What Is "Predestination"? How Does It Shape Your Daily Life?

[Hazelelponi]

Cool. Yeah, that confused me a little. lol

Lol.. I'm sure it did I'm sorry. I thought of that for a second and put the thought aside when I shouldn't have...

 

[GracePeace]

Okay, and I've read your other post too about clothing, I do believe I know what you're saying...

Thanks!

So, your right and your wrong about God wearing us. It's just a little upside down because your not thinking of something...

It's not mindless, it's never mindless, and never based on anything but our love for Him, and for what He did for us.

The fact that God "wears" us has nothing to do with "mindlessness", because when we use our minds properly that would be God's acting, too.

We were forgiven MUCH!

So much it's mind-blowing, most people don't even realize the half, I'm sure I don't even recognize the half of what I was forgiven. and what does Scripture say about those who are forgiven much?

We love much...

So everything is based completely on that.

That's a good point.

Yes, God absolutely has to open our hearts to His understanding, but once we really understand? Is there another option we would even want to make?

it's so beyond imagining that anyone even could, honestly. Could you just go back to your old life and pretend none of this matters to you? Just the idea is laughable.

I may not do this thing God has given me perfectly, but I'd die before I'd give it up.

I think I agree? Except I don't know that I believe people can't fall away.

So back to clothes. The Bible compares what we do with Christ is to put Him on like clothing, Christ is the clothes in Scripture.

Why is He the clothes and not us? Because it's not mindless.

if it was mindless we'd be open to unclean spirits and wouldn't be able to discern, because the flesh is still here.

Think of that... For real, it's important because we do see it all the time, the end of mindless openness to things that would wear us.

So what do you have all around you as someone who believes as we do?

Is there any of us who is not surrounded by religious materials with which to find checks and balances to what the Holy Spirit leads us to?

We are constantly in the Scriptures .. We talk to our brothers and sisters before setting out, we read the historical men of God.

there's nothing about this we are not actively and mindfully participating in, in such a way that while it is God's work, it's still us wearing the clothes, instead of the other way around.

No, actually, I agree with you about it not being "mindless"; however, again, as Christ says, apart from Him we can do nothing. Paul says he worked but it was the grace that was with him. Christ says the Father is in Him doing the works.

When Paul says he worked, yet it wasn't him, it was God's grace... show me one other thing on earth that does deeds it doesn't do other than clothing. I'll be waiting, but I won't be holding my breath. Nothing else does it. Also, in Jeremiah, God tells His people that He had wanted to wear them like a belt, but they became destroyed, like the belt had been destroyed, so we have a precedent where His people are His clothing. Garments are also figurative language for righteousness (Rv 3 the Laodiceans are "naked", and Rv 16 blessed are those who watch and pray that they may keep their garments and not walk naked, and Rv 19:7,8 the fine linen bright and clean is the good deeds of the saints").

 

[GracePeace]

Okay, and I've read your other post too about clothing, I do believe I know what you're saying...

So, your right and your wrong about God wearing us. It's just a little upside down because your not thinking of something...

It's not mindless, it's never mindless, and never based on anything but our love for Him, and for what He did for us.

We were forgiven MUCH!

So much it's mind-blowing, most people don't even realize the half, I'm sure I don't even recognize the half of what I was forgiven. and what does Scripture say about those who are forgiven much?

We love much...

So everything is based completely on that.

Yes, God absolutely has to open our hearts to His understanding, but once we really understand? Is there another option we would even want to make?

it's so beyond imagining that anyone even could, honestly. Could you just go back to your old life and pretend none of this matters to you? Just the idea is laughable.

I may not do this thing God has given me perfectly, but I'd die before I'd give it up.

So back to clothes. The Bible compares what we do with Christ is to put Him on like clothing, Christ is the clothes in Scripture.

Why is He the clothes and not us? Because it's not mindless.

if it was mindless we'd be open to unclean spirits and wouldn't be able to discern, because the flesh is still here.

Think of that... For real, it's important because we do see it all the time, the end of mindless openness to things that would wear us.

So what do you have all around you as someone who believes as we do?

Is there any of us who is not surrounded by religious materials with which to find checks and balances to what the Holy Spirit leads us to?

We are constantly in the Scriptures .. We talk to our brothers and sisters before setting out, we read the historical men of God.

there's nothing about this we are not actively and mindfully participating in, in such a way that while it is God's work, it's still us wearing the clothes, instead of the other way around.

