The Elect, Need a clear definition of....

How do you get merit when there is nothing earned? FAITH is not earned!

If you do not acknowledge that single critical element in God's plan of salvation, then you may be in jeopardy! It is God's will that those he saves have faith in HIM! No God does not give man the faith, only the reasons to have faith!

Hear come de judge!, Hear come de judge!, Hear come de judge!

 

Wes, if you make a decision based on your reading of the situation that results in a good outcome to you and I, faced with the same dilemna, make a decision with a bad outcome to me then the merit of your decision is obvious.

I never said faith was earned. I said it was a direct and inevitable manifestation of a regenerate nature.

It is you that claims that it comes from within one's self.

If faith does not come from God and faith is what saves and faith is a result of human choice/belief then that choice/belief is worthy of merit. </font>[/QUOTE]Hogwash! You ain't got a clue!

 

"Using the means provided" could mean nothing more that hearing with the EARS that God installed on either side of your head for the purpose of taking in auditory sounds and recording them in the brain! You do understand that principle don't you? If that is work, then by golly, I want to be paid for what I HEAR!

If Forming Faith out of what you hear is a work then the only ones who do not work are those born deaf! What do you think you do when you believe the tenets of Calvinism? Are you working? Are you expending energy to cause your own ideas to conform to those of Calvinism? If you are, then you had better stop because you are gaining merit! . . . However, it may not be saving merit!

The scriptures are full of the expression "have faith" and many of those say "Have faith in God" and then the scriptures tell us that faith comes (to us, implied) by hearing, and that hearing comes from the word of God.

Now it could be that God speaks faith to those he elected before the foundation of the world. OR, it could mean that God gave us his word for us to search like those diligent Bereaen's to see if what we hear is true?

Since the first explanation has no foundation in scripture and the second is found in nearly all of the scripture, I disagree with your conclusion, and I am of the opinion that you do not know the truth!

 

Your convoluted idea of merit has no place in this discussion, because "if man breathes long enough to be regenerated" then man has done something meritorious and therefore does not deserve to be saved because he earned it! Yet, God created man to breath! So God created the impossible situation! If anybody could God could! But that is not the point. The point is you are excluding all the "normal" God designed features of man that caused God to give man the word of God.

You deny that man is a prized possession of God by saying that God only saves those he determined before the foundation of the world could be saved. So "prized" in truth, that God gave his only begotten son to be the sacrificial Lamb of God for the atonement of Sin so that we, ALL who believe, can be saved through faith!

Why don't you shelf your idea of merit and consider the reality of how God made man! Sin did not alter God's creation, Sin only separated God from his created man. And God has made and completed all that is necessary for man to regain a pure and holy relationship with God through man's faith in God.

Why do some eat grits but most don't? When those that don't get hungry enough, they too will eat grits! Whether or not one eats grits is not important, what is important is that we all eat the same way! Likewise, whether by selection, or by faith, it is important to note that scriptures clearly state that we are saved through faith....By GOD! There is no other way to be saved!

If one removes all the components of humanity out of salvation, NOTHING IS SAVED!

 

You just argued against your own system.</font>[/QUOTE]It seems that Faith has merit because the scriptures clearly declare that man must have it to be saved. So man is saved on the merit of his FAITH. Now it must be determined where such meritorious faith comes from! I have already stated what scriptures tell us about faith. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. You say that man's faith is given to him by God, then you post something by the same author that gave us what I just said. Paul must have been one truly confused man to have said it two different ways. So what do the rest of the Apostles say? Do they say that faith is a gift of God to man? OR, do they say that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God?

The choice is not what is important, the possession of the criteria for Salvation is what Determines God's Action at the appointed hour.</font>[/QUOTE]Stop evading. The credit for the choice is absolutely important and it is the crux of our disagreement. You have insenuated that it is man's choice that causes salvation to happen to him... Is it? Or is it God's?

What criteria? Faith? Belief? Were they given by God's grace at regeneration or did they come from within the man?

