nobleseed Posted July 4, 2019 Group: Members * Followers: 1 Topic Count: 83 Topics Per Day: 0.04 Content Count: 341 Content Per Day: 0.18 Reputation: 117 Days Won: 0 Joined: 01/02/2019 Status: Offline Share Posted July 4, 2019 it says in ecclesiastes that time and chance happen to all, and as i look back in my life, the things that happened to me i can see clearly that it was mostly random chance. what makes one man healthy and another a cripple, why does one man have a good mind and one a mental illness, chance and circumstance. take the story of king saul as an example, God chose him to be king of israel and if he had obeyed God he would have been king to this day, or the man of God in kings, if he had not listened to the lying prophet he would have been the greatest prophet. it often amuses me when predestinationists try to work out Gods plan in regard to original sin, the truth is non of that was planned but a matter of chance and choice, i am sure that God knows every possible outcome of every situation and that his providence is always present but not everything is planned and chance choice and consequence are the driving factors of life. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pekoudah Posted July 4, 2019 Group: Advanced Member Followers: 4 Topic Count: 27 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 302 Content Per Day: 0.17 Reputation: 624 Days Won: 1 Joined: 05/04/2019 Status: Offline Share Posted July 4, 2019 Agreed. God doesn't predestine as much as He FORESEES things. We are like a ball that is in play. We may get fumbled...or we may score a touchdown...but in the end it's what we do about it...what life makes us become, that counts. And we do have a big say in that. Are we a winner in life? Well, are we humble about it or proud? Are we a loser in life? Well are we despondent and jealous...or are we happy simply to be alive before God? A LOT of things happen to us all...many of which seem to have no purpose at all...that we can see at the time. But ALL things work for the good of they who are the called in Christ. We look to Him by faith, trusting that all things are under His control. So we can rejoice in the failures and be humble in the successes of life. In the end we all will be judged by what we have done with what we have been given. Maranatha! <>< 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Refresher Posted July 14, 2019 Group: Advanced Member Followers: 15 Topic Count: 6 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 381 Content Per Day: 0.21 Reputation: 812 Days Won: 0 Joined: 05/25/2019 Status: Offline Birthday: 03/04/1973 Share Posted July 14, 2019 On 7/4/2019 at 2:02 PM, nobleseed said: it says in ecclesiastes that time and chance happen to all, and as i look back in my life, the things that happened to me i can see clearly that it was mostly random chance. what makes one man healthy and another a cripple, why does one man have a good mind and one a mental illness, chance and circumstance. take the story of king saul as an example, God chose him to be king of israel and if he had obeyed God he would have been king to this day, or the man of God in kings, if he had not listened to the lying prophet he would have been the greatest prophet. it often amuses me when predestinationists try to work out Gods plan in regard to original sin, the truth is non of that was planned but a matter of chance and choice, i am sure that God knows every possible outcome of every situation and that his providence is always present but not everything is planned and chance choice and consequence are the driving factors of life. Amen and Amen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Who me Posted July 14, 2019 Group: Royal Member Followers: 5 Topic Count: 17 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 3,299 Content Per Day: 1.72 Reputation: 1,685 Days Won: 0 Joined: 01/27/2019 Status: Offline Share Posted July 14, 2019 On 04 July 2019 at 11:02 AM, nobleseed said: it says in ecclesiastes that time and chance happen to all, and as i look back in my life, the things that happened to me i can see clearly that it was mostly random chance. what makes one man healthy and another a cripple, why does one man have a good mind and one a mental illness, chance and circumstance. take the story of king saul as an example, God chose him to be king of israel and if he had obeyed God he would have been king to this day, or the man of God in kings, if he had not listened to the lying prophet he would have been the greatest prophet. it often amuses me when predestinationists try to work out Gods plan in regard to original sin, the truth is non of that was planned but a matter of chance and choice, i am sure that God knows every possible outcome of every situation and that his providence is always present but not everything is planned and chance choice and consequence are the driving factors of life. Corrie ten boon used to use an illistration. She would talk like your post about the chaos, random nature of life and as she did, would carefully unfold and lift up a piece of cloth covered in tangles of thread and a picture of chaos. Then she would say. ' The chaos of life is all about how one sees life. We see the chaoes of this embrodery. God sees the whole picture' and she would turn it around so everyone could see the lovely embrodery.. You are seeing life while still entangled init. