| Poster | Thread |
| | Ability or Inability? | | I know that it's a very popular belief today that man cannot obey God. That is, not that man [i]doesn't[/i] obey God, but that man [i]cannot[/i] obey God, because man does not have the natural ability to obey God, which renders the commands of God impossible.
But let's look at the greatest of all commandments.
[b]Mr 12:30[/b] - "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God [b]with all thy[/b] heart, and [b]with all thy [/b]soul, and [b]with all thy [/b]mind, and [b]with all thy [/b]strength: this is the first commandment."
Here we see that God makes a very distinct qualification. "with all [i]thy[/i]" and again "with all [i]thy[/i]" and again "with all [i]thy[/i]" and again "with all [i]thy[/i]"
He does not ask you to love him with a heart that you don't have, or a soul that you don't have, or a mind that you don't have, or a strength that you don't have. But rather that God requires you to love him with all that you already possess.
Not only does God ask you to love Him with what you already have, but also with "[i]all[/i]" that you already have. God requires each man to love to the best and highest of his possible ability. To love with all that he has.
If a man has little ability then he is naturally required of little. If a man has much ability then he is naturally required of much. Luke 12:48 -"For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required"
Here is an important scriptural principal: requirement is proportionate with ability and obligation is proportionate with light.
Moral obligation requires both ability and knowledge. "To him who KNOWS to do right, and does it not, to HIM it is SIN." James 4:17
But regardless of the level of your ability, you are required to love with all of it! So if God only requires you to love with "all" that you possess, then God never requires an impossibility, not even from those who have little ability! But God's commandments are always reasonable because they are always keepable.
And what is love? Is love an emotion? Is love a physical substance? No! Love is caring. Or more specificly, love is the voluntary willing towards the end of good. The two greatest commandments are to will the highest well-being of all. And [i]your[/i] will is entirely within [i]your[/i] reach and it is never without your reach.
So we see that The Greatest of all Commandments is well within the ability realm of every single person without an exception. Which is why every single person is responsible for keeping The Greatest of all Commandments, without exception. |
|  2006/12/20 18:02 | | andres
Member
Joined: 2005/6/17
Posts: 285
texas,brownsville
| | Re: Ability or Inability? | | but what if Jesse, God gave us the ability to love him?
What if God's grace passed over a man's heart and switched it from a hateful heart to heart that beats after God, full of love for his Christ?
If someone gives you a gift, that gift is yours, but the gift came from someone other then yourself. if you went out a bought yourself a gift then it's not really a gift
when a christian loves God, it comes from a christian's heart but that change of heart comes from the free gift of God's grace..
love
andy
and believe me this is not a popular view, especialy here in america
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andy
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| | 2006/12/20 18:31 | Profile |
| | Re: | | Ability does come from God's grace. All of our natural abilities were given to us by God in His grace.
We wouldn't be able to see if God didn't give us eyes in His grace. We couldn't walk if God didn't give us leggs in His grace. And we couldn't obey God if God didn't give us the ability, in His grace. All of our natural abilities were given to us by God in His grace.
But to say that God commands a man to do what he couldn't do, and that God condemns a man for failure to perform the impossible, then this is as Pharoah who commanded bricks when He gave no straw, and such tyranny the bible condemns! It would be to say that God commands the blind to see, though He gives no eyes. And that God commands the lame to walk, but He gives no leggs. And then sends them to hell for failure to do what He didn't give them the ability to do!
But the God of the bible clearly, by His grace, gives man the ability to obey what is required of him. If God tells you to do something, He'll give you the grace to do it. |
| | 2006/12/20 18:37 | | andres
Member
Joined: 2005/6/17
Posts: 285
texas,brownsville
| | Re: | | so the ability to love God does come from God's grace... I think we both agree..
the next point is that unconverted men do not want to love God.. though the see God around them. they refuse to give him the glory due to him.. because they hate God.. and have no love in their heart's for God..So here comes God's grace and takes out the dead unloving heart and puts in a new heart that burns with love for Christ..then that said man can truly love God as he is commanded.. When you call men to repent jesse, those called by God repent by the power of God and the rest keep on hating God.. Man's inability rests in thier hatred for God and Man ability to love God rest in His(GOD's) power of the new birth..
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andy
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| | 2006/12/20 19:35 | Profile |
| | Re: | | Quote:
Ability does come from God's grace. All of our natural abilities were given to us by God in His grace.
Dear Jesse,
Here are a few Scriptures to consider:
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" Jeremiah 17:9
"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find." Romans 7:18
"Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." Galatians 5:19-21
"But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Corinthians 2:14
"And we have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God," 2 Corinthians 3:4-5
"for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." Philippians 2:13
"You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart." 2 Corinthians 3:2-3
"For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." Romans 8:3-4
I thank God for His grace. I thank God for enabling me to fathom the riches of His grace! I thank Him that His grace is sufficient for me, that His strength is made perfect in my weakness.
