I think it's all a matter of perspective. Looking at it in human terms (and how can we not) it sure seems like we have free will to make our own decisions. But if you are attempting to see things from God's position outside of time - He already knows the beginning and the end. And also, how can He be anything other than sovereign?
Yet we are still called to pray to Him and to spread the Good News to all the world. I think that means we can be an instrument that God uses for His sovereign decisions. And I am comfortable with saying yes, I was chosen in Him from the foundation of the world but I'm also comfortable with saying yes, I made a decision for Christ.
marinamuffy
marinamuffy,
I actually totally agree with you. As a believer of compatabilist free will, I see that God put the taste for Him in my heart. Before being moved by the Spirit, I had no such taste for him and would continue to refuse the general call.
However, any thought that I freely chose Him without Him first taking me out of the mass of the damned is, I feel, completely unbiblical. God is the prime mover in this reaction, I was moved upon. He is the shaper of the clay, the clay has no say in its shape or its use for honor or dishonor.
I did not nor could not choose to be a wine-cup nor a chamber-pot. He chose our use and how He was going to use us.