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You are too kind. My response to a person who says that we "have a choice" as a definition of "free will" is to agree that we have a choice, but insist that we ALWAYS choose according to (as Edwards pointed out in his great great tract on the will) what the primary MOTIVATOR of our hearts is. We choose according to what appears to us to be "best" for us, and what is the most appealing. In that, man left to himself is completely unable and unwilling to choose grace, because we are dead in our sin. We cannot and will not choose God and His mercy extended to us in the gospel. We are "dead in our trespasses and sins" and cannot see the light of the glory of the gospel. Waving about the beauty of Christ and the wonderful love of God is like waving a juicy steak in front of a dog who is lying dead on the interstate. We are unable to choose because we, by nature, hate God.

That is why GRACE is so phenomenally beautiful. We will not and do not respond to the overtures of God until he regenerates us (makes us alive). When that new life comes, then we freely and happily choose, because our eyes are opened and we see what we did not see before. This means that even our very act of choosing is a gift, and faith itself is also a gift, and that salvation is from God from first to last. Man centered theology insists that we are not REALLY that bad off, and that we do have the ability to choose (we are not dead, just really really sick), and that regeneration follows faith (we believe, and then are reborn). Although I would not insist on a sequence of events IN TIME (regeneration and faith may be so close together as to be indistinguishable in time), I will insist that regeneration precedes faith. Otherwise, we "save ourselves," in that we "do" something that the unregenerate do not do, and we share the glory for our own redemption. Furthermore, we begin to organize our church around programs and plans, rather than asking God work, as we are helpless to make anything happen.

The most powerful incentive for me to declare the gospel to my friends and family is the realization that God can sovereignly regenerate ANYONE, no matter how full of hate and wickedness. It is also the most powerful prod to pray for the fools of our generation who have no idea where all the evil in our world comes from. Finally, it is the only motivator I can think of that causes me to pray that God will, once again, pour out his goodness on a dying culture. May it start with me.

Thanks for putting up with a rather long rant.