I have told you that God and I don't work in shifts, or crews, or I do part A while He does part B. There is no way we can determine how God interacts upon my thoughts and my will. It is an unknown. But we realize that I am making a free will decision - this is evident by the very fact that I realize I can ALWAYS refuse to do the good.
A man must freely choose to persevere, right? That cannot be with God, or it isn't free. Man does it on his own with God's guidance, which he is free to accept or reject.
Every choice a man makes, God is either aiding us to make, or allowing us to make it (in the case of sin). We don't realize He is there in most of our daily decisions, thus, it is a free will decision.
Man does it on his own with God's guidance, which he is free to accept or reject.
Man doesn't "do it on his own". God ALWAYS is guiding us when we do the good. But God's guidance is not so strong as to force us to do either. This is clear when God says that WE will be judged on OUR actions in Christ. We aren't judged on God's workings through us! We are judged on how we use the gifts that God has given us - to choose the good.
Do you believe that a lost person can do good deeds and have them be "good" in God's eyes?
That is interesting how you judge people to be lost before they are dead...
What is the statistic, that over 80+% of Americans call themselves Christian? How many of them do you suppose are actually going to heaven? I think substantially less as well.
It is impossible to make a statistical guess on such matters. I don't know how I will act in 10 years, so HOW can I determine someone else's eternal destiny?
Regards
That is interesting how you judge people to be lost before they are dead...
I thought you do the same in a different way, that everyone is lost until his next confession. Or, in the alternative, you might say that everyone is lost until after death, since salvation is not final until judgment day. From the human POV, I would say that a person is lost until he truly accepts Christ.
FK: "What is the statistic, that over 80+% of Americans call themselves Christian? How many of them do you suppose are actually going to heaven? I think substantially less as well."
It is impossible to make a statistical guess on such matters. I don't know how I will act in 10 years, so HOW can I determine someone else's eternal destiny?
Well, I would agree that you can't know as to any specific person. But, you do have all the scriptures that talk about the "narrow path", and your own observations from the culture, and how many self-proclaiming Christians you have known and seen who do not resemble anything at all the portrait of a Christian painted in the Bible, people who aren't even close.