Can We Really Exercise Free Will?
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Look at what you cited?
The reality? It was in the past tense.
Not the present where you placed us.
Yet you made the claim?
It's not a lie, for all practical purposes, by nature we are the children of disobedience or unbelief.
Now, if you walk in the strength of your emotions?
And your flesh wants to gain control back?
You will be an imitator of your old self in trying to come out on top when wanting to prove a point.
But, you have to lose your life to save it!
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it,
and whosoever will lose his life for My sake
shall find it. Mat 16:25
and whosoever will lose his life for My sake
shall find it. Mat 16:25
Stop trying to save face before your old self's criticisms!
Lose.
Be humbled.
And learn...
And, gain Christ.
And, be aware:
If you should so blessed to find by grace a good teacher?
He will make you (at times) to feel very stupid. Why?
Isaiah 55:8-9
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
When our old self can not tolerate being made to feel stupid?
Pride loses every time.
No gaining of Christ...
Yes... I have been made to feel stupid.
Very stupid.
But, I had to admit that the very thing that made me feel dumb was actually correct.
And, sir...
That is why Jesus said only a few find it.
Many are saved.
They walk on the broad and wide offerings of teachings designed to please people personally.
But only a few find it.
Finding life more abundantly.
In Christ.... GeneZ
You waste your time. He can't comprehend that this fallen nature he speaks of is in the flesh, not the mind (soul) therefore it becomes unthinkable to him that grace can keep in check the influence of the fallen nature and allow the mind to seek the light freely while the truth is presented.
God sends this kind of believer our way for testing.
It baffles me how one can know he is saved, yet wants to be his own king in his own eyes,
by failing to be humble enough to know that royalty must receive the strictest training and
discipline. Corrections will and must come if we will be granted to reign with Him.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own
possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of
darkness into his marvelous light." 1 Peter 2:9
We are called to be royalty.
And, the Lord?
He is the King of Kings!
grace and peace ............
Does the Devil recruit stubborn believers to try to obstruct the presentation of Sound Doctrine?
If so?
What kind of people will they be?
Stubborn and blind?
Stupid?
Would that kind of person not be a good choice for him?
All that tells me is that you are probably living a shameful life?
Doing things that reveal disobedience to the Word of God?
Seems to be that way because you keep liking using that rationale to make yourself feel excused for falling short of the grace of God.
Yes.... we will still be able to sin.
But, no longer as a child of disobedience as we once were before finding regeneration.
After discovering that there is a group of people out there within the umbrella of Christianity who believe such a foreign gospel blew my mind.
- Jesus does not love all, did not die for all, does not want all to be saved? What?????
- God decrees the most vile of sins?
- From out of the womb the majority of people are born with ZERO choice, but were created only to glorify God in hell for eternity?
- To believe on your own is a "works-based salvation"? What????
- Their god hates most people but calls us to love our enemies?
- Anytime you see the word "ALL" and "WORLD" in the bible it always means "elect"?
- We are called "universalists" because we believe Jesus died and wants all to come to Calvary?
- And on and on and on...
There is zero good news in the Calvinist system! Don't fall for Calvinism. Escape while you can. Jesus CLEARLY SAID we have a will to choose. John 7:17... "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority."
- Jesus does not love all, did not die for all, does not want all to be saved? What?????
- God decrees the most vile of sins?
- From out of the womb the majority of people are born with ZERO choice, but were created only to glorify God in hell for eternity?
- To believe on your own is a "works-based salvation"? What????
- Their god hates most people but calls us to love our enemies?
- Anytime you see the word "ALL" and "WORLD" in the bible it always means "elect"?
- We are called "universalists" because we believe Jesus died and wants all to come to Calvary?
- And on and on and on...
There is zero good news in the Calvinist system! Don't fall for Calvinism. Escape while you can. Jesus CLEARLY SAID we have a will to choose. John 7:17... "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority."
Now you want to resort to personal attacks, Christ is my Life, I live by the Faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Thats saying dont fall for the Gospel of Gods Grace, what a pity
Of course we have Free Will, its the cornerstone of God's ability to give eternal life, we can choose to be bondage to sin/evil/Satan, which leads to everlasting torment via separation from God, or to heed an all knowing, loving God, where we follow His will/ways, which leads us into life eternal, where we will be given the TRUST to make OUR OWN DECISIONS, God does not want us to be Computer Programmed Bots, He wants us to be TRAINED UP into a thought process where we ALWAYS MAKE the proper decisions, and therefore He can always trust us via a loving trusting relationship. A computer programed being is not a real being.