I did not mean we should be mindless when I said God "wears" us, BUT I do have a problem with mindlessness just because I was Buddhist (among other things--was infant baptized Roman Catholic, had been forced into Islam by my terrorist Muslim step father, then drug to Protestant Church, then was pretending to be an atheist, then was occultist (got expelled from school that year, from all the trouble the demons got me into), and then was Buddhist) before becoming Christian, so I don't want to be defensive or say that you are wrong on that count, but I just don't agree that the two (us being God's clothing, and the problem of mindlessness) are one and the same.

 

[GracePeace]

there's nothing about this we are not actively and mindfully participating in, in such a way that while it is God's work, it's still us wearing the clothes, instead of the other way around.

I specifically said it was both--that we are God's clothing (because "that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ"), and God is our clothing (because Jesus's Name is "God Is Our Righteousness").

 

[Hazelelponi]

I specifically said it was both--that we are God's clothing (because "we are the righteousness of God"), and God is our clothing (because "God Is Our Righteousness").

I read too fast...it didn't sink in. Sorry.

 

[GracePeace]

Ahhhh... Hey yeah... Good observation.

But yeah you were dead-on with that statement about mindlessness--but I do want to insist that that is a completely separate issue!

 

[Hazelelponi]

But yeah you were dead-on with that statement about mindlessness--but I do want to insist that that is a completely separate issue!

Okay... In what way is it a separate issue?

 

[GracePeace]

I read too fast...it didn't sink in. Sorry.

Jeremiah 13
1Thus the LORD said to me, “Go and buy yourself a linen waistband and put it around your waist, but do not put it in water.” 2So I bought the waistband in accordance with the word of the LORD and put it around my waist. 3Then the word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying, 4“Take the waistband that you have bought, which is around your waist, and arise, go to the Euphrates and hide it there in a crevice of the rock.” 5So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as the LORD had commanded me. 6After many days the LORD said to me, “Arise, go to the Euphrates and take from there the waistband which I commanded you to hide there.” 7Then I went to the Euphrates and dug, and I took the waistband from the place where I had hidden it; and lo, the waistband was ruined, it was totally worthless.
8Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 9“Thus says the LORD, ‘Just so will I destroy the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. 10‘This wicked people, who refuse to listen to My words, who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts and have gone after other gods to serve them and to bow down to them, let them be just like this waistband which is totally worthless. 11‘For as the waistband clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole household of Israel and the whole household of Judah cling to Me,’ declares the LORD, ‘that they might be for Me a people, for renown, for praise and for glory; but they did not listen.’

 

[GracePeace]

Okay... In what way is it a separate issue?

Because Christians being "worn" by God is merely an understanding I received as an answer to prayer about a verse of Scripture just recently (within the past maybe seven years or so), and has nothing to do with my own personal defects which preceded that.

 

[GracePeace]

Okay... In what way is it a separate issue?

Anyway if I don't start trying to get to sleep I'll regret it like I do every day. See ya (God willing)!

 

[Hazelelponi]

Anyway if I don't start trying to get to sleep I'll regret it like I do every day. See ya (God willing)!

Sorry I'm so slow. Good night!

 

[GracePeace]

Sorry I'm so slow. Good night!

But thank you for helping me--you hit the bullseye, so it had to be from God. I can't wait to see what wisdom God gives you to help me.

 

[Hazelelponi]

But thank you for helping me--you hit the bullseye, so it had to be from God. I can't wait to see what wisdom God gives you to help me.

Okay. So, let's change descriptors (it's a better illustration for me on this point, and I do see it too, okay?)

So all this is like a well right? An unfathomably deep well full of nothing but God's glory and majesty.

It's not a ceasing of our own existence if we jump into this well, in fact it's nothing but Life and we are being called to enter in.

But the leap is terrifying all the same. So we inch in... The more we understand the more we trust the farther we go.

Right?

But you know when you jump in your coming out just like the Apostle Paul, and that's scary.

Let's face it Paul was the crazy man in the public square talking about putting on Christ like clothing... Jesus Christ, a human being in the eyes of the world that many had seen as a living man at the time.

It's bad enough that we can understand Paul as if he was our own brother, raised in the same household but to come out of the well like that?

It's not an inviting prospect really, no one actually wants to be the crazy man in the public square..

And then look at the venom spewed just at this, tell them God is sovereign and they flip.. they can handle anything but that. They hate God because they don't have control over Him.

And we aren't that different really... it is as terrifying as it is wonderous to fully surrender self.

So we inch ourself in, the more we understand of God the more we trust Him and so the farther we go into that well which is the Glory of God.

We won't loose ourselves when we jump entirely in, but we aren't coming out of it the same. We will be exactly like Paul.

God asks us to take the leap, but he gives us the time we need to be able to do that comfortably I think...hence, clothing descriptors.

At any rate, I've already jumped... So have you. . Whether we realize it yet or not.

