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Author
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Topic: Quite a pickle for us Christians.....
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timspong
Advanced Member
Member # 5240
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posted
All we can do is be obedient to the will of God.
That might sound too simplistic, however, part of that is to "fix our nets". I.e. prepare ourselves. This includes all the work needed to better understand the will of God.
Bible study, Prayer, Fasting, Fellowship, Giving. Praise/worship. See Acts 2.42-47. "And the Lord will add to your number".
I guess what I am saying is that preparation is the key and God will provide the opportunity. I have experienced this many times. However, if you are not obedient or prepared, don't expect God to trust you with his precious work. I would not hand my new born baby to a toddler to look after and neither would He.
Also, don’t make the mistake of thinking that Gods will is the same as your will. Ie what is on your heart to do; as it is seldom the case. The most frustrated people are the ones who are stuck in the preparation stage, only obedience will move you on.
Also, one of the worst things you can do is to be judgmental, self-righteous or overtly pious. Humility is the wick by which your oil will burn and love will trim your lamp and make it glow brighter
Once you are prepared and your light is shining, God will do the rest.
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Yours in Christ
Timothy Michael Spong
Posts: 146 | From: Lagos, Nigeria | Registered: Nov 2005
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Eden
unregistered
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posted
Hi, mchevy. You said:
The reason we preach the gospel to the “blind” is to share in the work of God. When we preach the “Gospel” through our obedience we are blessed and conformed to the image of Christ.
Eden here:
Please explain how or in what you have been conformed to the image of Christ since you believed.
mchevy continued:
I personally have been “preaching” to the blind (some 32 years) and yet only my children at a very young age have accepted Christ. My family and friends and co-workers who know of my faith are still in the dark. One must keep praying and being an example of a Spirit filled life. We don’t know how God will prompt someone to accept Him. He may use you to do it not because He needs us, but because he loves us enough for us to share in his work.
Eden here:
Yes, I agree. I’m not always acting Spirit-filled, but here and there it DOES happen that the joy of the Lord shines through, and I get a good word in for the Lord, to be accepted that day, or be rejected that day, “harden not your hearts in the day of your salvation”, kind of thing too.
And also, God allows, no, deigns to allow us to be co-workers with Him, knowing that in the end He will complete whatever we left still undone. He does not need us, but He likes to get His newly adopted sons and daughters working in His vineyard with him, looking GOOD sons and daughters in any family, He lets us work with Him:
1 Corinthians 3:9
For we are laborers together with God: you are God's husbandry, you are God's building.
And He pays good wages too, called rewards in the Bible:
Revelation 22:12
And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.
1 Corinthians 3:14
If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
Be blessed, mchevy,
Eden
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Eden
unregistered
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posted
Dear Primoa1970. You said in this good paragraph below of yours:
“The apostle Paul had quite an amazing conversion. The book of Acts tells us that he was literally knocked off of his horse and blinded for 3 days. Now I'm pretty sure that when you and I finally said "yes" to Christ, that it wasn't quite that dramatic. It's still an amazing miracle when a soul is saved by the grace of God through Jesus Christ.....but it's safe to say that probably none of us were knocked to the ground in the middle of the wilderness and blinded. In fact, for most of us, the blinders came off. Paul described it as scales falling off."
You continued:
"So, in our dead and dying world, how do we preach the gospel to blind people when it is God who ultimately is the one who has to do the spiritual healing? Do you ever wonder why 5 unsaved people sitting together in church might hear the same message but yet only one of them responds to it?
This has to be the power of God unto salvation. Man cannot save man.....only God can. There has to be an outside influence....and that's where the Holy Spirit is involved.
Eden here:
Yes, I have been thinking about those same things myself lately, who is doing what? If everything is by grace, but then am I doing?
And yet I have to do something too, namely I have to accept the offer that God makes through Jesus. But if there are five of us unsaved men of about the same age sit in a church and only one of can respond to the gospel. Why is that?
Assuming that after Jesus’s deaths, the Holy Spirit could again begin to dig around EVERY sinner with the Word of God and with the Holy Spirit speaking to our spirit in other ways, and some sinners CAN respond to what the Holy Spirit is saying.
There is this parable:
Luke 13
6 He spoke also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.
7 Then he said to the dresser of his vineyard, Look, these 3 years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbers it the ground?
