Kingdom1

Few things for me: the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ. Second: His infinite attributes. How there's no end in the characteristics of God. How if one wanted to search out the wisdom of God, they could delve inside the certain glory of God and even for an eternity of eternities, they wouldn't even reach the foothills of how magnificently deep His wisdom goes. Everything just goes on forever with God. Including His love He revealed to us in Christ Jesus. That's what thrills me.

"Father...?" "...Yes, son?" "...why does it have to be this way for now?" "...to make you trust only in Me." "...but it's scary." "Don't be afraid..." (thinks to himself) "Because You are with me?" "Yes, and I want to show you how mighty I am." (builds trust in Him) "through many trials and tribulations you enter the kingdom." (thinks to himself) "...so through pain and suffering, I enter into eternal life, Father?" "...through much pain and suffering..." (braces his fragile frame inside) "...though you are weak, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand...do not be afraid." (lets the word of the Lord sink in his deepest fears) "...I will strengthen you...put your hope in Me and I will show you My wonders." "...You, LORD, alone...are my hope." (thinks about what has been said so far) "...I feel helpless in this jail cell." "...I put you in this helpless prison so you look to none other but Me..." (starts to realize the purpose for where he is) "You truly have brought me to a place where I trust not even in the hope of man......." "...I give My glory to no other...My praise I give to no one." (that truth sinks in) "...You are with me..." (the LORD is silent) "...You said You are rejoicing over me with all Your heart and soul..." (the LORD still remains silent) (thinks to himself hard) "..............I understand, Father.......I understand that even though I don't feel You in my midst..." (then the LORD speaks) "...I truly am, My son." (takes the whole conversation to heart and trusts in the LORD) Written by: Kingdom1

This is taken from John Piper's book The Pleasures of God: Meditations of God's Delight in Being God. (Pg. 205-209) And at this chapter John Piper opposes about people who believe their ultimate salvation depended or depends on them. That they somehow had a part in their conversion. Let's take a look: "Until we embrace the sovereignty of God in election (and, therefore, in conversion), we cannot really pray consistently that God would actually save lost sinners. We cannot pray the way Paul describes his own praying in Romans 10:1. "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they might be saved." Paul's heart's desire is for the salvation of his fellow Jews. And when our hearts ache for something, we pray for it. And so he says that his prayer to God is that they be saved. He wants something accomplished in his mission---the salvation of Jews as he preaches in the synagogues. So he prays to God that this would happen. He asks God to save them. "O God, that they might be saved! Do it, God! Do what You need to do to save my kinsmen!" But that kind of praying is inconsistent if you do not believe in the sovereignty of God in election and conversion. The sovereignty of God is his right and power to save unbelieving, unrepentant, hardened sinners. There are a lot of people who do not believe God has that right. They do not believe that God has the right to intrude upon a person's rebellion, and overcome it, and draw that person effectually to faith and salvation. They do not believe that God has the right to exert Himself so powerfully in grace as to overcome all the resistance of a hardened sinner. Instead they believe that man himself has the sole right of final determination in the choices and affections of his heart toward God. Every person, they say, has final self-determination in whether they will overcome the hardness of their hearts and come to Christ. And so it is finally in the hands of man, not God, who will be saved and how many will inhabit the kingdom. The effects on prayer for such people are devestating if they try to pray consistently with this rejection of the sovereignty of God in elections and conversion. It means they can't ask God to actually fulfill many of His promises and effectually save anybody. - They can't pray, "God, take out my friend's heart of stone and give him a new heart of flesh." (Ezekiel 11:19) - They can't pray, "Lord, circumcise my daughter's heart so that she loves You." (Deuteronomy 30:6) - They can't pray, "Father, put Your Spirit within my dad and cause him to walk in Your statutes." (Ezekiel 36:27) - They can't pray, "Lord, grant my teacher repentance and a knowledge of the truth." (2 Timothy 2:25-26) - They can't pray, "Open my sister's eyes so that she will believe the gospel." (Acts 16:14) The reason they can't pray this way is that all these prayers give God a right that they have reserved for man---namely the ultimate, decisive determination of man's destiny. If you ask God to do any of these things, He would be the one who actually saves. How then does one pray if one really believe that man, not God, must make the ultimate decisions about individual salvation (and thus the ultimate decisions about the size and makeup of heaven's population)? I take an example from a well-known book on prayer that seems to reject God's sovereignty in the salvation of sinners. This writer says that the way to pray is to "Ask God to cause a specific person...to begin questioning whom they can really trust in life." But my question then is: Why is it right for God to cause a person to think a question and wrong for God to take control of a person to the degree that He causes the person to ask a question he would not have otherwise asked, but it is not legitimate for God to exert the same influence to cause the person to give an answer that he would not otherwise have given---namely, that Jesus should be trusted? Here is another example of how this writer says we should pray for unbelievers: "Pray that God will plant in the hearts of these people...and inner unrest, together with a longing to know the 'Truth'." Now my question is: If it is legitimate for God to "plant a longing" in a person's heart, how strong can the longing be that God chooses to plant? There are two kinds of longings God could plant in an unbeliever's heart. One kind of longing is so strong that it leads the person to persue and embrace Christ. The other kind of longing is not strong enough to lead a person to embrace Christ. Which should we pray for? If we pray for the strong longing, then we are praying that the Lord would work effectually and get that person saved. If you pray for the weak longing, then we are praying for an ineffectual longing that leaves the person in sin (but preserves his self-determination). Do you see where this leads? People who really believe that man must have the ultimate power of self-determination, can't consistently pray that God would convert unbelieving sinners. Why? Because if they pray for divine influence in a sinner's life they are either praying for a successful influence (which takes away the sinner's ultimate self-determination), or they are praying for an unsuccessful influence (which is not praying for God to convert the sinner). So either you give up praying for God to convert sinners or you give up ultimate human self-determination. Paul leaves no doubt where he stands on that issue in Romans 9:16, "It depends not upon man's will or exertion, but upon God's mercy." So he prays that God would convert Israel! He prays for her salvation! He does not pray for ineffectual influences, but for effectual influences. And that is how we should pray too. We should take the new covenant promises of God and plead with God to bring them to pass in our children and our neighbors and on all the mission fields of the world. - "God, take out of their flesh the heart of stone and give them a new heart of flesh." (Ezekiel 11:19) - "Lord, circumcise their heart so that they love you." (Deuteronomy 30:6) - "Father, put Your Spirit within them and cause them to walk in Your statutes." (Ezekiel 36:27) - "Lord, grant them repentance and a knowledge of the truth that they may escape from the snare of the devil." (2 Timothy 2:25-26) - "Father, open their hearts so that they believe the gospel." (Acts 16:4) When we believe in the sovereignty of God---in the right and power of God to elect and then bring hardened sinners to faith and salvation---then we will be able to pray with no inconsistency, and with great biblical promises for the conversion of the lost. Thus God has pleasure in this kind of praying because it ascribes to Him the right and honor to be the free and sovereign God that He is in election and salvation."

