Do I own my faith?

[missmuffet]

Do we own our faith?Is your faith the result of a cultural or family tradition — something you were raised with — or because you know it makes your girlfriend happy, or because your seminary scholarship depends on it, or because you live in a religious society where it's advantageous to be a "Christian?

[other one]

My faith is the result of getting involved with the devil (albeit not on purpose) and having God save me from myself.....

 

I sort of own it, but He gave it to me...    if that makes any sense.

[missmuffet]

My faith is the result of getting involved with the devil (albeit not on purpose) and having God save me from myself.....

 

I sort of own it, but He gave it to me...    if that makes any sense.

No it doesn't.

[Hippie333]

Do we own our faith?Is your faith the result of a cultural or family tradition — something you were raised with — or because you know it makes your girlfriend happy, or because your seminary scholarship depends on it, or because you live in a religious society where it's advantageous to be a "Christian?

Faith is none of those things....Faith is not something we "just do" to fit in...or make people happy.... Religion can be those things but not Faith.

 

Luk 17:5  And the apostles said to the Lord, Give us more faith.

Luk 17:6  And the Lord said, If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you might say to this sycamine tree, Be rooted up and be planted in the sea! And it would obey you.

Luk 17:7  But which of you who has a servant plowing or feeding will say to him immediately after he has come from the field, Come, recline?

Luk 17:8  Will he not say to him, Prepare something so that I may eat, and gird yourself and serve me until I eat and drink. And afterward you shall eat and drink.

Luk 17:9  Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not.

Luk 17:10  So likewise you, when you shall have done all the things commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants, for we have done what we ought to do.

 

 

Eph 2:8  For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,

Eph 2:9  not of works, lest anyone should boast.

Eph 2:10  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.

[missmuffet]

So I do own my faith because I have made the choice to have faith in God?

[Bible2]

bopeep1909 said in post 5:

 

So I do own my faith because I have made the choice to have faith in God?

 

Actually, you (like all other believers) didn't initially make the choice to have faith in God, for faith comes only to the elect (Acts 13:48b).

 

That is, the elect are those individuals, whether Jews or Gentiles, who were chosen (elected) and predestinated by God before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4-11; 2 Thessalonians 2:13), before they were born (Romans 9:11-24), to become initially saved by faith at some point during their lifetime (Acts 13:48b). This initial salvation is possible only because of Jesus' sacrifice (Romans 3:25-26), which was also foreordained by God before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8; 1 Peter 1:19-20).

 

Everyone on his own is wholly corrupt (Romans 3:9-12), and so it is impossible for people on their own to ever believe in Jesus and the gospel and be initially saved (1 Corinthians 15:1-4, John 20:31; 1 John 5:13) through their own will (Romans 9:16, John 1:13, John 6:65) or their own intellect (1 Corinthians 1:18 to 2:16). Unsaved people can't understand the gospel (1 Corinthians 2:14; 1 Corinthians 1:18) because only initially saved people, who have received the miraculous gift of some measure of God's own Spirit, can understand it (1 Corinthians 2:11-16).

 

The nonelect can't ever believe in Jesus and the gospel and be initially saved, even when they are shown the truth (John 8:42-47, John 10:26, Matthew 13:38-42), because the ability to believe in Jesus and the gospel comes only to the elect (Acts 13:48b) wholly by God's grace as a miraculous gift from God (Ephesians 2:8, John 6:65; 1 Corinthians 3:5b, Romans 12:3b, Hebrews 12:2) as the elect read (or hear) God's Word the Bible (Romans 10:17, Acts 13:48, Acts 26:22-23), just as the ability to repent comes only as a miraculous gift from God (2 Timothy 2:25, Acts 11:18). Satan blinds the minds of unbelievers so that on their own they can't repent and acknowledge the truth of God's Word (2 Corinthians 4:4; 2 Timothy 2:25-26).

[Bible2]

bopeep1909 said in post 5:

 

So I do own my faith  . . .

 

Yes and no, in that Hebrews 12:2a shows that it is only because of Jesus that saved people came to believe, and have the ability to continue to believe to the end (Colossians 1:23, Hebrews 3:6,14). But Jesus doesn't take away the free will of saved people. So it is possible for them to wrongly employ their free will to depart from the faith, to no longer believe, to commit apostasy (Luke 8:13; 1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Thessalonians 2:3), to the ultimate loss of their salvation (Hebrews 6:4-8, John 15:6; 2 Timothy 2:12b).

