8401	Forums / Theology Forum / Election?	on: September 30, 2006, 08:50:18 AM
Im not sure what I believe on this subjuct MBG. But, I can tell you this far that I do believe it is a calling that brings a person unto salvation. I think we would all agree there. But really in the judgement at the end of all things doesnt God choose that person for eternal destruction? I mean couldnt He have made a remedy at that point? The person who is going to distruction knows he deserves it but God chooses to send Him there, that person does not decide in any fashion. There really is at no point in a persons existence where he has a free choice in the arminist sense. We believe that Adam had a free choice in the garden, meaning that he had the power not to eat in himself, but we also believe that God predetermined Adams choice. That is a mystery at the point of choice in adam. Because if we consider that the circumstances had any thing to do with the power of Adams choice then Adam would have been at a disadvantage in comparison to us being that the garden was profoundly more pleasant than post sin circumstances. So Adam had a power in himself yet he chose to sin not by any other means than what was in Adam. We are seen in Adam, so that we are seen making the same choice, and that is why sin is imputed to our account by God. We know that freedom does not mean that we have the ability to choose between good and evil, between heaven and hell, but that we can choose what we want when we want, when we reach out an grasp the object that is most pleasing to us. What determines our choices is the state of our souls, the condition of our hearts pryor to our actions.  Our responsibility falls on the fact that in that ability to choose from what we are pleased with the most. The scripture says that we are unable to choose good. We do not have the power to choose any good. The objects are too heavey so that we cannot lift them. Inability does not impede free choice. We still can be free to choose to fly, but we are unable to accomplish staying in the air. We are only enabled by being regenerated. So in a sense we are not responsible for our lack of ability. Because each choice is enabled by grace. So in a sense we can lack the grace and be unable. We can be babies in the faith and not know in an experienctial way and be unable. Really there is no difference between what we do and what God can create in us to do. Just because there is a lack does not necessarily fall completely on our shoulders. That is the security that we have in having a proper view of God. That is all of our abilities are short of being able to meet Gods standards of strength. We cannot perform one thing by our own ability. So really there is no seperate willing that falls short by us and what good we do that meets the standard. Every thing we do is enabled by God 8408  Forums / Theology Forum / Election? on: September 29, 2006, 09:03:36 PM I will attack this arminian thinking in another fashion by asking a question and then answering it according to a calvinist and a Pauline approach. What is Gods work  and  what is mans work? Does God do 50 percent of the work and man does the other 50? Does God do only what man wills and then God works according to what man does? Does God wait for man to do before He will do? Does God look to see if man is going to do in the future and then after waiting for man to do God responds? All of these hidden messages are part of the arminian mentality. They use biblical phrases and stories but basically these are the questions that always come up after listening to an arminist. This mixed message is what creates the man centered salvation mentality we have today. The moment a calvinist begins to have these questions we are accused of not being practical. We are accused of not being simple enough. What we believe is that God does all, and we do all. God doesnt wait for us to do. His grace is so complete that there is no way we could do anything unless it was first gifted to us by His grace. Graces power is not subject to mans will, but graces power makes man willing. So God does all, and we do all. Without Him we can do nothing. That means that 0 good works come from us without Him. If we have hidden human effort  messages behind the preaching of the word then we are going to have a theology that is confusing. We are going to come to the conclusion that we do not do enough and God is waiting on us to do more. This happens when we do not give God all the doing. 8429  Forums / Main Forum / The Definition Of Forgiveness on: September 24, 2006, 09:09:42 PM Quote Glory, I praise God that He has given you clear answers. You are so Good and Faithful God.  How can we ever doubt you? Donna just want to write one more thing. One of the reasons we are so unsure of our position in him,( and really i am not talking to you personally but just as what i have experienced.) , is that we are not clear in our prayers as to the difference between the desires of the wicked and the desires of the righteous. And so we are left to wonder so much about just who we are in Him. So we must consider our position in Christ. We must begin to develope a set of longings that mirror His work on our behalf so that what we pray for is one with what His wills. We should see how all of these temptations, the wickedness in society and all of the humaness that we carry around have an effect on that pearl we have in us. That new life in the Holy Spirit, which begins with all of the holy desires that are averse to our natural state in sin. We are not like what we think we are in our natural selves, but  we are new! We are not sorrouned by things that bring us down as if they had a power over us. We are not under the law as if it were beating us to submit. We are free to worship ,adore, desire in HIs will what ever He wants so that we are looking into the face of Christ in our