Hello I'm a new member and I am reposting my earlier post. I noticed I put it in the welcome forum. I'm just copying and posting it in the proper forum. This is an attempt just to testify of a rest God brought me into. I'm very excited about God's victorius Grace. :)
The reformed topic is not new to me. The new thing to me is I'm at rest with it. I've stopped wrestling it. It had to begin with me coming to peace with the mysteries of God. A good place to start is Deut 29:29. There are mysteries. They belong to God. What has been revealed belong to us. The fact that he always was, Can drive one mad, but we rest in that simple yet confounding deep mystery.
As glorius as the gospel message is. As his grace is so reavealed in it, yet it still remains a confounding mystery that belongs to him. Grace belongs to Him. What he has reavealed to us is that he is love, he is father, he is husband, he is good, he is fair, and in that alone I know He has reavealed he is not a cruel game player. He has reavealed that he is sovereign, and in that he is victorius. "Most agree He is sovereign over creation, the universe, our lives, yet we have stripped Him from sovereign ways of His saving grace. We've stripped Him from His glory in salvation" (that was a paraphrased quote that I heard from R.C Sproul). Remember we never deserved grace to begin with.
There is no failure in His grace. There is no maybe. There is no limit. There is no perhaps. There is victorius grace. I have limited Him too long. In my failed wrestlings of reasoning, His unfailing grace has pinned me down. It feels good. Salvation and grace belong to him.
So I remember the day it all clicked. I realized I have limited him, with my unlimited views ( I read a gracious testimony of a man who limited God in his unlimited views.) I found a beauty in the tulip. The L in tulip is the big wall for all. limited atonenment.
Yet unlimited atonement has limitations aswell. Limited atonement I found absolute victory, accomplisment, yes and amen and most of all God's glory. Unlimited I see maybe's, perhaps, unless, hopefully, us etc.
I am just testifying. I am just thankful here. I still am limited I still am ankle to calve deep in the ocean of God.
In all this polished up thought of mine, I did ask God now what? How do I serve You? He said " just don't limit me, even though you see me in the tulip, don't forget I am also a lily and I am a rose aswell" When I heard this clearly I shouted and began to praise Jesus.
Amen, when I see salvation and human responisibility/free will, I see them seperate. A picture of this is found when He creates Adam and Eve, they had no choice to be created, they simply were created for God's good pleasure. After He created, then He put in their hands human responsibility.
He placed a law. A dear brother and friend of mine put it well one evening to me, he said something like this. "Funny thing is we all tend to think of the law immediately when we here the garden of eden story. We see that tree of knowledge of good and evil. We focus on that aspect a lot. Yet as we read that story, we see all the creation in the garden. We see the perfect fellowship of God and man. God and man walked together. Though there was a law, remember it was one law. The grace of God was much more in that place. Many good trees to eat from. Fellowship with Him all day. Eternal life, peace, no sin etc." Doesnt get more gracious than that. I love what my friend said there. It's so true God's grace is so much more at hand. His grace is what should inspire us and provoke us to Him.
Amazing grace was always around.
I see salvation again seperate from free will in the conversation with Jesus and Nicodimus. The born again introduction. Christ describes salvation to be being born again. When we are born in this world we have no choice in it. A baby does not say wait I don't want to be born. We are born the same way adam and eve were just simply created. The same way God gets all glory for creation He gets all glory for new creation. We also see this with the woman caught in adultery. She was about be stoned and Christ forgives her and then says, "go and sin no more".
Mysteries glorius mysteries. I think God wants us to rest in many of them. Revelation speaks of the 7 thunders that uttered mysteries. John was about to write them and he was commanded not to. The scripture then says there will be a day when mystery comes to an end. Then John was commanded to eat a little book. The same for us in the mist of mystery we are to devour the word of God. We are to proverbs 7:1-4. Hold the commandments of God and wisdom and understanding as the apple of our eye. Amen again "though you see me in the tulip, don't forget I am a rose and a lily aswell" amen I'm so excited and at rest with the work of God. He's good
|