But In that well only God operates, I agree, and when we jump, only God matters to us. There it is totally only God in us, through us, and for the praise of His Glory.

Is this where you are thinking?

 

[Eternally Grateful]

Because God gave us all brains.

yes and he told us not to rely on our brains. And he warns us of human wisdom did he not?

Since when do we bring God down to our level?

 

[Eternally Grateful]

God has a plan for each of us, if you are calling that predestination. Perhaps his plan for John Doe is to be a concert pianist. Perhaps the plan depends on John walking with the Lord.

why do you keep going outside of scripture? did God say he had a plan for us? No

It says he has determined before hand that we will (not might) be conformed to his image.

How can you have any hope in God if you do bot believe his basic promise?

 

[Eternally Grateful]

It would be foolish to turn down God's offer of salvation. Still, is eternal torture a just sentence?

what does the word say,

who is condemned?

vs whp is not condemned?

who’s fault is it if they are condemned forever? Gods, or ours?

 

[Eternally Grateful]

Just tangentially, I was asking God why one is called a "wage" (death in Adam--as a result of his trespass, we were born naturally slaves to sin, leading to our "paycheck" of death), but the other one is called a "gift" (eternal life in Christ--as a result of Christ's obedience, we who are born again are naturally slaves to God, leading to holiness, and then eternal life due us... as a "gift").

I think, here, the idea is that Sin "pays" us death ("him who had the power of death"), whereas God "gives" us life (what He "has"--"If anyone has this world's goods, but does not share them with a brother in need, how does God's love abide in Him?", but God gave what He "had")--these are two different sources (like Adam was told "you'll die if you sin"--death comes from bowing to Sin, bc Sin "pays" you what Sin has). Is that coherent? But I wonder why one is a "paycheck" where the other is a "gift" when both are the result of works being worked in us by another and not ourselves (eg, "If I do what I disagree with, it is no longer I who sin but Sin in me").

Think about it as a paycheck

we have earned death, because we have sinned.

We can not earn life. Because we have earned death.

So salvation is God taking that wage for us, so we may be made the righteousness of Christ in him

 

[Eternally Grateful]

@Eternally Grateful Maybe the difference is that Adam did nothing to be alive, but he did do something to die?

But how does that transfer over to our context when the explanation for our having been "gifted" eternal life is not on those grounds, but on "being found in Him", where good works are being worked in us (Ro 8:2), and we're being repaid (as a "gift") eternal life for the resulting holiness?

Maybe because Adam's initial state was given to him, Adam having done nothing to effect it, whereas his death was effected by his deeds--inferring that his initial state (with regard to how he was righteous, which was how he could know God/have spiritual life, before his sins separated him from God, before his death) was already "God Is Our Righteousness" (Jer 23:6), which Christ restores?

Adam died th moment he sinned, At that moment we all (even though we had not been born yet) died also.

But we eventually will earn our own death, when we sin. The reward we earn for sin is death or separation from God.

remember, In adam, all die. In Christ shall all be made alive.

we all have a head.. Either in adam, or in Christ..

Another way to look at it, Is what sinned killed adam? I am going to propose it was not eating of the fruit. He sinned long before that. His sin was a sin of unbelief. If he trusted God he would not of eaten of that fruit.

So everyone who is an unbeliever, is in adam

everyone who trusted God is In Christ

Funny how Jesus said these same words in John 3, Only he used condemned and not condemned as the end result

 

[Eternally Grateful]

Yes.
We can never lose what we did not work for. If God can gift us his Sabbath and irrevocable eternal saving grace,he can insure we keep it. Just as he said. Eternalife is eternal salvation.

Yes,they did not enter his rest because when it came down to it, They did not believe.

Not only did they not believe, they wanted to kill those who did believe.

It’s amazing how they (the jews) kept repeating the same mistake over thousands of years. Thekilled the prophets, and in the end, they killed their Messiah

 

[Eternally Grateful]

No, there's another potential reason for the apparent discrepancy: "predestined" is not being defined correctly, and/or it has dynamics (whose "outline" can be groped for and detected in all those passages warning believers of the potential of falling away) that we are unaware of (which, fishing for those, was the reason I opened this thread) or are not considering, or are refusing to consider. We've discussed this before--when someone's name is blotted out of God's Book, for sinning, their righteousness is forgotten, so it is as though they never were saved (so it is still true that "if they were of us, they would have remained with us").

well this could be true,

But.

the origional language would not allow that. It says we have been pre-determined, determined before hand, or for-ordained, that this will happen.

Now we can argue the who the “we” are all day long. But there is no argument as to what happens to them, unless you want to change the meaning of words or the outcome..