prayers and we are becoming more like Him. Oh what advantage we have to go to the psalms and pray like the psalmist. Tarry there a little while, and then ask for a double portion of His Spirit! Say to Him, show me your salvation, say to me I am your salvation, oh speak sweet Spirit, grant me more grace to desire you more than water! What ever we are experiencing in our humaness is not sin! We cannot talk ourselves out of His good graces. He knows our fraility! He even comes in our weakness and brings a strength to long for more of His grace so that our weakness becomes a pleasure of being set free to communicate to Him from the deepest part of our crys. Cry to Him to elevate your experience so that you will know that He is gracing you in your weakness! He must speak! Reply Quote Notify 8430  Forums / Main Forum / The Definition Of Forgiveness on: September 24, 2006, 08:20:31 PM Forgiveness is offered to us in Christ. We are completely forgiven of all of our sins past and present. Forgiveness is really at the heart of understanding the gospel and having an assurance that we are loved by God. We are sustained by God through Christ work on the cross and so we can persevere as sinners in a world of uncertianty, lack of forgiveness or even understanding forgiveness. Forgiveness is not earned by us. It was earned already by Christ when He took on sin and guilt and paid the penalty encoured as a result of sin. He sastified the wrath of God for sin on our behalf so that we could be set free of that legal obligation in punishment. Christ is our sastifaction from the moment we recieve the Spirit to when we are glorified. We rest in Christ for our forgiveness. Satan is the accuser, he is always questioning sinners as to their commitment to Christ. He comes as an angel of light to use scripture, ministers, and people around us who do not understand forgiveness to try to convince us that there is something extra that we need to do in order to be forgiven. He twist scripture so that we will not understand fully what forgiveness is so that we are always questioning the power of the gospel to effect our present attitude so that we will withdaw from our Father and be engulfed in guilt. This delima is more comon in christians circles than any other aspect of christian experience. Understanding forgiveness is so central to assurance and having a vibrant relationship with the Father that it is the underlying root of all hard heartedness. When we were first awakened to our sin, we became aware of our state of helplessness and we saw that our only hope was to trust in Christ . We had a profound experience of forgiveness that lasted days, or weeks of just being unburdened and we were comforted, and at peace, and Christ was so real to us in those first hours of new birth. Then one day it was as if we had began to revert back into a pattern feeling guilt and not having the assurance we enjoyed when as in those first times of love for Him. One of the reasons of getting in this guilt disposition is that we become self centered in the joy of experiencing salvation for the first time and we begin to think that we had something to do with being forgiven. We began to think that we could go back to being under the law so that we could be kept from departing from Christ so that our struggle was a result of not really understanding the extent of Gods grace and not having a deep knowlege of that grace. We needed to grow in our knowing Him in all of our experiences. We needed to have fresh assurances of His forgiveness and as we were assured and growing in the knowlege of the truth, desiring to be filled with all knowlege, praying to be led more and more into the truth we would gain a more profound understanding and appreciation of just how deep and wide was the goodness of God , the love of God , and the faithfulness of God, and all of these assurances are a result of experiencing His forgiveness anew. And in experiencing His forgiveness anew we are given a supernatural peace, as if He speaks peace to our hearts. So forgiveness is not just an intellectual grasping of scripture but it is an experiencing a deep relational comunication of that forgiveness as we grow in the word and as we focus on the greatness of God and as we have spiritual fellowship with one another. To really gain a grasp on forgiveness we need to have a vision of the freeeeee grace of God in Christ Jesus. The freeness of the grace is equal to the bigness of God. If we have a small God then we will have a very shallow view of forgiveness. If we have a big God we will have a profound view of assurance and forgiveness. Forgiveness is like being rapped up in the arms of the Father, having a sense that there He is with His arms around you and He is so sweet to you. He comes in a manner that pulls away the chains of sin, by giving us a sense of freedom from sin in granting us the grace of forgiveness in a renewal sense. We are so over come with His goodness that our desires are rapped up in praising Him and extoling Him all of our days. We habitually are pleased in our desiring more of Him, we seek Him as a person, we long for Him in our mourning over sin, we desire Him more than life itself. Those desires are very essential to understanding assurance and being singleminded with our hearts responding to what our minds know is true. Look, the eternal God who fills all things, who is all powerful, who is all knowing dwells in us! Really, really, really! Our desires could never be fulfilled in this life, because we would be swollowed up by His power if He ever showed us His absolute presence. But yet we are in a sense swallowed up by growing in our desires for Him so that what we know about that power leaves us with a more depressing view of our lack on the other side. We are as it were driven on by an understanding that there is no where else to go except to desire Him more and more.