I won't be back until Monday
I got up early today, and in just a few minutes I will be heading off to school/work. Only 5 1/2 days of classes left until Summer Vacation! Praise God! I wish I knew what the next few months will hold. There are things on the calendar. But far too many "ifs" and "what ifs" and this could be a very long, hot and troublesome summer. I've spent about 45 minutes this morning blogging. Visiting all my links, and a few that aren't on my list, but I go there anyway, even though they usually upset me. One of my friends is getting ready to do a series on the concept of Christian Blogging. I'm not sure this whole blogging thing has been good for me. Oh, I've made a few new friends I think, and I love to write. It's nice to be heard I guess. And it's kind of like a Bible study, where you can get your whole thought out without being interupted, you can take as long as you need to look things up, and you can attend in your jammies. BUT, one of the bad things has been that after 25 years of walking with the LORD, seeking first the KINGDOM of GOD, with my Chrisitanity being the focal part of my life, the first and formost part of my identity, I have encountered people out there who have made me doubt my faith. Going though the refiner's fire is hard enough but then I see my basic beliefs fall under the label of heresy, and I see my opinions getting shot down as being new age, which is really funny because I've been teaching against the New Age movement for years...and then I start thinking, maybe everything has gone wrong in my life because I've been living a lie, and I'm not really saved, and I'm not even predestined for salvation, 25 years of believeing in the wrong god. Do you know what those thoughts can do to the emotions of a menopausal women????Yeah, I still have my sense of humor, but I am dead serious...So I won't be back until Monday. This should be a good weekend. I'll get to spend time with my grandkids. We'll watch the muppet wizard of oz. I have a ministry meeting to go to, with a parachurch group, Passion Play Ministries International, and the people there are good friends. We'll do some yard work, my son and I (not the son "in trouble", the one who claims to be the "good son" by default.). Then worship and Children's church on Sunday. And I plan to do a lot of reading (the WORD) and praying...
so, until Monday, I am and remain (for now) maryellenbernadetteiachettageniipuffbrokp...
6 comments:
Maryellen,
I remember a pastor from many years back who once said, if you can ask the question; have I committed the "unforgivable sin" of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?;you can safely assume that you haven't, by the fact that you can ask the question.
Since you are questioning your salvation, you prove you are saved. An unbeliever would not care to ask such a thing as he /she doesn't believe. We must keep praying for the church throughout the earth that they gain this understanding of reality.Those who walk in darkness have no idea that they are doing so. If no one seeks God of their own volition,then you must have God draw you to Him, and then you begin to seek His face. Since you are seeking Yahweh and His Son Jesus, and not philosophy or a concept, you are "saved".
I am not declaring this to be so, I only have the Scripture as the revelation of Truth.
Chris,
I think your answer is wrong. I do not think that questioning my salvation is proof of anything, other that these anti-blogs have confused me. I think seekers have a lot of questions, and when the "church" fails to effectivly point them to the true answers, they turn some place else. I disagree with your statements here and in past posts that no one seeks God of their own volition, unless we add that God has put in every human's heart the need to seach, the longing to know the truth. He draws all men to him. What they find, and how they choose to respond to what they find is a matter of free will. I do not agree that those who are walking in darkness have no idea they are doing so. If that were true, than why would buddists spend so much time seeking enlightenment. I do not believe that the same God who says it is not His will for any to be lost, would deliberty go agaist his own will and create individuals that were predestined to damnation. I do not believe that the God who is love, is at the same time mean. I believe there are things about God that we will not understand...and I think it is wrong for any person to say "I understand" when so many scholars, righteous men, learned men, don't completely agree, don't completely understand. If Sola Scriptura is correct...then we shouldn't need any man to tell us what the words mean...they say what they say...if it seems to contradict, we must look harder, in the word, for the pieces that fit it all together...
Flip
I'll make a deal with you.
I won't give up it you don't give up...
seek and ye shall find!
Maryellen,
I will respond to each one of your points as I don't know any other way of approaching your rather surprising comment.
#1 I do not see how any blog can cause a person to question his/her salvation. Only someone who knows the Lord can question his /her's beliefs. If you don't know a thing about salvation, why would you care?
#2. Only those who know the Lord Jesus seek Him wherever they go.
Those who have no clue who He is, are not looking for Him. The Church's problems would take an entire book to address.
#3. The statements you refer to are not mine, they are Scripture.
Putting eternity in our hearts is not putting knowledge of God in our hearts. Solomon is saying that men have knowledge of something other than this life, but have no understanding of it.
#4You said "He draws all men to Him" . Yes He does.
#5. I will answer the free will comment last.
#6
John 12:35 Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. KJV
#7 The Buddhists seek enlightenment, not Yahweh. Who said that they are one and the same? Can enlightenment be a bad thing?
Matthew:
6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
6:23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! KJV
How can light be darkness?
A single eye signifies accurate sight and accurate (Yahweh-based) enlightenment.
#8.God is love. Why do we insist on making His love into the touchy feely twaddle that is perpatrated by tv and harlequin romance novels? This is a rhetorical question addressed to the church at large. God annihilated entire peoples in the OT. Was He mean then and nice now? He's the same God, who does not change.
#9.The Bible is final authority. All traditions and teachings and practices are subordinate including Luther's, Calvin's, or whoever.
My approach has always been to go to Scripture and read what the words actually say. We do not need to interpret. The book interprets itself. Scripture does not contradict itself anywhere.
#10
Two men hear the gospel one reponds to salvation and one rejects it. God has complete foreknowledge.He knew what each would choose. He allows each to go on their way. Now if the one who rejected it never has another opportunity to hear the message again, and God does nothing to alter his choice, then is he saved? The righteous shall live by faith, and only those who believe by faith are counted as righteous.
So, as long as God lets us choose to be damned of our own free will, it is better than being predestined? What is the difference? If God does not have complete foreknowledge, then there is a valid basis for an argument; but if that is true, then open theism is an accurate biblical view and we know that such a belief has no Biblical foundation.
If God is completely sovereign and able to save to the uttermost, then He chooses to let us choose eternity outside of His presence. So He will have mercy on those whom He will have mercy and He will harden those whom He chooses to harden.
Finally, No one including myself is saying that we have all understanding. Deut 29:29 says that God reveals what He wills to reveal, and that what has been given to us is for us to understand so that we may walk the walk correctly. What post-modernism espouses is that even what God has revealed to us cannot be known. This is a picture of a capricious, reneging God. He gives us the ability to understand. Everything is given to us because we do not have anything, i.e. faith, revelation, righteousness, salvation, understanding. This is so that no man can boast from himself. Therefore I know of no one who is boasting about what they know. I would be more leery of the relativists who blow off every Scriptural argument with the, "we all have our own interpretation" arguments.
I apologize for the length, but I felt that these were imporatant and valid points that you raised.
Chris,
I would say there is a difference between a just God and a mean God.
And I would say, let mercy triumph over justice!
Flip,
Thanks, I'm just fine!
Maryellen,
I have always been talking about a just God. If He is truly God, then He is truly just. With all our getting we must get understanding.
See you Sunday.
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