Amen!
Some people do not realize that the essential aspect of being a human rather than a robot or subhuman creature is moral free will (MFW), which is what enables a person to experience love and meaning. This is what makes humans different from animals, whose behavior is governed mainly by instinct. This is what it means to be created in God’s image.
God could not force people to return His love without abrogating their humanity. If God were to zap ungodly souls, it would be tantamount to forcing conversions at gunpoint, which would not be free and genuine. If God were to prevent people from behaving hatefully, then He would need to prevent them from thinking evilly, which would make human souls programmed automatons.
Thus, for reasons we may not understand completely, God designed reality so that experiencing His presence is less than compelling, so that even Jesus (God the Son) on the cross cried out “My God [the Father], why have you forsaken [taken God the Spirit from] me?” (MT 27:46, PS 51:11) This phenomenon is sometimes called “distanciation”, because we experience God as distant from us and “unknown” (ACTS 17:23), even though He is close or immanent, “for in Him we live and move and have our being” (ACTS 17:28).
God’s normative means of conversion is persuasion rather than coercion (MT 12:39, 24:24, 1CR 1:22-23). This is seen very clearly in Jesus’ lament over the obstinacy of Jerusalem (MT 23:37). Two unusual theophanies included when God appeared to Moses (in a burning bush per EX 3:2-6), whom God wanted to establish the Jewish lineage for the Messiah (OT), and to Saul/Paul (as the resurrected Jesus in ACTS 9:3-6), whom God chose to establish the NT church of Christ. Miracles are rare (not normative).
MFW only exists when there is the possibility of choosing between two qualitatively opposite moral options that we call good and evil. These options are opposites because of essentially different consequences for choosing them. Choosing good results in blessing, life and heaven; and choosing evil results in cursing, death and hell (DT 30:19). This is why hell as well as heaven exists. It is the just consequence for choosing evil rather than God. The Spirit of God is good: love, peace and joy (GL 5:22-23). Therefore, whoever rejects the Lord is spiritually separated from Him (IS 59:2) and thereby chooses the evil or satanic spirit of hatred, strife and misery and reaps the just consequence called “hell” in the afterlife (GL 6:7-9, HB 9:27-28). These options were presented by Moses to the Israelites (DT 30:19), and Jesus referred to this fundamental choice in terms of a fish or egg versus a snake or scorpion (LK 11:11-13). Life… or Curse? (GN 3:24, RV 22:1-2)
God created theoretical evil or the possibility of rejecting Him as an option that actualizes MFW/free human personality. As such it is necessary and even good (GN 1:31). Of course, it was wrong for Satan (1JN 3:8) and humanity (RM 5:12) to make evil actual by choosing to Sin or reject Faith in God’s Lordship. Sin: ignoring God/God’s Word.
God loves a cheerful giver (2CR 9:7), which means He desires people to cooperate with Him happily because of love and gratitude for His grace rather than to cower before Him because of fear of hell. Love must be evoked; it cannot be coerced. And again, when souls sin or do NOT choose to love God freely, it is perfectly just (loving and logical) for them to reap the appropriate consequence (GL 6:7-9) or hell.
Thats false, Christ redeemed them He died for from all that.
Y'both ought to cite GW as support for what you believe (2Tim. 3:16-17),
not proof-texting but rather harmonizing what you cite with what the other person cites (Matt. 4:6-7)
so that truth and love win (Eph. 4:11-15). Right?
No personal attack per se...
You stated this as if it applies to you now.
Its not a lie, for all practical purposes, by nature we are the children of disobedience or unbelief Eph 2:2-3
If you put it in the past tense (where it belongs) you would have not opened yourself up for what I said.
To be accurate, here is what you should have said...
It's not a lie, for all practical purposes, by nature we WERE the children of disobedience or unbelief.
What can happen when you say such things wrongly?
New believers and lurking unbelievers can get a totally wrong and misleading picture of Christianity.
In Christ....
I understand you seem dim, because that ad hominem does not refute what I suggested:
Y'both ought to cite GW as support for what you believe (2Tim. 3:16-17), not proof-texting but rather harmonizing
GW you cite with what the other person cites (Matt. 4:6-7) so that truth and love win (Eph. 4:11-15).