Jesse, we have no sufficiency of our own. As natural people, we lack in understanding, in wisdom, in all things spiritual. Paul writes, "those who are in the flesh cannot please God." (Romans 8:8) We need to be led by the Spirit if we want to please God. That is the only way! Only then will the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus set us free from the law of sin and death.
I ask you as a brother that you humble yourself before the Lord and ask Him to search you for any "little" sin--any strength or sufficiency you may have in yourself--and that you repent from it. Then ask the Lord to fill you will the Holy Spirit, trusting His Word: [i]"If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!" (Luke 11:13)[/i] Jesse, our God is faithful and just and His blessing will not tarry!
Grace, mercy, and peace be with you!
In Christ,
Slavyan |
| | 2006/12/20 20:49 | | roadsign
Member
Joined: 2005/5/2
Posts: 3777
| | Re: | | Some questions to consider regarding this topic:
What is the purpose of salvation?
What happens in regeneration, as it relates to the law of God?
What is the difference between the Old and the New Covenant?
Why did Christ have to die?
What are the implication of the resurrection?
How does God view the good works of the "old man", that is, anything done in the power of the flesh?
Diane
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Diane
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| | 2006/12/20 20:52 | Profile |
| | Re: | | Quote:
When you call men to repent jesse, those called by God repent by the power of God and the rest keep on hating God.. Man's inability rests in thier hatred for God and Man ability to love God rest in His(GOD's) power of the new birth..
Amen, brother!
Another verse through which the Lord reminded me how insufficient we are is in the Abraham and Isaac story when Abraham lifts up the blade to kill his son, and an angel of the Lord stops him. Here is the passage:
But the Angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham!
So he said, Here I am.
And He said, Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.
Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the place, The-LORD-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, [i]In the Mount of the LORD it shall be provided.[/i]
What the Lord demands He himself provides. That is grace! Jesse, you will have to wrestle with God on this matter. You have my prayers!
Love,
Slavyan |
| | 2006/12/20 21:01 | | death2self
Member
Joined: 2006/9/28
Posts: 192
Washington DC area
| | Re: | | God is always the initiator it's easy to forget that sometimes but if I do the Lord has been very quick to show me this true.
Quote:
But to say that God commands a man to do what he couldn't do, and that God condemns a man for failure to perform the impossible, then this is as Pharoah who commanded bricks when He gave no straw, and such tyranny the bible condemns!
This would be tantamount to saying that God is a hard master like the one who had one talent.
We can have a victorious walk over sin but that's Jesus victory, not ours. If I simply yield to Jesus, I won't sin. I read through the thread and immediately thought of Romans 8 and here's a couple of verses 12*13: 12Therefore, brothers, we have an obligationbut it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. 13For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,
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Ed Pugh
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| | 2006/12/21 11:26 | Profile |
| | Re: Ability or Inability? | | Jesse,
According to Romans 5:19, we are guilty in Adam. As a human race that is where we begin. In sin did my mother conceive me..."
We stand condemned because of the first Adam's disobedience. He was our faithful representative. According to the scripture, we all would have disobeyed.
I understand that the response to that is, "How can we be condemned for another man's disobedience?"
The answer is, If I cannot be condemned for one man's disobedience, then I can not be made righteous by another Man's obedience!" (The Second Adam)
We cannot have one without the other.
So if the starting point for all men is condemnation in Adam, then anything that we try to do to gain favor with God (keep the commandments, love people, love God) is just simply dead works.
It is "filthy rags". "By the works of the law, shall no flesh be justified?"
"The flesh profits nothing"
We also need to remember that "Love" is the law!
Yes, all the law and the prophets are wrapped up in these two commandments:
Love God with all that you are, and love your neighbor as yourself (paraphrase), but it is still the law. Jesus did not just simplify the law and say..."Here now I've made it easy for you...now you can keep it.
No, He was telling us the very heart of the law is, LOVE! But it's still the law!
The law has one purpose for an unregenerate man...to be a School Master to drive him to Christ. And then Christ is the end of the law to all that believe.
Does that mean we do not have to Love now? No,..But what the law could not do in that it was WEAK THROUGH THE FLESH (INABILITY), God in sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
WHY?
That the RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE LAW might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh (according to our own strength), but after the Spirit [You shall be endued with Power (ABILITY) after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.]
In our weakness (inability) His strength (ability) is made perfect.
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| | 2006/12/21 12:56 | | philologos
Member
Joined: 2003/7/18
Posts: 6566
Reading, UK
| | Re: | | Quote:
If God tells you to do something, He'll give you the grace to do it.
Indeed He will but only if the word comes from God in the first place. We do not obey by dipping into natural reserves of 'ability' but by specific Godwards faith.
This was what natural Israel missed and it is was Paul is referring to when he quotes Deuteronomy 30:12ff in [color=0000ff]For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; (Rom 10:5-8 KJVS). [/color]
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Ron Bailey
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| | 2006/12/21 14:51 | Profile |
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