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THE TRUTH ABOUT PREDESTINATION The teaching of predestination has caused centuries of division in Christianity. I have a verse that explains how we are chosen. I believe God put this verse in the bible because He knew how this teaching would be misunderstood and used in a wrong way. This verse contains the mechanism of how predestination works. Unless you are hardened in false doctrine, this verse should settle the matter once and for all. I realize that there are many who will hold to a false idea of predestination no matter what the bible says; but to the rest, here is a sound, reasonable, and clear verse that God has given us to teach how we are chosen. 2nd Thessalonians 2:13 - ?But we are bound to give things always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through the sanctification of the Spirit and belief in the truth.? From the beginning of everything, before the foundations of the world, God has chosen us. Before there was one single person, whether Jew or Gentile, God had a chosen people already. God had in mind how he would save people even before the first sin. This choice of God has a twofold mechanism. The first part of how election works has to do with the work of the Holy Spirit in this world. The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment - John 16:8. Notice how the Holy Spirit is reaching out to the world, not just a select few. The world means everybody. First the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin because people do not believe in Jesus. This is really the only sin, because if a person simply believes in Jesus, all his sins are covered in the blood and he is completely forgiven. Then the Holy Spirit shows that our righteousness is a Person who went to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God. Our righteousness is already in heaven. When the Father looks at the Son He sees the righteousness of every single believer. We are already accepted in the Son. Jesus has become our goodness through the cross. After this, the Holy Spirit speaks of judgment. This judgment awaits all who refuse to believe in the gospel. There is no hope for such as these. They can?t even appeal to Satan for help, for he has been defeated by Jesus. The second part of how predestination works has to do with our belief. When we willingly believe the message of the gospel, that has been given to us through the work of the Holy Spirit, we are said to be chosen. We are not chosen before we believe. We must meet the one condition of faith to be considered chosen. This is very clear, and any clear-thinking person who has not been indoctrinated with false beliefs should be able to see this. We are chosen since before the beginning of the world, through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, and through belief in the truth. There are two parts here. Always include them, and never leave one out. Never say that God forces you to believe, or that God believes in himself for us. This is ridiculous and changes the meaning of the bible. Our trust must come from us in order to be trust. So the next time you come across someone who says he is chosen and others are not, quote this verse and show them how predestination really works.

No problems with predestinations here, my life is full of them, and all fine. I must nothing, but should just let IT happen, btw. And we are no more nor less choosen than anybody or any other creature. Any particular "father" is not god for me, only all together or nothing. These male projections are typical. What a wild mix. May I suggest, you discuss this on according forums, to sort it out?

Joey! shut the fuck up with this mind numbing, childish, theistic, fairytale horse shit, go and see a therapist, you said it all in the first two sentences. "Has caused ceturies of division in christianity", Joey, a church divided is no churh at all! The trouble with your god is he`s never made himself very clear, has he? "I believe god put this verse in the bible .blah, blah, blah, So YOU know the mind of the creator of the universe & all life do you? Well I`ll tell you what why don`t you get your arse over to palestine & help the Israelis & palestinian sort out their problems or else grow up & do something useful like study philosophy or invent something that houses & feeds the poor of this world, which your god seems to have not enough time for , he`s obviously too busy sorting out the `difficulties` with "predestination" or as me & my friends call it `Facism`

Um. . . wow. Is this an example of the "spiritual awakening" you alluded to on another thread, TWR? You're "here to help"? No thanks, I'll stick with my own belief system for now. Disagreeing with Joey Chive doesn't mean I have to be disagreeable.

And as for Facism, right, see the last deeds of the Pope. Many germans are very cross with him by now. And JC goes throught this with complete ignorance, the same one that once killed so many. It only makes me sad.

Oh, and Rose. . . It should be "or as my friends & I call it `Facism`"

The more important points should be the pope's ignorance in very important fields. For many days the main german press of all kind was rightly raging, we are very ashamed about this pope. Beginning facism was mild against what was found out.

The Pope's got nothing to do with this thread; Joey has made it pretty clear that he's a "non-religious Christian". "Christian" & "Catholic" are not the same thing. Pay attention Bettina. Take your own advice & look over past threads.

O.K Bob I`ll concede to you It doesn`t look great, but I`m a regular guy who goes out to work everyday in construction, you have a bad day & then you come home & read crap that our friend Joey spouts. I`m not fucking perfect dude we`re just trying to make a better world & nobody is forcing you to do anything, you have your belief system, go about your day, fine.Let`s just say I`ve had plenty of bad experiences with religious bullshit in my life and sometimes you want to blow off on some thing. But when your criticism amounts to nothing more than a grammatical correction in a sentence I won`t be dropping to my knees weeping. "A non religious christian" give me a fucking break! How oxymoronic can you get? "chicks in boots" & "people who can`t shoot straight" is that what i`m up against, I think we`re done here, in the words of the Big Lebowski, "take it easy man" Go out & buy yourself a Bill Hicks CD (America`s greatest ever comedian) & maybe you`ll see where I`m coming from.

