"Not by works" - false!

Noted.
@Judges1318 understands where am coming from. He was just expounding on what I mentioned.

if your hope is that the unbeliever will do something of himself or herself, not by the action of God Himself, then you should be praying to those unbelievers, not to God.

if you are praying to God, you are expressing an hope that God will act & intervene, causing the unbeliever to receive the Word.

example:


some months ago my cat Tiger was very ill. i prayed for him. i did not pray, Lord if it's Tiger's will please may Tiger heal himself. that's inane. why involve God in the situation if i neither expect nor want God involved in the situation?
i prayed Lord, if it's Your will please heal Tiger. i expect & desire God to be involved.








Tiger's healed, by the way

one small problem you've got here.

according to scripture it's people that God predestines.
so in the train analogy sure God determined the train's route and destination. but if we're going to get our facts from the Bible, God predetermined who was going to get onboard.

tickets, please

... and if you are saved you should pray like "thank you Lord that I am more righteous than the other guy that chooses NOT to believe. We both heard the gospel, but it was I by my own power, me that made the difference and this is the reason God has adopted me as his son. No one seeks God, but somehow I did it. I was a slave to evil, but I broke my chains, I know that nothing good dwells within me, the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot ... BUT I CAN."
P.S. "Not that I am bragging and not that this is a WORK. Like, I know work is defined as a mental or physical activity one does for a purpose ... but, despite the clear definition, that's not what I did because I know God shares his glory with no one".

well i'm a physicist so i define "work" as a force applied over a distance.

specifically the closed integral of the dot product of the force and the velocity, with respect to time, over the trajectory of the motion of the thing 'being worked on'





funny thing about that, if you take a couch and move it upstairs, then move it back downstairs and put it back in exactly the same place it started in, you've done zero work.
i'm open to alternate definitions, lol

Well, can't say I am a physicist. I did take physics in university. W = F * D

Work: activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.
Work in Physics: the exertion of force overcoming resistance or producing molecular change.

excellent question!

yes, but let's just pretend it's motion along a line between point A and point B for simplicity..
from A to B i have a displacement equal to +X
from B to A i have a displacement equal to -X
i take the integral over the whole trip and i get X - X = 0

weird; i know. it feels like you've done a lot of work. but the way it's defined for the sake of doing physics reflects that hey, if you spent all this time moving this couch but you wound up with the couch still in the living room at the end of the day, it's just as if you hadn't been working at it at all


let's make a metaphor!
if God saves you and you somehow 'unsave' yourself, in the raw calculation the math says it is as tho God has not done any work in you at all. per physics.

((puts on nerd hat))

you can still have work in a frictionless scenario. it's just force dotted with distance. resistance can be wrapped up in the force term, according to how much force has to be applied to something for it be displaced a certain distance. molecules are mass/energy so it's just a special case of work if it's chemical.

"But our God is in the heavens: He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased" (Psalm 115:3)
"For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and His hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?" (Isaiah 14:27).
"And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and He doeth according to His will in the army of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand or say unto Him, What doest thou?" (Daniel 4:35).
"For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen" (Romans 11:36).
Psalm 103:19 The LORD has established His throne in the heavens; And His sovereignty rules over all.
Ephesians 1:11b Who works out everything in agreement with the counsel and design of His [own] will

Yet we are to be told that man determines who the Father will adopt, we tell God who He is to love as His sons, we tell God who He will put In Christ, we who are spiritually dead somehow bring ourselves back to life; we cause ourselves to be born again ... how can one BIRTH ONESELF?
Ridiculous IMO.

No, lol...

"25 Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will." - 2 Timothy 2:25-26

"27 On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles." - Acts 13:27

.

No, lol.
As we see in my post above, God opens the door of faith to a person. God grants a person repentance. The person himself does not initiate anything from within himself. They respond, in the power God provides.

The fundamental problem Calvinists have is they have been taught that Paul is saying justification is by nothing at all that you 'do', or else if you were justified by something/ anything you did, that would be you doing something to earn your salvation, as if that's what defines the works gospel. Well, that isn't what defines the works gospel.

It isn't a matter of you doing something to be justified vs. you not doing something to be justified. It's a matter of you doing that which doesn't justify vs. that which does. Works of the law don't justify. Believing that God has forgiven your sins in Christ is what justifies. You are making a huge mistake by looking at it as 'doing something to be justified vs. doing nothing at all to be justified'.

God has predestined that the elect will be conformed to the image of his Son, not God has predestined who will be the elect.

"28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who i have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. " - Romans 8:28-29

"3 ...God...who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he b predestined us for adoption to sonship c through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will..." - Ephesians 1:3-5

"11In him we were also chosen, e having been predestined (to be conformed to the image of his Son-vs.29) according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will" - Ephesians 1:11

"10For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." - Ephesians 2:10

"...Jesus Christ, 14who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good." - Titus 3:13-14

The plan and purpose to have many sons and daughters conformed to the image of Christ is predestined by God, not who will be elected to that plan and purpose, though in his foreknowledge he does know who will be elected/chosen to that plan and purpose. Elected on the basis of their faith, not on the merit of their righteous works. The way he ordained from the beginning.

What's ridiculous is that you even think that's the argument being made.

Read it again.

"those" He predestined.

The object of the description "predestined" is people.

It's true whether it sits well with you or not.

Romans 8:28

More Than Conquerors.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,who have been called according to his purpose.
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son,that he may might be the first born among many brothers.
And those he predestined,he also called,those he called,he also justified,those he justified,he also glorified.
What,then shall we say in response to this?
If God is for us,who can be against us?
He who did not spare his own Son,but gave him up for us all-how will he not also ,along with him graciously give us all things?
Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?
It is God who justifies.
Who is he that condemns ?
Christ Jesus who died-more than that ,who was raised to life-is at the right hand of God,and is also interceding for us.
Who shall separate us from the Love of Christ?
Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or naked-ness or danger or sword?
And it is written.


Continue reading please.

Remember bro that passage is concerning God chowing Israel. Not individual salvation. The fatalistic view if romans 9 is incorrect