Re: “How do you know you are saved ?”
My assurance is based on the promise of God’s Word, that if we confess our sins, confess that Jesus is Lord, He promised to forgive us, indwell us with His Spirit, and make us a new creation in Christ Jesus. That promise is not dependent on feelings or emotion, it is not dependent on my righteousness, it is all dependent on the absolute promise of God and what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross. God extends that offer of grace to all men, but we have to respond in faith to that gift.
I believe God makes that faith available to all men - but, we have to respond in repentance - we have to accept that gift. You think He limits that gift of faith to only the Elect. I don’t believe that. I understand why you do because you believe that man is so corrupt tha he is totally incapable of responding to God. And, I do agree that man is incapable of saving himself, that he, by his own righteousness, can never save himself or remove the guilt of his sin.
However, though I believe the image of God is “effaced” from man, greatly marred, I do not believe that God’s image is completely “erased” from him, that is, that God has given all men the ability to respond to His love and repent. Therefore man is without excuse if he refuses to grab hold of the lifeline God has graciously thrown to him. I do not see the act of “grabbing hold” of God’s lifeline a “work”, or taking away any glory or act of God. Without Christ’s willing sacrifice, death, burial, and resurrection, man would have no hope of salvation. Calvinists see the act of responding as a “work” as well as an impossibility. I don’t.
Look, people have been arguing over this for over 400 years. If you want to believe in Calvinism, that is your right. I just don’t want to argue about it anymore now. As I said before, I know you love God and are trying to please Him. My Calvinsit friends, so far, have granted the same toward me, though we disagree. But I do speak up from time to time, just as you have.
A cuple more thoughts, we haven’t delved into “free will” that much, but it is my observation that one of the common themes throughout the Bible is that God seems to speak to man as though man defiinitly DOES have the ability to choose and obey, or, to refuse.
Just a cursory review, Joshua urges the people of Israel to “choose this day whom you will serve”, Moses saying, “choose life” rather than death, the blessings and cursings Moses lists at the end of Dueteronomy all seem to imply that the people of Israel had a real choice, real freedom to choose. When Jonah finally obeyed God in preaching judgement on the Ninevites, and the Ninevites throwing themselves at God’s feet in repentance. When Jesus said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalm, you who kill the prophets, how I longed to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks, but you would not.” When Paul makes his case in Romans, the first three chapters, that man is totally without excuse for not knowing God, in fact, he makes the case that by mn’s own stubborn will, they “exchanged the truth of God for a lie.”
Another thought I had recently was the story of the rich man asking Jesus what must he do to be saved, and, when Jesus told him to sell all he has, give it to the poor, and follow Him, the rich man turned away. Then Jesus said something very interesting, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” Now, why would that be? If God is the one who chooses the elect, regardless of anything man does, why would it be any harder for a rich man to be “chosen” and therefore saved than anyone else? If Calvinism is true, it wouldn’t be. Calvinism would say this statement by Jesus is nonsensical, because it is not just a case of it being “harder” to enter the Kingdom of God, it is impossible for any man, regardless of their social status, to enter God’s Kingdom.