Deborah13
Member
Yes, please explain what you mean?
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God calls you to be an overcomer by living a holy life!
- Thread starter John Zain
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Yes, please explain what you mean?
John Zain
Member
Yes, I wasn't at all clear ...
I meant that man chooses whether to maintain his salvation or not,
i.e. he has control of falling from grace or not.
You overcome by being obedient to God's commands and
by co-operating with the Holy Spirit in your "sanctification unto holiness" process
(which includes obedience).
As you might have guessed ...
I insist that ALL Scripture must fit together and make sense!
Deborah13
Member
I agree pretty much. But I don't see the HOW I manage to co-operate. In other words, does knowing the commandments, enable me to obey? Where is my help and how do I receive the help I need?
E
Elijah674
Guest
Are you suggesting that God has eternally known who will be saved, but that we do not know until He says so to us at at our resurrection? That I agree with! Heb. 11:1-2
If that is true, then we are saved because of FAITH.
--Elijah
G
Guest
Guest
By coming to faith and accepting the Lord as your savior.
Deborah13
Member
Some people even after being saved have trouble with sin. Sometimes, I don't want to be gracious. I want to just rebuke someone but it is not my place to do that. Do I always succeed? No.
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Guest
Guest
That's because of the fall. It's impossible to avoid sin, but it is possible to avoid willful sin.
Jethro Bodine
Member
By caring about people.
The power of the Christian life is to care enough about people to not sin against them. And trusting God to take care of you where you used to take of yourself by sinning.
I look at my own life and all the things God has subjected me to and how those things have produced in my a spirit of empathy and compassion for everybody else struggling with the body of flesh. I think this is what the prophet meant by God taking the heart of stone out of us and putting a heart of flesh in us in this New Covenant so that we would be careful to follow his commands (Ezekiel 36:26-27 NASB). A tender compassionate heart that cares about our fellow humans, not despises and uses and abuses them.
It's more about education than it is about the supernatural, though I'm not taking the supernatural element of God's work in us out of the equation at all. It's just that the church seems to depend too much on the supernatural and not enough on knowledge of how we're supposed to act.
9 And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ..." (Philippians 1:9-10 NASB)
"...we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,10 so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God" (Colossians 1:9-10 NASB)
The journey to holiness is a journey of the discernemnt of knowledge, and where and how to apply that knowledge. That knowledge is the knowledge of God's character, his love. And how our old sinful ways hurt other people.
Deborah13
Member
Thanks Jethro, I totally agree. This is what I see in how Jesus was compassionate to people. He truly loved people. God's love was what He showed us.
"If you have seen me, you have seen the Father."
If one does not know how much they are loved by the Father I think it would be very hard to give love.
Blessings, Deb
Jethro Bodine
Member
May I add, "if one does not know how much they are loved by the Father, in spite of how unlovely and undeserving we are, I think it would be very hard to give love to other equally unlovely, undeserving people."
"We love because he first loved us." (1 John 4:19 NASB)
Jethro Bodine
Member
Compassionate because he himself suffered:
"He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. (Isaiah 53:3 NASB)
"For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are..." (Hebrews 4:15 NIV)
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." (Matthew 9:36 NIV)
"...it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered." (Hebrews 2:10 NIV)
"8 Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered..." (Hebrews 5:8 NIV)
It is how we also become 'educated' in the ways of God's holiness.
John Zain
Member
IMO, God chose some humans to receive His free gift of grace-faith-salvation.
He chose certain ones because of His own personal reasons.
However, these ones must co-operate with God to be sanctified unto holiness.
Grace is not a free ride ... these ones need to maintain their great blessings!
And, of course, God knows exactly who these ones are ...
and they have been called the "elect", and are described in Romans 8:28-30.
Yes, the saved (elect) will continue with their faith (and all this entails) until their deaths.
P.S. From this, you might surmise that, IMO not all BACs are members of the elect.
I.E. Some fall away, fall from grace, etc.
