"All of it is a gift from God: grace, salvation, faith. It is all God’s doing"
I don't believe that it is all an unmerited gift from God. If that is true then there is no free will, no reason to try to be better, no reason to follow any rules or pursue any justice in this world. Without free will, it's only God's puppet show. I believe some baseline level of God's grace is an unmerited gift. He gives us what we need to begin the journey of faith, and as we cultivate our faith with much effort, more of God's grace is offered or becomes available to us. But we do have to cultivate our faith. We have to plant seeds in good soil and tend the garden often.
"Faith is that which I choose to not see “through.” It is that which I say, with conviction, “on this, I will live my life, whatever gets thrown at me.”"
I agree with this! Faith is a always a choice. It's a choice every second of everyday. But who chooses? We do.
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this [salvation is] not from yourself, [this salvation] is the gift of God.""
I agree with this too. Faith, which is our end of the bargain, must be included in the soup of our salvation. But faith alone would avail us nothing without God's grace and the path of Salvation that was forged by the suffering of Jesus Christ, Son of the Father. Therefore, it is true to say that we cannot save ourselves, but, given God's freely offered gifts, we have a lot of authorship over our ultimate fate regardless of our circumstances. There is justice in this world.
ATL, I always struggle with how to deal with this - how to write it in any way that can make sense. As you know, I have written a lot about faith and works, and also about participation.
So, let me tell a story. There was in my life a particular aspect of pride, one for which I built an almost impregnable wall. While it was long there, I once went through an acute phase of protecting this pride - almost daily throwing my wall up against a recurring "attack" against it.
After several days in a row, in this acute period, I went to bed one night knowing that the next day I would once again throw up my wall of defense. Well, I woke up the next morning, and this intense desire on my part was gone - completely disappeared. Not that I haven't a twinge of this pride try to resurface from time to time, but virtually gone from my being - at least in this one area.
Now...you tell me: how do I understand this? There is no way overnight that I "did" this, made such a miraculous (I don't know what else to call it) shift in my being. But, of course, I "did" do it.
So, put that into words that say I was not a puppet (it sure felt like I was), but also say that I "did" it (it sure felt like I did). I cannot find words that will say it this way.
I think that sometimes when we change for the better it is because God offers us the grace or lubricant (to put it crudely) to do so. When I came back to Christ in my early 30s it was because I was searching for the origin of liberty, which I found in Him. So I thought, "well, whatever the truth of the God question, I'm on this guy Jesus' team." It was a continual shedding of my pride (of knowing what can and cannot happen in this world, leaving open the possibility of miracles, etc.) that allowed me back into real faith - faith that I hadn't had since I was a teenager. Was that all me? Surely not. But I certainly participated in it. I thought about it. I read many books. I engaged in debates online when I should have been working, etc. My intention was to discover the truth and then order my life accordingly. You could say that this desire for truth and order is something God put in us so that we'd discover Him, and it gets really complicated!
As I said before, you've got to rightly divide. Perhaps the simplest way to say it is, there are at least 2 different salvations taught in the scriptures. "Eternal" salvation, in which the elect child of grace is completely passive (dead in sins, raised to life - born again), and thence "timely" or "temporal" salvation, connected to sanctification, in which the born again sinner can partake of and enjoy the fruits of the Spirit, beginning to enjoy the eternal life now, by following Jesus Christ in obedience. A dead man can't do nothin'. You're gonna have to understand election - which you've already said you don't want to tackle - if you really want to rightly divide and understand the scriptures.
Ron, we are all here, right now, reading and discussing themes about salvation, righteousness, good works, etc. To my understanding, most if not all people here recognize that it is God's grace that moves first, and without this we have no hope.
I find no need to tackle "election" amongst this group. Frankly, I find little reason to tackle it anywhere. When people show themselves open to the Gospel message, it is unimportant to me how or why. God is not asking me to sort that out.
People who engage here are engaged here. Why that is, it's above my pay grade and not my responsibility to sort out.
Trying to keep it simple - "A man should know his limitations." - Dirty Harry. The spirit of God gives us the means to aspire 'to become perfect as your Father.....' - but we have limitations - such as 'we all see through DaGlass DARKLY' - so......do what we've been assigned do......while understanding that our efforts are limited to our 'limitations' - our Father can more than make up the difference. The key point - stop gazing at our spiritual navel and Git'er Done - Matt 28:18-20..
Anyone wants DaWholeEnchilada? - www.crushlimbraw.com - but be prepared for a lifetime of seeking!
"Faith comes by hearing and understanding comes from knowledge, which comes by sight." - Augustine. He wasn’t the only one - "My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge!" - Hosea.
