What is Predestination and Is There Any Truth In this Doctrine?
By heartuvgold
@heartuvgold (493)
United States
April 9, 2007 4:03am CST
Are we already chosen to receive the grace of God before we're born? Are some of us predestined to never be a part of God's Kingdom or to accept salvation? Are we programmed before the beginning of time to live our lives the way we live them and do the things we're doing without our will being involved?
I did a search on biblegateway.com and found some interesting things about this subject. I thought you might want to see it.
I just looked up in the keyword search for the word "appointed", trying to find where it says that it is appointed unto man once to die... and found that there were appointed times for everything according to God's will, and not necessarily our own.
When God makes an appointment with you, you're going to be there.
Is our life predestined? Our death? Everything in between?
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1 response
@socorban (650)
• United States
11 Apr 07
It has a broader scope than that. You have to understand that God created all of this, including "time" God is not bound by time, he is the Begining and the end. He has been at the last day of earth and the first already, he has been always past present and eternal future.
God gives us free will to chose. But since God is not bound by time he knows your whole life before its lived out. If you think about it, God could walk next to each person their entire life and on to the next. God does not exist in what we consider time, he created it and is not bound by it.
In some cases some are appointed, and selected, why? God already knows they are going to come to him, and he already knows what they are capable of and willing to do. While they are "appointed" in our understanding of "time" They still had free will to do so, God simply already knew the outcome.
In cases like you mentioned, when God ordains a meeting and you gonna be their no matter what, you still have free will, God just knows the situation an eternity in advance. God can influence us, and urge us but he wont be the "puppet master" and force you, its your choice, he just knows the right places at the right times long in advance.
I sincerely hope that helps clarify it a little i tried to be as clear and descriptive as poosible for you.
@heartuvgold (493)
• United States
16 Apr 07
Thank you for the very clear and common sense answer.
We do have free will in that we can choose to serve Him or not, but He knows out thoughts and knows what we are going to do before we do it, and I believe He orchestrates our lives in such a way as to present us with opportunities to serve Him and to help someone else in their time of need, but whether we do it or not is up to us.
I believe He gives us signals for what He wants us to do and where He wants us to go, but we often ignore them and do our own thing.
I remember one day driving down the road and I felt the presence of the Lord in my car almost yelling at me to WATCH OUT! I didn't see anything wrong right then, but a couple more miles down the road there was a tractor with a long wheel sticking out on the other side of the road and I probably wouldn't have been looking and would have tried to pass him if I hadn't been warned. If I had hit that wheel I would have probably gone out of control and been hurt really bad or even have been killed.
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