure to continually repent.
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About free will, where does the Bible affirm this? If anything, the Bible talks of free choice, but we cannot escape Gods will. To talk of free will means we have the ability to overcome Gods.
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Lotar
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Perhaps I can overcome Apollo's will, but Zeus', I can not.
THE BLASPHEMY If God wished to force His will upon us, of course we could not overcome it.
Now free choice, without free will
Anyone else find this to be impossible? We can choose to do what God allows us to do.
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Today at 01:28 AM Lotar said this in Post #92
Perhaps I can overcome Apollo's will, but Zeus', I can not.
If God wished to force His will upon us, of course we could not overcome it.
Now free choice, without free will
Anyone else find this to be impossible? We can choose to do what God allows us to do.
Lotar, exactly......so if God gives us free choice to accept his love, then how can predesination come into play? What would be the point of free will?
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You are free to choose Lords. That's it!
God knows who will choose Him.
Simple.
God knows who will choose Him.
Simple.
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Reformationist
Non nobis domine sed tuo nomine da gloriam
So are you saved because Christ died for you or are you saved because you "make the choice to receive this gift?" I'm not asking you if your choice saves you. I'm asking if you feel that His sacrifice saved you or do you believe that His sacrifice wasn't implemented in your case until you added to His perfect (which means complete, by the way) sacrifice by "making the choice to receive the gift."
I'd say, first off, you have an errant view of predestination. Second, you're right. It does contradict the biblically unsupported concept of free will.
[bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]!! You're right! It's so clear now.
What the Bible clearly teaches is that man, after the Fall, is depraved, evil, an enemy of God, at war with God, dead in their trespasses, unable to reconcile with God, unrighteous, does not desire the things of God, is not thankful to God nor does he glorify God, does not seek after God, and destined to hell. I don't know what Bible you use but if that's what you got from the Bible you might really want to do a bit more research.
I'm really curious to read Scripture that says unregenerate man loves God and seeks Him freely. I could show you a ton of Scripture that clearly shows that man does not seek God. Yet you think that not only does man seek God, fallen man loves God.
God's Will is not summed up as "God's Will," at least not in the Bible. God's Will is not as simple as "all men being saved." God has a permissive Will. God has a decreed Will.
Let me ask you something, do you believe you can stop God's decreed Will from coming to pass?
Do you think anything happened to man's nature when he fell from grace? I am lost as to how someone can say that Jesus "saved them" but then say that they "freely chose to love and praise God." Look man, REGENERATE MAN struggles with his old FALLEN nature but has the desire and ability to do for God's good pleasure. Unregenerate man is unrighteous. Loving God is a righteous action. An unrighteous creation cannot make a righteous dicision. Yet, according to you, it's clearly preached in the Bible that fallen, unrighteous man does make the righteous choice to freely serve God. Yeah. Don't see. Maybe you could point it out.
Lotar, do yourself a favor and read a few books on predestination. I recommend anything by R.C. Sproul. There are many great reformed authors but Dr. Sproul is very easy to follow. Being made into robots is the common view of predestination for people who don't understand anything about predestination. Also, and this is really relavent, I'm not God. My wife is not evil. We are not enemies. I am not sovereign. So comparing the interaction of my wife and I to the interaction of God and fallen man shows not only your ignorance of the nature of fallen man but your desire to elevate fallen man and perpetuate the unbiblical idea that man retains some measure of righteousness after the Fall.
This is actually a great question and one that I would be happy to answer. I don't think you have a genuine desire to know but I'll enlighten you anway. The verses that deal with it being "God's Will" that everyone be saved and that none should perish are speaking of the permissive Will of God and His nature. God is benevolent and does not delight in the necessary eternal death of the unregenerate but, believe me, it is His decreed Will that it come to pass.
Evangelism is one of the methods that God uses to enlighten and gather His flock. This flock isn't random in size. God knows who are His. A person's ability to convincingly deliver the Truth of the Gospel never has been, nor will it ever be, the reason someone comes to faith. That is a gift of God's grace which He bestows upon whomever is so pleases Him to do so. You could be the best preacher in the world but if you are talking to someone who has not been given ears to hear you are wasting your time. God uses His children to spread His Word. It's not an issue of someone being saved "no matter what." What did you think, that we "win souls for the Lord?" God gathers His flock. You don't gather it for Him. He just uses us to bring about His Will. I have yet to understand people incessant need to be autonomous. I think it stems from our fallen nature that desires to credit ourselves with "seeing the Truth and making the right decision" rather than "being enlightened to the Truth by the Divine intervention of God and being brought to the Truth because it pleased God to do so."
If what is taught in the Bible, predestination? Lotar, either you don't read the Bible or you don't know what Calvary Chapel teaches. ALL CHRISTIAN CHURCHES teach a doctrine of predestination, yes, even Calvary Chapel churches. The difference is what that their view on it is, not whether it is a valid biblical theme.
I ask again (though I've yet to get a straight answer to this), are you saved because you made the right decision. I didn't ask if salvation was available because of your decision. You have said that because of Jesus' sacrifice salvation was available to you, right? What I'm asking is, what is it that makes that sacrifice be manifested in you?
Thanks,
God bless
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Reformationist
Non nobis domine sed tuo nomine da gloriam
Let me preface this by saying that I don't disagree with this, yet. I would like to know why it is that you feel "you must make sure to continually repent." Is there some reason that this is a "must?" Again, I don't disagree with what you've said here, I just wanted clarification.
Thanks,
God bless
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Reformationist
Non nobis domine sed tuo nomine da gloriam
Nicely said.
You know, it's funny. I have a bunch of discussions on this MB about "free will" vs. predestination. I have stated on numerous occasions that I believe people have the free agency (this is just what I call it) to make choices. IOW, throughout our life we make a bunch of decisions. However, these decisions do not affect God's Plan. The overwhelming initial response to the idea of predestination is that God must make a person a robot that can't make their own choices. This is not what predestination is.
God bless you Job,
Don
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Reformationist
Non nobis domine sed tuo nomine da gloriam
Well Lotar, can you "choose" to do anything? If not, who is it that you think limited you?
God bless
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