"Dead Men Don't Decide For Jesus"

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Jules
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Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2023 1:40 pm

"Dead Men Don't Decide For Jesus"

Post by Jules »

I like the article in the Dec 2022 Lutheran Witness named as above.

For the most part, I do understand that God calls us by His Spirit (and even uses angels) b/c several things happened to me in my life while I was living NOT in His ways. I distinctly remember coming to the knowledge from The Holy Spirit that God was calling me. I realized through The Holy Spirit that He knew I would turn to Him before I knew. That is incredibly true.

When I look back, I see it. I sensed it at the time but it is so obvious now when I look back at the things He did.

I did not know the technical details or what it was called in "Christianese", but I had a spiritual discerning that God was doing things b/c He knew I was His, even when I was living a sinful life.

I didn't deserve these things He did. I didn't deserve His love and grace. He was definately wooing me. I don't know if that is how Lutherans believe but it is the word that best describes the only way I can express what was happening.

He knows me very well. He knows why I was living my life the way I was before I knew why.

I like that article b/c it helps me further wrap my brain around the things I experienced, felt and spiritually discerned back then and still do to this day. The article breaks it down in simplicity: "We have no free will in spiritual matters when we were dead".

Another statement that connected with me was: "Just as a dead body cannot raise itself to bodily, earthly life, so a person who by sin is spiritually dead cannot raise himself to spiritual life. For it is written in Ephesians 2:5, 'even when we were dead in our trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ' ".

So, while I fully (and passionately) reject Calvinism, I do understand what God did back then and still does with me today is by His Spirit and His Power. I had no human power in such elevated spiritual events even with "free will".
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