"Possession"? How did man come to possess the criteria? Did God supply them or did man acquire them for himself? </font>[/QUOTE]You demand that my position is that man chooses his own salvation when I have never said that man choose his own salvation. I have said repeatedly that man chooses to have faith in God, and that the scriptures tell us that we are saved through faith! Man's salvation is by no insinuation an act of God performed upon all men who have (possess) FAITH in God. God demands that man possess faith in order to be saved, so it is then in accordance with God's demand that man choose to have faith in Him. God said, "I put before you life and death, choose life! If God intended for one to be saved, then acted to regenerate the person, why does he give man the choice of life and death, where life is eternal life, and death is the lake of fire?

Faith is internal to man! If you can prove otherwise, then do so! I dare say you cannot!

Possession of the criteria for Salvation, is within man, and is uniquely individual in that I cannot possess your criteria and you cannot possess my criteria even though both of us must have the same criteria....FAITH in GOD, to be saved! God supplied All the reasons for us to have faith, then Makes us choose life or death, I choose life by placing MY FAITH in God!

 

That is your opinion! It is not mine!</font>[/QUOTE]If you agree that this is your contention then my last sentence isn't an opinion... it is a statement of fact.</font>[/QUOTE]Do you have a problem with the English/American language? Where in that have I Agreed with you?

 

The only way that can happen is if the belief is planted within the person by God, aka regeneration.</font>[/QUOTE]You obviously have not heard of "subliminal indoctrination". An event that happens in churches every Sunday to those who fall asleep when the preachin' starts. I've seen it happen with children of all ages, and even to me. Over the years I've asked many dozens of sleepers, after church, what they got out of the preachers talk this morning, and 75% of them can tell you what he preached about, and the conclusion drawn. Their eyes may have been closed, but their minds were still recording everything.

Did they believe what the preacher was saying? Well that depends on whether or not they trusted the preacher. Those where the preacher was well liked always believed. Those where the preacher either wasn't well known or had some 'blemish' on his cloak were not believed the majority of the time.

Yes, subliminal teaching is an accepted form of "conditioning" one's mind to acceptance of anything!

AH! so you do believe that HEARING comes first...Followed by FAITH in GOD! And that faith is what gets the man saved! Halelujah! Agreement at last!

 

It is those who do hear AND believe that open their hearts to God so that HE can regenerate them. Transform them to the image of HIS Son Jesus, the Christ!

HEARING and BELIEVING, then REGENERATING and TRANSFORMING! The bible way!

 

Does everything have to be in the bible for it to be believable and provable to you? If so, you are going to miss out on a whole bunch of what God has in store for you. The Whole of Creation is GOD'S WORD! He made it by speaking it into existence, and he made it for us from which to learn about him. Even the Human body is God's WORD! Study it you will learn a whole lot about God through it!

Did I indeed use the word "everyone"?

Did I say anything about either divine or human will?

Then why do you falsely assert that I did? You are an accuser!

I believe my post dealt with subliminal "hearing of the Word", and that it is information that is recorded in the mind for the human spirit to use as it chooses.

Everyone has a moment of weakness....Even you!

EXCUSE ME? Evading? What do you perceive that I have evaded, or am evading?

 

What you posted regarding faith is not a direct statement, it is an indirect opinion of a knowledgable, ELECTED, representative of God. Giving third party information to his reader. Whether or not one accepts that information is a matter of Faith, and the wheel goes around and around and around.

 

We are talking faith, why do you interject election at this point?

 

I'm telling you that there is no where else for faith to come from than inside the man.

You are saying that faith comes from outside the man.

I am saying that Faith which is the element in man that God looks for, is a meritorious possession. You are saying that man cannot have faith unless it is given to him from an 'outside source'.

It sounds like you are equating faith with Doubt. When in reality if one looks at doubt, one sees that it too comes from within the man. We are commanded to have faith and don't doubt! How is it we can do that if we are not in control of those two things?

You must consider the parable of the sower, where seed is scattered indiscriminately on various conditions of soil. That seed is not faith, it is elements that cause faith. The birds are not doubt, but they come and pluck away the seeds that produce faith leaving emptiness that causes doubt.

God, the sower, gives us all the seed we need to produce a good crop of faith, the birds make every attempt to pluck that faith producing seed away from us, and in a great many they are successful. The seed is not the tree! It only contains the stuff from which trees grow.