Results 1 - 6 of 6
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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Can you explain this phenomenon? | Prov 1:29 | Aixen7z4 | 120635 | ||
It is nothing less than shocking for a counselor to see the role of free will in the therapeutic process. Some say that we have no free will, that our lives are ruled by determinism. Some say that this idea defies logic because the one who believes in determinism must admit that that belief has been predetermined and is therefore not sustainable. But when words fail us to decide or describe a phenomenon, it is something else to see it in operation. Permit me to tell here a tale of two pastors. They were both in serious need of help, and that is why they came to my attention. One refused to accept help, even while proclaiming belief in the Bible refusing to consider the call to action there, and left in utter confusion, with words about the end of his ministry and/or his life. The other asked to come in as soon as possible, took his place on the couch, went through the process and left with hope, almost unable to contain himself, unable to wait for the changes to take place. One is left to ponder the contrast. It was C.M. Ward who used to say that the love and power of an omnipotent God can be held in abeyance by the strong will of a puny man. It was a mysterious thing that God did when he gave us free will. Man is free to defy God. He is free to destroy himself. He is free to choose bad over good. And all the while he justifies himself. It is a strange thing to behold. Sometimes we feel badly when a person says no to us. It is something else to see them say no to the gospel, and no to God. He allows it. He has given us that free will. Some people see themselves as only judges. They always know what is good and what is bad and they have a constant need to express their opinion. Meanwhile, they do not see their own need. And the counselor feels helpless because he can only help someone who is willing to admit his need and to accept help. And God, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each called Counselor. Love never fails, we are told. Yet God so loved. And the Almighty God is love. How is it we can resist love? How is it we can resist God? There are those who say that psychology is not a science and cannot be. The reason? Man’s free will. It is possible to explain behavior without it, but with it, man is a mystery. How wonderfully God works for us when we submit to him! How miserably we perish when we reject him! As a person who preaches the Gospel and counsels people, I look at the free will of man and marvel at it. If anyone has solved that mystery, it would be nice to hear from them. It would not be nice to hear again from those who make themselves the judge and would question the motives or the intellectual capacity of the questioner, as it would only add to the mystery, why they do that. O, I am tempted to multiply words here in order to dissipate any confusion. I am not comparing a human counselor to God or any such thing. But I am saying that a human counselor sees the free will of man in operation and wonders at that mans ability to exercise it also toward God. I hope that someone can respond to this without getting into Calvinism-Armenianism but I fear someone will exercise his free will to get into it anyway. Read Jeremiah 7:23-26; 25:1-7; 26:1-5; 29:17-19; 35:13-16; 44:1-5. All of this in one book, about the attitude of one set of people in one situation. How can we explain this? |
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2 | Can you explain this phenomenon? | Prov 1:29 | JonCohen | 120705 | ||
In Romans 8:19-21 Paul provides an explanation that makes it easier to accept difficulties in life: "The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God." To me that means that our creation is not yet over, that we the living are in an intermediate stage of development, and that we are being prepared for an eternal life by seeing both God's love and wrath. The verse also aludes to a greater kind of freedom, a glorious freedom, that the saved will be granted in heaven in place of the limited freedom we have now. Scripture and experience informs us that none of us are worthy of the gift that is promised, and even the element of our calling to faith is predestined (see Romans 8:30). My own experience with the Holy Spirit is that I am not free to will my own faith, but that it is provided to me. Perhaps it could ease troubled people to understand that they do not have to develop that faith on their own, but that they only have to look for God and he will provide it to them. |
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3 | Do you understand it? | Prov 1:29 | Aixen7z4 | 120707 | ||
We are trying to understand why Christians refuse help when they need it and it is being offered. I will try to relate this matter to the topic in our fellowship meeting this evening. We considered the mind of Christ, that he submitted completely to the Father (John 5:30, etc.). We looked at Paul and heard himsaying that to him to live was Christ (Phil 1:21); that he had been crucified with Christ (Gal 2:20). We heard James referring to himself as a slave of Christ (James 1:1). We heard Paul saying that "we" live not for ourselves but for him who died for us (2 Cor 5:14,15). We wondered whether the "we" referred to all of us as Christians, or to Paul and Timothy (2 Cor 1:1). We watched a tape with KP Yohannan and saw his devotion to Christ. We wondered where we were in our own devotion to the Lord. Could we say that we were living only for him? It is only fair to admit that we are not, to the extent that we fail to respond to the word of God. As it was, the group was responding, not only in this particular meeting, but by the fact of their regular attendance. This is a group of believers who are in counseling, at this meeting was their group practice. But we are aware of the fact that some people do not accept the offer of counseling. In a previous post we have shown that the word of God shows our need for it, and encourages us to get it. And that is the problem, my friend. Some of us turn away and fail to respond to the word of God. We make excuses. We justify ourselves. What mystifies the counselor is that some of us refuse help when we need it. To fail at a task is one thing. To refuse help while one is falling is a mystery. Do you have any experience with this? |
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4 | Do you understand it? | Prov 1:29 | Mommapbs | 120717 | ||
Greetings - Why do folks refuse help falling? In a word, pride. I suspect that pride is at the root of even our "doings" for the Lord. This is what I call the "sin of obedience." When we are motivated by pride (positive or negative), we often become deaf and blind to the condemnation of our heart, the Word of God and the prompting of the Holy Spirit. To refuse help when one is falling is just a symptom of a greater problem. See Luke 18:9-14. Blessings, mommapbs |
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5 | Might it be fear? | Prov 1:29 | Aixen7z4 | 120720 | ||
Bless you, momma. And thank you for infusing your response with Scripture. This is the most interesting of the responses we get. Our ministry offers services to churches, but it is a task to get through, or through to, the gatekeepers. A wise sister told us yesterday: "Some pastors will not allow anything into the church unless they can say it was their idea in the first place". I suppose that there is a pride in having originated an idea. Now, the challenge for us is, how do you help them anyway? And if the problem is pride, then how do you help them with that? We will work on that. But my immediate impression is that only time and circumstances will take care of that. We are working today with a church where the pastor has told us in the past that he has no further need for us. But he now has circumstances to deal with. He called this week for an emergency meeting, and today he is out of town and has left the church in our hands. Interesting that we would not have thought his problem was pride. He is a good man, and we were simply bewildered with his response. But we tried to maintain an inactive positive relationship. We have a theory that, in spite of appearances, our basic problem is fear. What do you think of that? The scripture I have in mind is Genesis 3:10. |
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6 | Might it be fear? | Prov 1:29 | Searcher56 | 120723 | ||
It is pride ... I am better than you are. If a leader wants to take credit for everything good - set a trap by only giving enough information, so they will fall when the idea continues. If they say they have no further need for the church, then the church should no longer pay him or leave en masse - for a Sunday or longer It is fear ... I don't want anyone to know my weakness(es). |
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