A good shepherd does not wait for dumb sheep to seek Him, but searches out the lost sheep.
Can We Really Exercise Free Will?
- Thread starter LifelongLearner
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
Jesus answered, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” Luke 5 v 31 The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. Luke 19 v 10 For the Son of Man came to save the lost. Matthew 18 v 11 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. Matthew 9 v 13b, Mark 2 v 17b I will seek the lost, bring back the strays, bind up the broken, and strengthen the weak; but the sleek and strong I will destroy. Ezekiel 34 v 16
After eating of the fruit of the tree, Adam was no longer in the image of God - he and mankind became cursed by God
Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the likeness of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. James 3:9-10
Man yearns for satisfaction or to be without want. This can only be found when God is one's Shepherd. Since man is unable to reconcile himself to God, he looks for satisfaction in people and things. These of course cannot satisfy, and man finds himself alienated from God and without hope in this world...Ephesians 2:12-13. That is, until God, who is rich in mercy does something about it...Ephesians 2:4.
The Fwer looks at the story of the jailer and goes away understanding that belief lead to salvation.
30 And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31 So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. 34 Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household.
The jailer is not being told that he is saved by believing, but will believe by being saved.
“and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household”.
I go away understanding that salvation results in belief!
30 And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31 So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. 34 Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household.
The jailer is not being told that he is saved by believing, but will believe by being saved.
“and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household”.
I go away understanding that salvation results in belief!
Nor was he told that he had to acknowledge Christ as lord with his mouth, but Paul says that is necessary to be saved. We can assume that baptism accomplished that acknowlegement.
Agree, BillyBob. I think the below verse confirms that.
[Act 18:27 KJV] 27 And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him: who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through grace:
The same image he was made with. Becoming a slave to another didn't destroy that
So this is really getting to the heart of the matter. You think man was transformed into the image of satan, and therefore think he is totally depraved.
And, no, mankind wasn't cursed; the ground was cursed. You're understanding of this matter is totally depraved.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth into righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made into salvation. Romans 10:9-10
People believing that an incurably wicked heart will choose to believe in God is antithetical to what the Bible teaches.
This is part and parcel why the Pelagian heretics deny that man is the creature Scripture proclaims him to be.
They deny he is incapable of doing good, of pleasing God, that nothing good dwells in his flesh.
They have the bad tree bringing forth good fruit even though Jesus said it was impossible.
And choosing to come into the light even though Scripture says the opposite.
Choosing to believe what he only hears as foolishness. Quite the snafu.
Philippians 3 verse 3; Colossians 2 verse 11; Romans 2 verse 29b ~ For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh. You were also circumcised, in the putting off of your sinful nature, with the circumcision performed by Christ and not by human hands. Circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code.
It's is amazing what regeneration does to a man!
Man becomes changed into the image of God by/from being born again. There is nothing good in natural man
[2Co 3:18 KJV] 18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, [even] as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Yup, that's the point - gotta be saved/born again for that to occur
He died spiritually as are all of his offspring. Isn't that cursed?
But the image he was made with isn't the image that man has now - at least not until he becomes saved