8 Then he {the dresser} answered him, Lord, leave it alone this year also, until I shall dig about it and dung it.
9 And if it bears fruit, very well; but if not, then after that, you shall cut it down.
In the world context, the dresser is the Holy Spirit who digs and dungs around the trees, which are the sinners.
So every sins Jesus, everyone is getting digged and dunged, and some bear fruit, while others do not bear fruit and are cut down.
And from the following statement we know that more get cut down then bear fruit after this digging and dunging by the Holy Spirit:
Matthew 7:13
Enter in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate and broad is the way, that leads to destruction, and many there be who go in thereat.
But, how does the Holy Spirit dig and dung the sinners? Through preaching the Word of God. But none of this explains yet WHY some bear fruit (i.e., become Christians) and others don’t believe IN SPITE OF this Holy Spirit digging and dunging.
Is it because all are equally sinners on earth, so who is God going to choose if God wants some sons and daughters?
Does heaven have a maximum floor space so that God only wants or can take in a certain amount of sons and daughters? The Bible does say that God would like ALL to be saved, but with a threshold test like Jesus dying on the cross for our sins and Jesus did the miracles and Jesus rose again on the 3rd day from the dead, with a threshold test like that, God must have known that MANY people would go into the wide gate and broad road that leads to destruction and that this Jesus test WOULD ONLY HARVEST A CERTAIN NUMBER OF SONS AND DAUGHTERS.
God must have known beforehand EXACTLY who would be able to believe that Jesus test and thus HOW MANY sons and daughters that test would harvest from the earth, where all were equally sinners. And the rest go to their sentence of destruction which is legally upon them:
Genesis 3:3
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.
Ezekiel 18:4
Look, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sins, it shall die.
So it seems that SOME sinners WERE capable of believing and accepting the Word of God concerning Jesus after this prodding by the Holy Spirit through the written, spoken, and visual Word of God, and probably moments of grace in action shown by the Holy Spirit.
The test that God and Jesus chose determined everything.
So what's quite the pickle for Christians?
Be blessed, everyone,
Eden
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mchevy
Community Member
Member # 6397
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posted
The reason we preach the gospel to the “blind” is to share in the work of God.
When we preach the “Gospel” through our obedience we are blessed and conformed to the image of Christ. I personally have been “preaching” to the blind (some 32years) and yet only my children at a very young age have accepted Christ. My family and friends and co-workers who know of my faith are still in the dark. One must keep praying and being an example of a Spirit filled life. We don’t know how God will prompt someone to accept Him. He may use you to do it not because He needs us, but because he loves us enough for us to share in his work.
In Him,
mchevy
Posts: 8 | Registered: Feb 2007
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Primoa1970
Advanced Member
Member # 1016
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posted
The apostle Paul had quite an amazing conversion. The book of Acts tells us that he was literally knocked off of his horse and blinded for 3 days. Now I'm pretty sure that when you and I finally said "yes" to Christ, that it wasn't quite that dramatic. It's still an amazing miracle when a soul is saved by the grace of God through Jesus Christ.....but it's safe to say that probably none of us were knocked to the ground in the middle of the wilderness and blinded. In fact, for most of us, the blinders came off. Paul described it as scales falling off.
So, in our dead and dying world, how do we preach the gospel to blind people when it is God who ultimately is the one who has to do the spiritual healing? Do you ever wonder why 5 unsaved people sitting together in church might hear the same message but yet only one of them responds to it?
This has to be the power of God unto salvation. Man cannot save man.....only God can. There has to be an outside influence....and that's where the Holy Spirit is involved. Paul said it best:
1 Corinthians 1:17-19 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society
17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
19 For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
Regardless of the fact that it is God who has to open people's eyes to the truth.....we still need to preach it. When we allow ourselves to be vessels of the truth....God will speak through us. We may never understand why God saves some and not others.....and to some, that may seem cruel and unjust. But I know in my heart of hearts that God is a just God.....and it is man who ultimately rejects Him because of the hardness of their hearts.
Quite a quagmire when you try to break this down but hey......God didn't ask us to understand it or to question it.....He asked us to believe it.
-Primo
Your thoughts?
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1 John 1
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Posts: 639 | From: Orlando, FL | Registered: Feb 2003
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