Yeah, some are very good in putting you down by a not quite correct grammar, but non-US or UK citizen are not in a school here, and some make even more mistakes, and no one bothers about it, by which you know, what the name of the game is. . . And if I speak about catholics, then I do it, because they show most clearly the misuse and manipulations. If then non-catholics use the same methods, one can simply understand it much better. There are others too, of course, and many non violent ones, also non-invasive. But if they are in the room, acting like typical sects, with typical claims (that are already reveiled or questioned for ages, if not laughed about as long), they can well be compared with the above. And this "non religious Ch." is in fact more than funny here. Honestly. How much more shizophrenic can one be? Thanks, The White Rose (you are one). But don't take it all too seriously, its not worth the effort. Comedie is best here, indeed. :-]

Easy there, White Rose, the correction to your grammatical error was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. . . here's the smiley I should've put at the end of my post: :-] Maybe now you can do a bit of "taking it easy" yourself. And speaking of tongue-in-cheek, the stuff you mention in my profile is just another example, to be taken as seriously as my avatar image. You're wrong about my criticism amounting "to nothing more than a grammatical correction", however. Considering your initial posts about being "here to help" and "spiritual awakening", I found it, well, interesting that your reply to Joey was a "shut the fuck up" attack. You want to blame it on having a bad day or past experiences with "religious bullshit", that's fine. And as far as the possibility of one being a "non-religious Christian", I find nothing oxymoronic about it. To me, a Christian is someone who follows the teachings of Christ - that to me is philosophy/spirituality. When you start buying into the pomp & circumstance of religion, and Catholicism is a good example, that's a different story. Frankly, I don't see what not eating meat and giving something up for Lent have anything to do with following Christ's teachings, but maybe that's just me. I've defended Joey's ability to post here not because I agree with him, but because I don't - and I knew there would be folks here all to ready to attack him. And just so you know, I work in manufacturing, right out on the factory floor. I put up with my share of "office Einsteins" who don't know how to do the work, but are more than willing to tell me how it should be done. I call it "doing the Management Mambo". I too would love to see a "spiritual awakening" - I suspect that you & I have far more in common than you realize.

Synnie thanks for your comments, I assume you are from Germany, so you probably Know `The white rose` comes from the student movement Sophie Scholl & her brother started against the nazis in Munich in 1942 before they murdered her in `43, she for me was the bravest person in history so I think you know where i`m coming from, and I definitely won`t try to take things too seriously. Take care love & peace. Bob! you`re probably right we maybe have more in common than we think, so good luck for now & I hope things go well for you. Peace.

Thanks, WR. Just caught the Bill Hicks David Letterman spot. Good stuff. :-]

Yep, White Rose, I am well aware of that story, of course, nice to find you related to it. We have some places here, called White Rose, for the same reason. At present I am a regular visitor of a wonderfull and extremely honest and friendly artist couple (bit older than me, but well and alive), that for several years work with white roses and natural materials (and married last year, with loads of white roses of course). I will be there again tomorrow evening, now also thinking about you. Cheers To Rev too, of course

Btw, by now, our "non-religious" friend uses typical religious behaviours and warnings(lol) and examples. It IS an oxymoron. Provable now, and was to be expected, from the very beginning.

Give it a rest, Bettina. . . as a Christian, of COURSE he's going to use The Bible as a reference - just as you use Eastern examples. A Muslim would quote the Koran, yes? Take your own advice - if you don't like the thread, skip over it.

Thus it is not "non religious", lol, and thats all I am saying above. And it is he who comes with "warnings", be it from the bible. But there is no such need for doing so. It is him, who has to accept other views too. If he can't, he shows that very beginning of wars once again. He does not even listen to Peter properly. He never answered according questions. Peter would only say: "thats what you think" and turn away. While Joey would "warn". But you only warn, if you think, your point is the ONLY reason for warnings. He would warn aborigines too or anyone, who does not believe, all he is saying, probably also Peter, lol. Such people have no ground in Berlin any more, thats why we have the Carnival of the Cultures, the house of the cultures of the world, loads of multicultural centers, etc. etc. As for my examples, thats only a few (and even some, he mentioned himself, thats why) and I could use many, from all around the world, how about some native indians next? Or what about some from Tuva? Or maybe some Ainu? There are some very fine indians in Brazil, for example. Would he warn them too without even trying to understand them? Most probably yes. There are many ways up a mountain, and I would not "warn" anyone using another pair of shoes, using another path, if that fits him better, right? Suggesting is enough. But warning?? That goes too far. He pushes his way unto others, if it does not fit. As did those, who then started killing the other ones sooner or later, for same reasons. Japan for example from then on closed its doors for more than 200 years. They had enough from latin christian invaders that warned them about their own grown beliefs and smashed their gods and then their people and then forced them to lie or to die. Want more? Imagine. . . and sleep peacefully. . .