God's Salvation plan?

[gemcgrew]

Would you pray for the deceitfulness of riches(love of money). which could deter you from the kingdom?

I wouldn't, because I have already been there and learned from it. I also have awareness of the results of having gone through it. Knowing the results, I wouldn't go back and change it, even if I could.

That is only one of many acts of providence that caused me to cling tighter to Christ.

 

[Artfuldodger]

Would you pray for the deceitfulness of riches(love of money). which could deter you from the kingdom?

Are there works that will keep individuals(non-elect) from the Kingdom, that won't keep them from receiving salvation? If so what are these works?

Also is it just the works that keeps them from the Kingdom?

 

[Artfuldodger]

I would say, from reading Romans 9-11, that God does create bad clay to show the good clay "the riches of His glory."

Even the re-probate learns lessons from bad works such as "the love of money."

Regardless, God also chose a remnant out of Israel based on grace alone.

Maybe it's all just another mystery not yet revealed.

 

[Artfuldodger]

The Primitive Baptist Universalist believe the Elect was chosen from the "all" of God's children to be a witness for Christ and an earthly preserver of God's righteousness.

 

[welderguy]

I wouldn't, because I have already been there and learned from it. I also have awareness of the results of having gone through it. Knowing the results, I wouldn't go back and change it, even if I could.

That is only one of many acts of providence that caused me to cling tighter to Christ.

I tend more to pray "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil".

...but that's just me.

 

[gemcgrew]

I tend more to pray "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil".

...but that's just me.

I tend more to not mix categories.

...but that's just me.

 

[welderguy]

I tend more to not mix categories.

...but that's just me.

So, if there's something you haven't experienced yet(let's just say homosexuality), are you telling me that you would pray for that temptation, so that you would learn from it?

 

[gemcgrew]

So, if there's something you haven't experienced yet(let's just say homosexuality), are you telling me that you would pray for that temptation, so that you would learn from it?

Why are you asking me if I am telling you something that I haven't said? How is your thinking so warped that you ended up here?

Why would I continue responding to you while you handle my words so carelessly?

 

[welderguy]

Why are you asking me if I am telling you something that I haven't said? How is your thinking so warped that you ended up here?

Why would I continue responding to you while you handle my words so carelessly?

Nevermind then

 

[Artfuldodger]

I wouldn't, because I have already been there and learned from it. I also have awareness of the results of having gone through it. Knowing the results, I wouldn't go back and change it, even if I could.

That is only one of many acts of providence that caused me to cling tighter to Christ.

I'm assuming you have learned from the trial of deceitfulness of riches(love of money). You are glad that God presented you with this trial

I don't think it's a warped way of thinking. You admit that you learned from it.
Let me ask of myself, would you welcome God testing you with the trial of homosexuality to show you the err of your ways as with your comparison with the love of money?

 

[Artfuldodger]

The old homosexuality providence test. It sure does throw a damper on the situation of welcoming trials and tribulations.

I personally have already been tested. So I can say, thank you God for testing me. I passed, as not my weakness. Possibly not much for me to learn from it.
I must say though that I did and have failed the lust of women test. I have also failed the jealousy trial, the anger tribulation, the gossiper trial, the fornication tribulation, etc.

The forgiving others test? I have completely and utterly failed at passing that test. If God is looking for My weakness, that is it, he has found it.
He need not look any further.

I may be able to overcome my hatred, my jealousy, my lust, my anger, but my ability to forgive others? I'm not there yet. Even with God's help, testing, trials, and tribulations.

 

[gemcgrew]

Let me ask of myself, would you welcome God testing you with the trial of homosexuality to show you the err of your ways as with your comparison with the love of money?

Of course. I welcome anything that God decrees to prove my faith, that I may be more aware of my dependence upon Christ.

 

[Israel]

The old homosexuality providence test. It sure does throw a damper on the situation of welcoming trials and tribulations.

I personally have already been tested. So I can say, thank you God for testing me. I passed, as not my weakness. Possibly not much for me to learn from it.
I must say though that I did and have failed the lust of women test. I have also failed the jealousy trial, the anger tribulation, the gossiper trial, the fornication tribulation, etc.

The forgiving others test? I have completely and utterly failed at passing that test. If God is looking for My weakness, that is it, he has found it.
He need not look any further.

I may be able to overcome my hatred, my jealousy, my lust, my anger, but my ability to forgive others? I'm not there yet. Even with God's help, testing, trials, and tribulations.

That's an interesting perspective.

The forgiving others test? I have completely and utterly failed at passing that test. If God is looking for My weakness, that is it, he has found it.
He need not look any further.

Not because I can find fault with it, but because I think I understand it in some common experience.
Is it correct to surmise such "knowing" of weakness came to you after what we commonly call..."receiving the Lord"...being "in Christ"...even "a Christian"?

How odd that would seem on the face of it. But, like I have said, I believe I share that commonness of experience with you.

In whatever way, fashion, form of entrance light appears to us and we acknowledge it (if the light of Christ) we have entered into His life. At least that's how it appears to us. "Jesus is Lord", I am a christian, and off we go into this new life. But we may find out the things we say, and even say we believe, and confess readily...somehow in the saying aren't met yet in our experience.

I mean...what "christian" wouldn't say "God saw my need, and weakness, darkness and utter lostness...and Christ is revealed and given now as all sufficiency" I mean...isn't that our confession in some fashion or way? Yet...even after this...we discover many things.

But...is it safe to say to ourselves "how silly this sounds" that God would be about testing us to show the very weakness He has already known (did God need to find out where we fail?) in His provision of Christ for man?

