[mitch5501]

Oh good grief HD now I can't find a single thing to disagree with you on in your last coupla posts! I hope I don't have to go back and reread the entire thread!Now I find myself wincing as I ask this...Has anyone here not given God all the glory for their salvation?

For myself the thought that "I" did anything worthwhile in regards coming to God is laughable (amongst many other more sobering things!)It is indeed all 'Him' (with whom we have to do)that has done and is doing it all.When I do whatever I want it is not in His direction.However I believe He is changing the things I want.I find myself wanting different things now.Coveting different things,finding different things beautifull,finding different things desirable.

Those things God shows me makes the 'choice' between Him and not Him practically moot.I suppose I could turn my head and go another way and I find within myself a very strong urge to do just that.The beauty,the truth,the reality,the overpowering goodness of God towards me always lets me see and feel the chain that binds me to that anchor.I'm so thankfull for that as I have and do sorely test the strength of that chain all too often.

Please excuse my rambling.I'm simply trying to be candid and do not care wether I might say something wrong and fall into a gotcha! Not that I think you are like that at all HD.I think I need to go head butt a brick wall now.To either clear my head or knock some sense into it!

God bless

[presently no screen name]

Has anyone here not given God all the glory for their salvation?

Perhaps, anyone who didn't receive The Gift He gave us.

However I believe He is changing the things I want.I find myself wanting different things now.Coveting different things,finding different things beautifull,finding different things desirable.

That is what His Word does. It's powerful! We renew our mind with His Word and the old teachings, old desires fade away as they replaced with His Truth/Ways. It's the only way we can begin to be like Jesus. Like John The Baptist, more of Him, less of me.

Now if John says that and his whole life was devoted to God and he says that in his 30's - it's a process that grows and grows and doesn't just happen the day we receive the GIFT of salvation. If we are born again, we have His Spirit in us. Now our mind through God's Word is coming into alignment with our spirit which lives forever.

I love reading the power of The Word. It's next only to experiencing it.

"For the word of God is ALIVE and ACTIVE and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Heb 4:12

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will". Romans 12:2

[HarleyD]

I'm going to leave this thread but don't anyone think it's the last they've heard from me on this! :O)

Please consider the following:

Chapter 9 - Free Will

1. God has given man a will, which by nature is free, i.e., it is not forced or necessarily inclined toward good or evil.1

1. Mt 17.12, Jas 1.14, Dt 30.19, Jn 5.40, 7.17, Rv 22.17, Acts 7.51, Jas 4.7.

2. In his state of innocence man had complete freedom and the natural ability to will and to do what is good and pleasing to God. 2 God also made man so that he could lose that freedom.3

2. Eccl 7.29, Gn 1.26, see under figure 1 above, Col 3.10. 3. Gn 2.16-17, 3.6.

3. Man fell into a state of sin by his disobedience and so completely lost his ability to will any spiritual good involving salvation.4 Consequently fallen man is by nature completely opposed to spiritual good,5 is dead in sin,6 and is unable by his own strength either to convert himself or to prepare himself for conversion.7
4. Rom 5.6, 8.7, Jn 15.5.

5. Rom 3.9-10, 12, 23, 8.7.

6. Eph 2.1,5, Col 2.13.

7. Jn 6.44,65, 1 Cor 2.14, Eph 2.2-5, Ti 3.3-5, Rom 8.8.

4. When God converts a sinner and brings him into a state of grace, he frees him from his natural enslavement to sin. By God’s grace alone, freely given, sinful man is enabled to will and to do what is spiritually good.8 However, since the old sinful nature also remains, the believer cannot consistently or perfectly will to do what is good but also wills evil.9
8. Col 1.13, Jn 8.34,36, Phil 2.13, Rom 6.18,22.

9. Gal 5.17, Rom 7.15,18-19,21-23, 1 Jn 1.8,10.

5. The will of man is perfectly free and permanently inclined to good alone only in the state of glory.10
10. Eph 4.13, Heb 12.23, 1 Jn 3.2, Jude 24, Rv 22.3-4, 2 Chr 6.36, 1 Jn 1.8-10, 2.1-6, Ps 17.15.