I wrote this today. I would like to share it. ""Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard." (Hebrews 4:1, 2) We have a Jesus, the High Priest who rose from the dead. Did you hear me? A man ROSE FROM DEATH. What does that mean for the sinner? Everything. Here I am...sitting on my bed, a man breathing out of two small pitiful nostrils. Not even able to keep my breathing up if it weren't for God. A man who holds no power to do anything, not even my own weak breathing. Never mind saving myself from the grave. Don't you see??? This Jesus whom we crucified is.........Life. He laid down His life on His own accord and He said "only to lift it up again." search the sacred Scriptures yourself and see for yourself. This Jesus really happened. And what He did was done in POWER. No, I'm not trying to be this "charasmatic" preacher on television who seems to be blabbing about things he himself doesn't seem utterly and personally amazed by...no...I'm talking about God's testimony of the Son of God through what the sacred Scriptures reveal about Him. I'm talking about a Christian faith with power. Let's see how it captivated the apostle Paul: "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." (Philippians 3:10, 11) This is TRUTH. This power really happened and is really there for us who walk in Christ...Jesus of Nazareth. When I see and believe and am awed by this power of Jesus and I see myself, that power becomes powerful. And I am affected by it through faith. "but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard..." Hebrews writes. Do we BELIEVE the word? Do we believe like the apostle Paul, "so that I may know Him and the POWER of His resurrection" so that he "may obtain the resurrection of the dead". THE DEAD. Don't you realize you have no power? And that only through faith in the mighty Savior is your only power to defeat the power of sin and death? Or are these things trivial matters for you? Jesus is your only hope of any salvation. Jesus made everything you see. He also owns everything you have. He also demands you to repent of your sinful life and forsake this passing current world and believe on Him. There is a kingdom of power coming. ........believe it. Just because you don't see it does not mean it does not exist. You will see how glorious this Jesus of Nazareth is on the day He comes to judge the living and the dead. It's all about the gospel in the bible. Like the writer of Hebrews was warning us, "let there not be an unbelieving heart among you, so that you fall away from the living God". He is a living God. The God of Life. The God of all power. Look at your pitiful self and behold. It will save your life."