Posted on 08/27/2009 11:21:03 PM PDT by kingattax
The only difference is that I CHOSE to obey His call. He didn’t interfere with my will. There was a time in the past that I chose not to come to Christ. He was drawing me and I refused to obey.
Why?
What made you willing?
Did you change your mind or did you change your heart?
I am a PK so in church all my life. I was a rebellious teenager. When I was 17, I remember vividly being burdened under the weight of my sin during a church service. I was in tears. The Spirit was drawing me to Christ but I would not listen. I figured I had plenty of time and I was not willing to give up my sin. I walked out of church and the Spirit left me. Even in my rebellion, I had always believed in God and knew the Bible was true. I knew if I died in my sin I was going to hell. I had always loved church. I became apathetic about life, further distanced from my family after this experience at church. About a year and a half later, the Spirit began dealing with my heart again. I recalled the scripture that God will not always strive with man. I believed that He would not continue to draw me if I didn’t obey this time. So I obeyed. The realization that I may not have a next time really opened my eyes to sse the truth of the situation. I always knew I needed God but I thought I had plenty of time. So I guess I changed my mind.
That would mean that you were smarter than the guy who ultimately rejects Christ.
My journey was somewhat similar to yours in that I ran from God and he kept chasing me down and ultimately I surrendered. I did not change my mind. God changed my heart. That made me willing. He did not force me to chose to follow him, as I had willingly made the choice to run from God, even though at every turn I heard his call. I didn't do anything other than stop long enough for the Holy Spirit to change my heart. It seemed like I chose Christ, but as the bible says, We loved him because he first loved us, and as Christ said, You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.
Even the disciples needed reminding that it was not their choice to follow Christ, but that it was Christ's choice that they would follow him.
In the end, I don't think it matters a whole lot whether or not we ever recognize that it was God who saved us from ourselves and not us saving ourselves by some exercise of our own will. However I find it comforting knowing that God directs my steps and that when I find that through some circumstance of life or my own dumb decisions I find myself in the valley of the shadow of death, I will know that this is where I am now and I am here because God wants me to be here.
I also am convinced that the road you traveled was the road God placed you on and that the final destination is where God is leading you now.
God Bless,
Marlowe
God changed my heart in the first service. He made me sorry for my sin. I rejected Him. When I did that He stopped drawing me for a while. That caused me to think differently about having all the time in the world to become a Christian. That is what I meant about changing my mind. That was the only difference in the first experience and the second. When He began wooing me a year and a half later, I did not wait. I finally surrendered to His call knowing that this might be my last opportunity. I did not choose Christ either. He chose me. I already told you that the Bible says that no one can come to Christ except the Spirit draws him so I do not know why you keep infering that I believe things contrary to scripture.
This explains it well without me having to do alot more typing. Quoted from gotquestions.org
“In the New Testament, sinners are commanded over and over to “repent” and “believe” (Matthew 3:2; 4:17; Acts 3:19; 1 John 3:23). Every call to repent is a call to choose. The command to believe assumes that the hearer can choose to obey the command.
Jesus identified the problem of some unbelievers when He told them, “You refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:40). Clearly, they could have come if they wanted to; their problem was they chose not to. “A man reaps what he sows” (Galatians 6:7), and those who are outside of salvation are “without excuse” (Romans 1:20-21).
But how can man, limited by a sin nature, ever choose what is good? It is only through the grace and power of God that free will truly becomes “free” in the sense of being able to choose salvation (John 15:16). It is the Holy Spirit who works in and through a person’s will to regenerate that person (John 1:12-13) and give him/her a new nature “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). Salvation is God’s work. At the same time, our motives, desires, and actions are voluntary, and we are rightly held responsible for them.”
Spot on. I am dealing with this myself. An attorney I have hired is reluctant to aggressively go up against the state agency I have issues with because he does not want to damage his current relationships with members of that agency. (Of course he had no problem at all aggressively accepting my retainer.)
You would be right about the alienation of the father part since it said clearly in the court documents that the daughter believed that the father does not love her enough because he will not convert to her religious preference.
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