tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11892709.post1144158873941703514..comments2023-08-02T02:42:17.509-07:00Comments on sanc's blog: Reckon & AbideSanctificationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06464241596473599613noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11892709.post-34920803919606705242009-08-04T13:36:31.438-07:002009-08-04T13:36:31.438-07:00Jim,
I feel so much gratitude to learn it. It...Jim,<br /><br />I feel so much gratitude to learn it. It's so wonderful to serve God without <i>doubt</i>. I wanted to share some heart and testimony why it is good to separate justification and sanctification enough so that they are not the same thing.<br /><br />Later I caught up with my pastor and I told him how I had squandered so much opportunity, with God. Because I was expecting God to just BAM sanctify me and it wasn't victorious, I had slowly started walking away from evangelism, prayer, etc.<br /><br />"Now what?"<br /><br />He began with some fine erase-board geography, of Ur and the Middle East and Abraham's journey through it to the promised land. He asked me if, when they stopped in Haran, did he have to start all over? No. Abraham picked up where he left off, and kept walking forward by faith again from that city. In the same way, I haven't lost anything, all I have to do is pick up where I left off and start walking with Him again.<br /><br />I thought I'd share that. I hope anyone reading may know that I have suffered from confusion too. Whether a reader may have <i>never known</i> they should abide, or used to walk with God and do not know how to start again with Him. Or even if a reader is abiding they may take comfort in seeing Abraham as an encouraging model for our service in Christ. It encouraged me to begin again.<br /><br />How can I not be indebted. Great and knowledgeable people online, the seminary and all the profs there, and I forgot to mention Kev in the post. There was this one thread at his blog that went on for forty comments, I can't find it. It was a conversation that showed me again how the Word should never be the problem itself.<br /><br />I am so joyful now, "accepting the invitation to participate in what He is up to"! <br /><br />I'm just ecstatic and humbled by the great company I'm in. People who will encourage this <b>important</b> teaching in me as I attempt to do the same. If I can give a measure of Christ back some day I'd be thrilled! <br /><br />:D MicheleSanctificationhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06464241596473599613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11892709.post-80249229590102257022009-08-04T10:26:33.491-07:002009-08-04T10:26:33.491-07:00Michele,
I like it. I think you've captured ...Michele,<br /><br />I like it. I think you've captured the essence of "our responsibility" in our free choice to "reckon and abide" (or not). Clearly, Calvinism cannot hold consistently to the doctrine of irresistible grace in sanctification and still support free will.<br /><br />I try to avoid being misconstrued as pushing any sort of legalism in using a phrase like "our responsibility." I prefer to couch the idea of "obedience" (in our exercise of free choice) in terms of "accepting God's invitation." As chosen agents of His redemptive purposes, we will always get "more life" by accepting his invitation to participate in these redemptive purposes than we can ever scrounge on our own.<br /><br />When we "reckon and abide" we are simply acknowledging his ongoing offer of life in Him by accepting his invitation to follow Him. This recasts "our responsibility" as the high privilege of serving in what He is already "up to" because he values us highly enough to entrust us with his work on earth.agent4himhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10772688948048061811noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11892709.post-55844511197305854862009-08-03T18:39:32.178-07:002009-08-03T18:39:32.178-07:00I would jump for a chance to say something affirmi...I would jump for a chance to say something affirming about the <i>sovereignty</i> of God... When I walked in to the Romans class my pastor and I both must have been thinking simultaneously, "What are you doing here?" He could have provided FG answers and had invited many other people to class, but, God had to get <i>me</i> there through a syllabus available in the lobby. God did this because it is so important that we do not follow after men but Him.<br /><br />And<br /><br />In the video he sings "I stand only because you've given me strength to walk." We are saved by the grace of God, and sanctified by grace too! However it is conditional that we should choose to believe it.<br /><br />Yield, reckon, abide, present (to Him).... All verbs addressing our responsibility, and in so doing He completely holds us up - carries us - through it all. He is still carrying us through it all even when we do not <i>yield</i> and trust and obey His Word. He will carry us forever. But we will miss out on the experience so long as we do not permit it.<br /><br />I hope I have this correct. I just am in awe at the interplay between God respecting our choices and also how easy His yoke is - praise God!<br /><br />MicheleSanctificationhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06464241596473599613noreply@blogger.com