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nobleseed Posted July 14, 2019 Group: Members * Followers: 1 Topic Count: 83 Topics Per Day: 0.04 Content Count: 341 Content Per Day: 0.18 Reputation: 117 Days Won: 0 Joined: 01/02/2019 Status: Offline Author Share Posted July 14, 2019 27 minutes ago, Who me said: Corrie ten boon used to use an illistration. She would talk like your post about the chaos, random nature of life and as she did, would carefully unfold and lift up a piece of cloth covered in tangles of thread and a picture of chaos. Then she would say. ' The chaos of life is all about how one sees life. We see the chaoes of this embrodery. God sees the whole picture' and she would turn it around so everyone could see the lovely embrodery.. You are seeing life while still entangled init. i am not saying that God is not in control, just that there is a certain randomness in life, that solomon hits upon in ecclesiastes, and if God has a plan for me he has not specified Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spock Posted July 14, 2019 Group: Royal Member Followers: 8 Topic Count: 29 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 3,239 Content Per Day: 0.86 Reputation: 1,686 Days Won: 6 Joined: 12/26/2013 Status: Offline Share Posted July 14, 2019 22 minutes ago, Sonshine☀️ said: God, since before the foundation of the world, has known each and every one of us, and He knows everything that we will ever do. God knew, before the foundation of the world, for example, that I, by my own free will, would choose Jesus when I heard His calling. I had free will to either reject Him or to accept His saving grace, but God already knew that I would choose Him. And since God is all knowing of the past, present, and future, He chose me and predestined me to be sanctified and to be conformed to the image of Christ. And now, it is God who works in me daily both to will and to do all the things that will give Him pleasure—all the good works that He has preordained for me to do. Shine on! Hey nobleseed, There are a lot of truth in your words......but if I can be honest, they seem to unduly emphasize “chance and circumstance” to the detriment of a personal relationship we all have with God through Christ Jesus. Don’t forget we all have access to God through PRAYER (not chance) because of our standing in Christ Jesus. My spirit lept when I read Sonshine’s words here so I clearly believe these words should be held up next to yours as a balance. And, after reading your post this passage in James chapter one came to my mind. Please consider the implications of these words: 16Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. 17Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, with whom there is no change or shifting shadow. 18He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits of His creation. Just to be clear, your post has a lot of truth in it.....I just see much more... in Christs love, spock 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Firm Foundation Posted July 14, 2019 Group: Mars Hill Followers: 4 Topic Count: 6 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 2,280 Content Per Day: 1.23 Reputation: 854 Days Won: 2 Joined: 03/31/2019 Status: Offline Share Posted July 14, 2019 In the OP, it says Ecclesiastes teaches random chance, but I never got that from it. Can you explain where? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Who me Posted July 16, 2019 Group: Royal Member Followers: 5 Topic Count: 17 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 3,299 Content Per Day: 1.72 Reputation: 1,685 Days Won: 0 Joined: 01/27/2019 Status: Offline Share Posted July 16, 2019 (edited) On 14 July 2019 at 11:17 AM, nobleseed said: i am not saying that God is not in control, just that there is a certain randomness in life, that solomon hits upon in ecclesiastes, and if God has a plan for me he has not specified What makes you think that he is going to tell you? We all have to use our intelligence together with our bible biased brains to work out what Gods will is for us. Edited July 16, 2019 by Who me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BibleStudent100 Posted July 16, 2019 Group: Advanced Member Followers: 3 Topic Count: 11 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 411 Content Per Day: 0.20 Reputation: 353 Days Won: 0 Joined: 09/01/2018 Status: Offline Share Posted July 16, 2019 Perhaps some of us, myself included, are pained because our children have left a path of righteousness as evidenced by their rejection of all things spiritual; but