When do you learn what is true and holy and right before God?
Before or after you repent?
How can you repent if you aren't shown your sin?
Salvation is more than giving people a choice to walk righteously.
The world under the old covenant was given that choice.
In the old covenant they had a choice from a distance, without communion through
the Holy Spirit. They had a pillar of smoke and a pillar of fire to know God was there.
And after all this demonstration of power, authority and might, they still made a calf
of god and worshiped it.
Now our choice is much deeper in our souls, and is eternal in nature, in a way that
was not true in Israel. But the choice still remains once we have come to Christ.
Before we come there is no choice, because how can the lost choose to be saved
or to walk in things that sin stops them from experiencing.
My question is more about, is there truly a single experience of salvation or just
the experience of the beginning of the way. So many times I could talk about
knowing the way, but not that well, and then growing and going deeper, and yet
as I go, it just gets vaster and more interesting and involved.
And when we are washed clean, do we really know what we are washed clean of?
I get the impression grace abounds in faith, so as we grow we become something
different so the issues are dealt with, but almost without our knowledge.
Like if I have a root of bitterness removed, everything in my life changes, but I
did not know the links or the changes, it was as a result of healing and repentance.
For me personally I have a life experience that took me by surprise. I knew the Lord
loved my, died for me, yet when I met my wife to be, deep down, I seriously could not
believe I could be loved. I do not know why I had this doubt or hurt, but it was like
I knew it was not true, but until I found real love in this way, I still had a part of me
hurting and not trusting.
I therefore think we easily talk of things, but crossing some boundaries in our lives
you only become aware of later in life. So I do not want to say descriptions necessarily
change these realities.