 

That is, Hebrews 6:4-8 shows that even saved people, who have repented and become partakers of the Holy Spirit, can ultimately lose their salvation because of subsequently wrongly employing their free will to "fall away", to commit apostasy, to stop believing (like in Luke 8:13, 1 Timothy 4:1, and 2 Thessalonians 2:3), just as other scriptures show the same thing (John 15:6; 2 Timothy 2:12b, Mark 8:35-38, Hebrews 10:38-39, Matthew 24:9-13).

 

One way a saved person could be brought to the point where he commits apostasy would be if he finds a particular sin to be very pleasurable, so pleasurable and so fulfilling (in the short term) that he continues in it over time until his heart becomes hardened by the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13), to where his love for God grows cold because of the abundance of iniquity (Matthew 24:12), to where he quenches the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19), to where he sears his conscience as with a hot iron (1 Timothy 4:2), to where he begins to listen to the lies of demons and latch onto them, to the point where he departs from the faith (1 Timothy 4:1). In a wrong desire to continue in their lusts without repentance, saved people can reach the point where they become no longer able to endure the sound doctrine of the Bible, and they instead seek out and latch onto other teachings which will help to support them in their lusts (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

 

Another way a saved person could be brought to the point where he commits apostasy would be if he has a terror of being tortured and killed during a persecution against Christians, so that during such a persecution he completely renounces his faith in Jesus Christ and the gospel in order to avoid being tortured and killed (Mark 8:35-38; 2 Timothy 2:12). Some Christians will fall away in this sense during the future tribulation (2 Thessalonians 2:3, Matthew 24:9-13, cf. Matthew 13:21, Luke 8:13), when the Antichrist will take power over the earth, make war against Biblical Christians (not in hiding), and physically overcome them in every nation (Revelation 13:7-10, Revelation 14:12-13, Revelation 20:4-6, Matthew 24:9-13).

 

There will be no way to repent from committing apostasy (Hebrews 6:4-8) and worshipping the Antichrist and his image and willingly receiving his mark on the forehead or right hand, even if this is done just to keep from getting killed (Revelation 13:15-18). Whoever does these things, even if they had become initially saved before, will end up suffering punishment in fire and brimstone forever (Revelation 14:9-12). So Christians must be willing to be killed, even by getting beheaded (Revelation 20:4-6), before they would ever do these things (Revelation 14:12-13).

 

This ties in with the fact that a saved person can in the end have his name blotted out of the book of life if he doesn't overcome to the end (Revelation 3:5, Revelation 2:26). An example of saved people ultimately "overcoming" (Greek: nikao, G3528) or "getting the victory" (nikao) (Revelation 15:2) is found later in the book of Revelation, in Revelation 15:2, which refers to those saved people who will be willing to be killed by the Antichrist instead of worshipping him to save their mortal lives during the coming worldwide persecution against Biblical Christians (Revelation 13:7-10, Revelation 14:12-13, Revelation 20:4-6, Matthew 24:9-13). Christians will be able to spiritually "overcome" the Antichrist and Satan by not loving their lives to the death (Revelation 12:11).

[His_disciple3]

by His foreknowledge He did predestinate, not to side track but the one (Paul) in the New Testament that , wrote most scripture concerning predestination of the elect, said that the elect needs to obtain salvation:

2 Tim 2:10

10 Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

KJV

Eph 2:8

8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

KJV

Rom 12:3

3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

KJV

Bible2 we shouldn't think of ourselves more highly than others, even because of our knowledge of Scripture ;

[Openly Curious]

So I do own my faith

Just curious as to why it is that you reference faith in the above quote as being "YOURS".

All throughout the thread you haved called it "your faith". Does that not tell you something within itself.

Nobody else's faith I can claim as my own. But I've never ever come across a person who rejects their own faith as being their own before. Interesting to say the least. When you act in and on your faith it can be none other than your own faith. So it is in all the examples we have been given in the bible of the great men and women of faith it was their personal faith and none other that they acted on. Forgive me if I have misunderstood the content of your thread.

[His_disciple3]

to the question do I own my faith, I think that we could see faith as anything that is ours, but is anything really ours, we are stewards with all God's stuff, yes what we do with it, is within our choice/control, or we could see it as on loan to us and we are responsible for it while we have it.