"All of it is a gift from God: grace, salvation, faith. It is all God’s doing"
I don't believe that it is all an unmerited gift from God. If that is true then there is no free will, no reason to try to be better, no reason to follow any rules or pursue any justice in this world. Without free will, it's only God's puppet show. I believe some baseline level of God's grace is an unmerited gift. He gives us what we need to begin the journey of faith, and as we cultivate our faith with much effort, more of God's grace is offered or becomes available to us. But we do have to cultivate our faith. We have to plant seeds in good soil and tend the garden often.
"Faith is that which I choose to not see “through.” It is that which I say, with conviction, “on this, I will live my life, whatever gets thrown at me.”"
I agree with this! Faith is a always a choice. It's a choice every second of everyday. But who chooses? We do.
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this [salvation is] not from yourself, [this salvation] is the gift of God.""
I agree with this too. Faith, which is our end of the bargain, must be included in the soup of our salvation. But faith alone would avail us nothing without God's grace and the path of Salvation that was forged by the suffering of Jesus Christ, Son of the Father. Therefore, it is true to say that we cannot save ourselves, but, given God's freely offered gifts, we have a lot of authorship over our ultimate fate regardless of our circumstances. There is justice in this world.
ATL, I always struggle with how to deal with this - how to write it in any way that can make sense. As you know, I have written a lot about faith and works, and also about participation.
So, let me tell a story. There was in my life a particular aspect of pride, one for which I built an almost impregnable wall. While it was long there, I once went through an acute phase of protecting this pride - almost daily throwing my wall up against a recurring "attack" against it.
After several days in a row, in this acute period, I went to bed one night knowing that the next day I would once again throw up my wall of defense. Well, I woke up the next morning, and this intense desire on my part was gone - completely disappeared. Not that I haven't a twinge of this pride try to resurface from time to time, but virtually gone from my being - at least in this one area.
Now...you tell me: how do I understand this? There is no way overnight that I "did" this, made such a miraculous (I don't know what else to call it) shift in my being. But, of course, I "did" do it.
So, put that into words that say I was not a puppet (it sure felt like I was), but also say that I "did" it (it sure felt like I did). I cannot find words that will say it this way.
I think that sometimes when we change for the better it is because God offers us the grace or lubricant (to put it crudely) to do so. When I came back to Christ in my early 30s it was because I was searching for the origin of liberty, which I found in Him. So I thought, "well, whatever the truth of the God question, I'm on this guy Jesus' team." It was a continual shedding of my pride (of knowing what can and cannot happen in this world, leaving open the possibility of miracles, etc.) that allowed me back into real faith - faith that I hadn't had since I was a teenager. Was that all me? Surely not. But I certainly participated in it. I thought about it. I read many books. I engaged in debates online when I should have been working, etc. My intention was to discover the truth and then order my life accordingly. You could say that this desire for truth and order is something God put in us so that we'd discover Him, and it gets really complicated!
As I said before, you've got to rightly divide. Perhaps the simplest way to say it is, there are at least 2 different salvations taught in the scriptures. "Eternal" salvation, in which the elect child of grace is completely passive (dead in sins, raised to life - born again), and thence "timely" or "temporal" salvation, connected to sanctification, in which the born again sinner can partake of and enjoy the fruits of the Spirit, beginning to enjoy the eternal life now, by following Jesus Christ in obedience. A dead man can't do nothin'. You're gonna have to understand election - which you've already said you don't want to tackle - if you really want to rightly divide and understand the scriptures.
Ron, we are all here, right now, reading and discussing themes about salvation, righteousness, good works, etc. To my understanding, most if not all people here recognize that it is God's grace that moves first, and without this we have no hope.
I find no need to tackle "election" amongst this group. Frankly, I find little reason to tackle it anywhere. When people show themselves open to the Gospel message, it is unimportant to me how or why. God is not asking me to sort that out.
People who engage here are engaged here. Why that is, it's above my pay grade and not my responsibility to sort out.
Trying to keep it simple - "A man should know his limitations." - Dirty Harry. The spirit of God gives us the means to aspire 'to become perfect as your Father.....' - but we have limitations - such as 'we all see through DaGlass DARKLY' - so......do what we've been assigned do......while understanding that our efforts are limited to our 'limitations' - our Father can more than make up the difference. The key point - stop gazing at our spiritual navel and Git'er Done - Matt 28:18-20..
Anyone wants DaWholeEnchilada? - www.crushlimbraw.com - but be prepared for a lifetime of seeking!
"Faith comes by hearing and understanding comes from knowledge, which comes by sight." - Augustine. He wasn’t the only one - "My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge!" - Hosea.