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To: FreeRep
"It was the most freeing thing that ever happened to me, to discover that there was nothing I could do to win God's grace, that it had all been done for me already," said Bob Norman, a member of Grace Fellowship Presbyterian Church in Mobile, Ala.

This is exactly why I not only believe in, but embrace predestination. It is the crowning pinnacle of assurance to the believer-if God Himself chose us, how can we be seperated from Him? How can we extract ourselves from His grip?

The real concern about Calvinism expressed in these articles is not that it is doctrinally incorrect, but rather is that lazy, unregenerate people will use it as an excuse to shelve the great commission. This fails to take into account the work of the Holy Spirit. A believer who has become a son of the Kingdom through the blood of Christ and who has tasted the gift of the Holy Spirit will be moved to fulfill the commission by the same God who foreordained his salvation! If anyone is not, the work of sanctification has not begun in him and he must be careful to examine himself:

2 Corinthians 13:5
5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you--unless indeed you fail the test?

Or:

Hebrews 12:14
Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.

I'm not sure that people who would be daunted into abandoning the great commission by a simplistic (and invalid) logical exercise should be evangelizing and making disciples, anyway. They are not yet ready for the meat of the word (Heb. 5:12).

10 posted on 04/22/2003 6:00:07 AM PDT by jboot
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To: jboot
Good point, I get back to you on that.

What is see is that the Presbyterian Church and reformed churches are losing thousands of members per year for the past forty years. Attendance has also declined very sharply in the past years. The growth rate of the SBC and mainline Baptist churches has increased. It is about 8% per year or about 900,000> individuals, +/- some. We need to look at why, the Calvinistic churches , are declining, and if it’s rabid Calvinism, we don’t want that.
11 posted on 04/22/2003 9:43:15 AM PDT by FreeRep (Proud to be American (John 3:16))
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