we must remember that free will is a blessing and a gift from God. God allows us to choose whether we will serve him or not. He does not force us to do what he wants us to do. I try to remember the illustration of a robot: it is a machine that is made so that it will do whatever its maker wants it to do, but the robot has no choice in how it behaves. God could have made us all to be like robots. He could have made us so that we could do only what he wanted us to do. But God didn’t do that. After all, some toys are robots. When a button is pressed, they do just what the maker of the toy designed them to do. God doesn’t want us to obey him because we are robots that are programmed to serve him. God wants us to serve him because we love him and because we want to obey him. Additionally, no normal person wants his life taken out of his control so completely. God created us to crave our freedom; this is the way God made us. The Bible tells us that God created man in his ‘image and likeness,’ and one of the faculties God himself has is freedom of choice. (Genesis 1:26; Deuteronomy 7:6) When he created humans, he gave them that same wonderful faculty—the gift of free will. That is one reason why we find it frustrating to be enslaved by oppressive rulers. So the desire for freedom is no accident, for God is a God of freedom. The Bible says: “Where the spirit of God is, there is freedom.” (2 Corinthians 3:17) Hence, God gave us free will as part of our very makeup. Since he knew the way our minds and emotions would work, he knew that we would be happiest with free will. To go with the gift of free will, God gave us the ability to think, weigh matters, make decisions, and know right from wrong. (Hebrews 5:14) Thus, free will was to be based on intelligent choice. We were not made like mindless robots having no will of their own. Nor were we created to act out of instinct as were the animals. Instead, our marvelous brain was designed to work in harmony with our freedom of choice. Thus, free will, a gift from God is something that we should cherish and highly value and never take for granted. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spock Posted July 16, 2019 Group: Royal Member Followers: 8 Topic Count: 29 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 3,239 Content Per Day: 0.86 Reputation: 1,686 Days Won: 6 Joined: 12/26/2013 Status: Offline Share Posted July 16, 2019 1 minute ago, BibleStudent100 said: Perhaps some of us, myself included, are pained because our children have left a path of righteousness as evidenced by their rejection of all things spiritual; but we must remember that free will is a blessing and a gift from God. God allows us to choose whether we will serve him or not. He does not force us to do what he wants us to do. I try to remember the illustration of a robot: it is a machine that is made so that it will do whatever its maker wants it to do, but the robot has no choice in how it behaves. God could have made us all to be like robots. He could have made us so that we could do only what he wanted us to do. But God didn’t do that. After all, some toys are robots. When a button is pressed, they do just what the maker of the toy designed them to do. God doesn’t want us to obey him because we are robots that are programmed to serve him. God wants us to serve him because we love him and because we want to obey him. Additionally, no normal person wants his life taken out of his control so completely. God created us to crave our freedom; this is the way God made us. The Bible tells us that God created man in his ‘image and likeness,’ and one of the faculties God himself has is freedom of choice. (Genesis 1:26; Deuteronomy 7:6) When he created humans, he gave them that same wonderful faculty—the gift of free will. That is one reason why we find it frustrating to be enslaved by oppressive rulers. So the desire for freedom is no accident, for God is a God of freedom. The Bible says: “Where the spirit of God is, there is freedom.” (2 Corinthians 3:17) Hence, God gave us free will as part of our very makeup. Since he knew the way our minds and emotions would work, he knew that we would be happiest with free will. To go with the gift of free will, God gave us the ability to think, weigh matters, make decisions, and know right from wrong. (Hebrews 5:14) Thus, free will was to be based on intelligent choice. We were not made like mindless robots having no will of their own. Nor were we created to act out of instinct as were the animals. Instead, our marvelous brain was designed to work in harmony with our freedom of choice. Thus, free will, a gift from God is something that we should cherish and highly value and never take for granted. Amen, amen, and amen to everything you said, brother. So how do you know my daughter? Lol Our Free will at times makes me almost wish we didn’t have so much. Ha 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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