Deborah13
Member
So you are a Calvinist. Why didn't you just say so? Are you a 5 point TULIP? It appears so...
Basically, Calvinism is known by an acronym: T.U.L.I.P.
Total Depravity (also known as Total Inability and Original Sin)
Unconditional Election
Limited Atonement (also known as Particular Atonement)
Irresistible Grace
Perseverance of the Saints (also known as Once Saved Always Saved)
http://www.calvinistcorner.com/tulip.htmUnconditional Election
Limited Atonement (also known as Particular Atonement)
Irresistible Grace
Perseverance of the Saints (also known as Once Saved Always Saved)
Jethro Bodine
Member
Deborah13
Member
Jethro Bodine
Member
Whoops! Didn't see the parenthesis after 'perseverance', lol!
I thought perseverance belonged to the non-OSAS camp. You know, you must persevere in your faith to the end to be saved by that faith. Some OSAS doctrine says you don't.
I detest these doctrinal labels so I don't study them...let alone make myself fit into one.
John Zain
Member
Gee, I taught a tulip were a flower.
Maybe I'm a 4 1/2 point mini-tulip (guess I'm acronymously deficient)
... for not all BAC "saints" persevere until the end.
Paul certainly wants them to ...
with all of his copious encouragements, edifications, exhortations, etc.
He feels personally responsible to get them home,
and he certainly uses every TRICK known to mankind to accomplish this.
But, alas, IMO, no cigar!
Last edited by a moderator:
Deborah13
Member
Gee, I taught a tulip were a flower.
Maybe I'm a 4 1/2 point mini-tulip (guess I'm acronymously deficient)
... for not all BAC "saints" persevere until the end.
Paul certainly wants them to ...
with all of his copious encouragements, edifications, exhortations, etc.
He feels personally responsible to get them home,
and he certainly uses every TRICK known to mankind to accomplish this.
But, alas, IMO, no cigar!
LOL, tulips. I do appreciate your openness. So maybe you are holding back the .5 of the tulip because you don't want to say, that if one does not persevere they were Never saved to begin with because they were not Chosen? If you believe, that only some are Chosen for no other reason then God wanted to saved Them, then all the others who think they are saved are not, in reality saved.
So can one loose their salvation if they are a Chosen one, predestined and preordained, No.
Jethro Bodine
Member
The point being, if you believe in predestination--a predetermined outcome based entirely on the sovereignty of God with no influence from man--then you have to be OSAS. You can't be one and not the other.
I sincerely hope this life has not been some kind of cruel cosmic game that's just going to end the way God wants it to in spite of the sufferings and striving of men who think they have a responsibility to play a part in the outcome.
Cruel, cruel, cruel.
John Zain
Member
One person wrote elsewhere …
All who have come to Christ as repentant sinners to be saved and to receive the forgiveness
of sins are given the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit working in the life of the believer
that will produce the Christian life. After being born again we no longer need to be
commanded to love one another or to love the Lord. The Holy Spirit working in
the life of the believer will bring about repentance and the desire to please God.
And I responded …
Yes, this most certainly is the last portion, i.e. the end game, of GOD's PLAN OF SALVATION.
However, BAC Jerry continues to have free will, and it is up to Jerry to choose
how much he will co-operate with the Holy Spirit in His efforts to sanctify him.
Jerry can even choose to walk, or run even, from the faith ... and end up rejecting salvation.
Just maybe, Jerry really misses his old-man lifestyle of sin, and chooses to return to it.
And truly, there is a multitude of reasons why Jerry could turn his back on God.
However, God will do everything in His power to bring Jerry back,
but He will not force him to return, i.e. He will not violate Jerry's free will.
Paul was writing to the churches in Rome, which he had not yet visited …
“Do you not know that
to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey,
whether (slaves) of sin leading to death, or (slaves) of obedience leading to righteousness?
… so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.” (Romans 6:16,19)
Again, as always … so much for OSAS!