Sola Gratia:
I know I post my “message of the week” on the page of that name, but this must be shared!
As more and more people ask me questions about the doctrines of grace, The LORD has shown me that it is not in answering all their quesitons that will help them. They need God to show them biblical GRACE. We have drained grace of it’s meaning. We sing “Amazing Grace” and it means nothing to us – partly because we are so familiar with the words, but primarily because we have no concept of God’s sovereign grace (although this very song teaches us what that is).
May The LORD use this message to encourage you and cause you to praise Him for His glorious grace in your life.
How do I know if I’m chosen???
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“For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.”
(1 Thessalonians 1:4-5)
This is a question that has been asked me, in some shape or form, plenty of times. I am sure that anyone who has given much thought to the truths this blog attempts to proclaim (regardless of which side you fall on at the end) has asked themselves this very question. This question is also often used to dissuade people from considering the verity of the doctrines of grace.
I find that most who struggle with this question do not yet have a biblical understanding of election, nor the gracious gifts of repentance and faith. I won’t bore you for long, as I believe the Scripture is very clear on this; but simply point you to the Holy Spirit inspired words of Paul, and give a brief explanation.
“For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.”
(1 Thessalonians 1:4-5) [emphasis added]
Let’s play this out between the questioner and the apostle Paul:
Questioner: “Paul, you speak of the electing work of God – that He has mercy on whom He will and harden’s whom He will. You say that salvation is not a thing I can attain by my works, or even my own willing to be saved. If my salvation is completely up to God, and His unconditional election, how do I know if I am elected?”
Paul: “Has God so moved in your heart that the sin you once loved you now hate? Are you resting on the Person and work of Jesus Christ alone for your salvation? Then the gospel did not come to you in word only but also in power and the Holy Spirit, and with full conviction, and know that God has chosen you.
Grant it, this is not a translation of I Thessalonians 1:4-5. But then you would not be asking Paul this question face to face either. =) It is rather an application of the truth stated here.
Paul said he new God had chosen those at Thessalonica who believed because of the effect the gospel had on them. Faith and repentance are gifts of grace, purchased with the blood of Christ for His children. We were dead in sin, walking according to the will of Satan, and God made us alive to Himself. (Eph. 2:1-10) It is of God that we are saved. Even our belief is not of our own doing, so we can only boast in the cross! (Galatians 6:14)
So, my friend, if The Holy Spirit testifies that you are truly repenting of your sins and believing in The LORD Jesus Christ, then election is something you can claim.
If you have no repentance and true faith in The LORD Jesus Christ, then do not be decieved by a prayer you prayed, a baptism you endured, a church role you’re on, or a humanitarian act you performed. You must repent and believe the gospel! May The LORD, in His grace,make the gospel hit you like a ton of bricks granting you a hatred for, and a longing to be free of, your sin making Himself glorious to you and causing you to flee to Him.
And if He has done these things to you already, let’s thankfully worship Him for His amazing grace!
May He make the cry of our hearts be –
Soli Deo Gloria!!!
Wow!
Watching this is like looking in a mirror more often than I would like to admit.
This shows me my ever present need for the grace of God in my life. Even as one of His Children there is absolutely nothing in me that merits His love – apart from Himself being within me.
May God be gracious to us and forgive us of our hypocrisy.
The blessedness of His Sovereignty!
I know I have already posted today, but this must be shared!
God’s sovereignty is in every area. as R.C. Sproul stated, “there is not one maverick molecule” in all creation. Is this a doctrine that exceeds our capacity to comprehend? Yes! But it is true none-the-less!
May God be exalted!
Baptist-Catholicism
Being raised in a typical American-baptist church, I heard the message of decisional regeneration proclaimed as the gospel. Scripture condemns this false gospel. I was shocked to see how similar it is to the Catholic doctrine of salvation – thus I have coined it such… but this is not particular to baptist only, but is an interdenominational lie.
Inability to Repent – Ephesians 2:1-3
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience– among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
(Ephesians 2:1-3)
My wife told me that she saw a segment on tv about a little girl who could not feel pain, like Roberto in the clip above. The parents were speaking of how they had to watch her every move, as she could touch a hot stove and literally watch her flesh burn off her hand and fell nothing – that there is not a single sensation that tells her she should pull her hand back; nothing to tell her that she is damaging herself! She has the capacity to kill herself and enjoy the entire process!
By now the spiritual, and even more dreadful, parallel should be apparent. God’s Word tells us that we are dead in sin, just as Roberto is dead to pain. He has no capacity to feel pain. The damage is there, and is actually being done, yet he has no impetus to cause him to repent from his course of self destruction. He is actually missing the pain receptors, so there is a communication breakdown from his hand, or any body part, to his brain . Even so the natural, or unregenerate man, cannot understand the things of God as he thinks them foolish, nor does he have the ability to understand them. (I Cor. 2:14)
Roberto could play with a broken leg, and not even slow down. We have a world full of men who have the wrath of God on them, and they don’t even slow their play. They continue in their God-hating sin, enjoying the sinful pleasures of this world, yet heaping up wrath. They have spiritual CIPA (it’s even congenital as they were born in sin). They are commanded to repent, yet they are not able to, for there is no repentance in them.
Such were some of you!
Praise The LORD that there is a verse 4, and following, in Ephesians 2!
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved– and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
(Ephesians 2:4-7)
May The LORD use Roberto’s situation to glorify Himself! May He cause the truth of our depravity to be ever increasingly beautiful as we see the ever increasing depths of it!
Titus 3:5
What saith The Scripture? 