Where it is only at best inferred by man that man is free in anything (which would certainly include his will most of all) Jesus is not unclear at all that souls in bondage are completely so, and that He Himself (through continuance in His word from which He is not separate) is the only way to freedom.
And so it is not without noting that this truth is as offensive to some believers today....even as in the day He first spoke it to some "believing Jews" that He is, and remains to the exclusion of all else, the only way to be free. Suddenly they were offended, taking a stand upon their lineage, their history, and matters they thought they shared in common with Abraham. But this winnowing out of histories, kinships of the flesh, all natural matters to which a man might hold for the establishing of himself...mean nothing. And yet not merely nothing...but real hindrances to any knowing of God.
Yet, they will be discarded as nothing, as mere rubbish, d*ng...when they are recognized as the obstacles they are.
But my stand is not upon predestination nor election nor any of those things, nor is my call to it though it is plainly stated, but to the Christ of God in whom, and by whom, God has chosen to make Himself known to man. That very Christ who has said both "you have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you..." and "have I not chosen you, the 12, and yet one of you is a Devil?" Being ordained and predestined is along His way revealed, but the call is never away to the mere knowing of things...but He, Himself.
He is the elect One of God to that. Make no mistake that I am as common as all men, seeking to find some delight in my choices, and such choices that I have framed then as superior, seeking to take to myself such superiority. How common a man I am. But when the matter of choice is too pressed upon me, in matter of life and death (and beyond) and the dread of making the "wrong one" becomes all too plain in its terrors, it is only there my previous delights found in "my choosing" are revealed as the trap I have laid for my own soul. I suckered and merely succored...my own self's soul.
Only there can relief be found in Christ as the One not of my choosing nor deciding as who He is. Yes, only there am I made very glad such has been entirely decided well before I knew of hands into which I might take anything...and now made plain all is, and has been already quite "out of my hands" as ever it was. The preeminence of Christ in all matters may remain questionable to me in some matters (as I am allowed question...even encouraged to it...ask, seek, knock) but this is not to indulge me...but that all asking might lead to what already is, and is established.
And such right of being encouraged, comforted, allowed...which so thoroughly eclipses fears and torments was secured, is secured only by One, not myself. Do not think that to myself this question is strange as though never entertained, "But when do I get mine...when do I get "my own"? The answer has been so plainly and consistently the same through these few decades of seeking Him as to have become undeniable that "If it is not enough that this man Jesus is made both Lord and Christ to you, then nothing of all else in all creation will suffice".
"What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
and
And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?
It is enough Christ be my life. Yet so much more.
Who forsook His own choosing to be the Choicest (where choice finally fails and is laid to rest in comparisons).
Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?
What is the substance of that man that forsakes what is His by right so that it could not even be called escape by any? What little I may know of His taking on there makes it quite plain...even as I get to know Him...that I am not Him.
For what He took on there is all that separated me from God and even all others...that the only man I could ever know was myself. With no knowing, at all. (And if any man doubt that any and all he may know of himself is only through feeding and feedback, may such a man find grace in the time it is to him, silenced...and only voices are to him, other)
And God in wisdom says "It is not good for the man to be alone".
What He took away, put away, put to death in Himself in His dying for me, that work is all and only what allows a man, even a man as me...to be...without shame.
This gift is proffered to as many as can receive it.
I will appear more foolish, still.
Well said.
Some see the choice; some see the Power behind the choice.
Some see potentiality; some see pure Actuality.
Some seek to make a change; some seek the Unchanging.
Some hear thunder; some hear an Angle.