What I mean is, God already well knows how much we need the atoning work of Christ supplied, what does He lack in any form and fashion about the frailty of man? The weakness...even failings...of man? Yet we do say such things...don't we?

"If God is looking for my weakness..."

Perhaps it is quite reversed...it was when we said "weakness" we really had no idea to the depths of that, at all. Oh, surely...God has already known! If not...why such a radical need for the bloody slaughter of His own Son? Yet it now seems the very One saving us...is leading us into a knowing in depth that we could not have even previously imagined. There is substance of things now...substance of such weightiness that once we handled with almost a frivolity. A casualness. Some even, by rote and repetition.
We become convicted of a reality of matters, a hard and immutable firmness of things...that once (though we may have thought we saw clearly)...now are known, and in some way even understood...whose "once" seeing is now made plain as vague, almost formless and misty, though we confidently (at that time) believed we saw.
Oh! desperation! What remains? For just as surely as I believed I once saw...I am no less now, believing I see...not much different! I thought I saw, and now believe I think I see...I mean..."How much need of Christ is there?"!!!!!

I am convinced were you and I left to seeing no more of our need of Christ than at any time we may yet presently see...we are lost men. This leading into what may appear to us as "many failures" is precisely the work of God...to answer that question..."How much need of Christ is there?"!!!!!

And for the revelation of that sufficiency.

 

[welderguy]

Of course. I welcome anything that God decrees to prove my faith, that I may be more aware of my dependence upon Christ.

Luke 22:31-34
31 And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:
32 But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.

Attaboy Glenn!

 

[gemcgrew]

Luke 22:31-34
31 And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:
32 But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.

Attaboy Glenn!

Not me Welder. We boast in the Lord.

 

[Israel]

Peter explains a lot to us.
From the most sublime confessions and admissions to (what we may think or see) as the most boneheaded blunders in speaking and deportment that stick out like a sore thumb. But maybe these are less included for an exposition of Peter's estate than they are for our own.

How can a man who, by speaking, appears to be in possession of such a mystery and conviction then so easily progress to appearing as though he believed himself God's counselor? How can this be?

I only marveled at it "in Peter" till I was made fit to laugh at it in myself. Laugh, at myself. God forbid I stop.

We all know the stories. The scenarios. The accounts.

"Thou art the Christ!"

And

"far be it from you Lord..." (Didja really say Satan?!!!!)

Or


Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.

And

Peter answered and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended.

Was Peter tempted to Satan's turf, or did Jesus simply recognize he was already tearing up divots all over Satan's course?

"Lovest thou me?" a few times.
Yes, at first.
Yes, at second.
But third?
"Lord, you know all things"

Peter did not deny loving the Lord, and even there went on to affirm it. But not without being "deeply hurt" at Jesus' repetition.

I don't know if any of us ever escapes this repetition of question, nor find we ourselves somewhat offended in its persistence. Jesus already knows us, knows how very seriously..."we take ourselves".

Affections...and especially those we consider "deep" we don't much like up for the probing. "I know what I love! I don't need anyone's examination to know it!" And for the most part we prefer to believe we are moved by them, and never some other, lesser, or poorer form of motive.

"I move in love", not from a craven fear, not from some avoidance of something, not in flight...but "always from the positive"...we may discover is a very very fond way of thinking of ourselves.

We may tell ourselves "I witness of Christ...for the sake of others" or "I, like Paul (oh how many trip here, as in ego tripping, and tripping fall) endure such and such for the sake of the body, to enlighten it!"

"I"...am a fit laborer!


"All 'I do' is by and for the love of Christ alone!"

When these hiding spots are disclosed to us as what they are, it would appear our own treasury of goodness is left so unmistakably revealed as corrupt and useless, so plainly paraded to us as the idol it is, and has been to us...even what we may be allowed to have once perceived as our "deepest" affection...laughable. And at the same time such a desolation of soul may grip as toward the motion of the purest cry we have ever uttered..."mercy Lord, mercy!" Mercy! for me!

Where once we believed we "opted" for it, and Him,...we may find a persuasion to a delight that Jesus Christ is not made optional to man, to any man, to all "of man", ...and glad, most of all, this is made clear to our own self. There is no where else...for standing. There is, as brother Lewis so rightly penned, "no other stream". No other place to either drink, or swim.

I don't think any of us ever knew how "in over our heads" we were called. Our convictions of our own competence ran far deeper than kindness would allow to an immediate and full disclosure. But, instantly nevertheless, they are made known!

And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.
The writer of Hebrews reminds us.

In whatever measure a ministry is revealed to us, a service in Christ to which we may be persuaded is toward us of Christ, may we all be fully persuaded and found faithful.

May we, by whatever power of these words to work in us (and that not of our own) seek to make our calling and election sure.

If there be allowance for place of salute, and therein be found a place where even such as I may make one, I find it here. In the flow of what I am allowed to receive, particularly in what is revealed as received by you, as (seemingly) other members and shared freely, has often come that most necessary of questions..."Lovest thou me?"

It's completely beyond my ability to control His approach. And how wonderful that is!

 

[gemcgrew]

"Bees gather honey from bitter flowers, as well as sweet; so should we from bitter conditions. Crosses are Christ’s servants, as they come and go at his command. They are sent to do us good; all is sent in love, and best for me; for God will supply all our wants with his all-sufficiency. We should not look so much at freedom from trouble, as to profit by it, to enjoy God by it, and strength to bear it, looking upon all that befalls us as appointed and ordered by God in his wisdom and love for our good." (Samuel Richardson)

I came across this today. I thought it fitting in the flow of our conversation.