Question for My Brothers and Sisters In Christ...

My understanding is that if we choose to accept Christ as our savior and do so, then we will be saved, so that to me means that we choose salvation, and don't have to wait for God to choose it for us. To be entirely honest though, I am not sure what I believe when it comes to religious matters anymore. To clarify, I have held certain beliefs for a long time, mainly because they were drilled into my head when I was younger, but lately I have been questioning many of them. Reason being; because a lot of them just don't seem to make sense to me any more for one reason or another and I have not heard or found an explanation for any of them that does.

ParaTed, " Does that mean that God created us for Satan and only chooses a relative few to keep for Himself" Gosh, what a question! Do you remember that Satan was once an Angel that turned against Gods ways? He could turn back and accept him as well as anyone else can. OOPS, I forgot that the Bible tells this story much better than I. In the Bible, God talks to a few people. At one time he said "...Surely you know, for you were there with me". * To me, the Bible itself is a parable that unfolds, holds many clues and has many mysteries hidden in it's words. There will be many souls that never believe in our Higher Power and they will become the "falling stars" from the sky. Some people will pass through this life many times and learn lessons till they get them right... To answer your question is impossible for me to do. In my belief, God wanted us all and Satan actually has a purpose in Gods mighty plan. I'm sure that a day will come when God throws up his hands and say's "That's enough"! Those of us that fail to see the importance of love, truth and honesty will have "missed the boat". We have plenty chances to join the right team!

OMGoodness Ted, You asked a whopper this time. I have heard the concept, I know God's word says that God is omnipotient, That He knows what will happen to us every step of the way, but I really don't know if I believe the concept that He knows how we will chose in the end. What would be the point in it all if He did? I know we all have free will to chose God or satan, and I also know there is a spiritual battle that goes on for our souls, so if God knows the out come, why would He bother fighting for us? Makes sense to this pea brain, LOL. Blessings Marilyn

Wrong my dear. It is not Christ who will choose to save us but rather it is us who have the free will whether to choose Jesus or not. God has given us the right to choose. We are born with intellect, and the freedom to make choices. These include choices on what path we want to pursue... the narrow or the wide path? If we like to go to heaven then we have the freedom to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. If you choose not and believe not then certainly you are going to hell. It is the desire of God that all of us gets to heaven. This is written in 1st Timothy 2: 3-4 : " For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." However it is a sad truth that money prefers not to believe Christ and therefore we can't put the blame on God. He is already offering the free gift of salvation to all men and if others will still reject, it is their problem.

Well first of all God gave us free will to choose. It is up to us to choose if we follow God or succumb to the devil. Original sin is something that we are born with because it's human nature. However it is removed the moment we are Baptized as Christians (I'm saying this in a Catholic point of view)as far as I know Original Sin is removed by Baptism. God wants to save us all but since He loved us so much he gave us the free will to choose.

well, it is said in the bible that "many are called,but few are chosen"... meaning, God called "all" the people in earth but only few responded to it so they were chosen by God! actually, Hell is not for men but for satan and other demons,.. and i know that you knew that info. ever since, satan wants to be a god and that's the reason why God Almighty cast him away from heaven,,..and until now...he still wants to be a god!! for that reason again, he deceives mankind to worship him! he lies, he steels, he kills and he destroys(john 10:10) he wants everyone to go in hell to be his servant! and even those who are chosen, he also wants to deceive!(as what he is doing to you..he gives you doubt to believe in Christ...he planted thoughts to you that God has favoritism) well, if Christ only choose who He wanted to choose, then the great pain that He suffered in the cross of calvary is such a meaningless!!!! i know that you've already guessed what i mean... John 3:16 said that "...for God so loved the world(not only you and me but all the people in the world) that He gave His only begotten Son...for those who ever believed in Him( not those He only wants to be saved and not for those He only wants to choose but for those who ever believed in him) shall not be perished but have an eternal life!! just trust in the Lord and always think about His love!!

God created man to be perfect and we have been infected with this original sin by our forefather and foremother Adam and Eve when they ate the forbidden fruit (some -it was not a lone fruit like an apple or pear, it was bunch like 'evilberries'.) However God put into some, and some who are not born yet, a protection against the effects of this forbidden fruit. So when there is a call for repentanceA, they stand up, when they see a church they want to go in it, they are drawn to reading the gospel, and they want everyone else to be saved. Satan came and messed things up by entering the body of the serpent and deceiving Eve. And Eve being a good wife, offered the 'evilberries' to her husband and he ate them knowing that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was right there. So it was Satan's fault. Had that blasted serpent appeared, we would all be children of God and living in paradise.

No. Like us, Satan had a choice and he chose sin and evil.

that is an interesting question, and one that is may be quite difficult to answer... we could never really comprehend god's reasons for creating us and allowing us to fall into sin.. but we must separate the two issues first... with regard to creation, we can see that god created everything as good and that adam and eve walked with god in paradise... this was god's original plan... then came sin... man sinned so god, being holy and just, had to hold man accountable for what he had done... that is why we are all condemned to eternal judgment because we have all sinned... so i guess you're question is: why did god allow all of this to happen, such that all of mankind now stand to be eternally condemned? my own opinion is that: 1. god gave us free will and man freely chose to sin... god could not violate our own personal freedom which he himself had given us, that's why he allowed mankind to fall into sin by their own choice... but then you might ask, why create man then if god knew man was going to choose to sin? my answer is that being is good in itself... would you rather not have existed at all? the mere fact that no one knows what its like to "not be" tells us that we cannot honestly say that we prefer non-being simply because we cannot compare being and non-being... you cannot prefer something which you do not know... 2. god's will is perfect... we might not see the sense or wisdom or goodness in our present situation, but if we believe that the god of the bible is truly who he claims to be, then we must trust upon the truth that god knows better than us and that he desires nothing but our good from all of this... these are very difficult questions, and ones that i also still ask myself... but who know? maybe when the lord comes and we see him face to face we will know the answers... may god grant you peace and stillness of heart... god bless you... :)