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Woah! Can I join in?

I have some questions for @serenity…

So…you don’t believe just anyone can be saved…what do you do with John 3:16? It says salvation was extended to the WORLD…not three apostles, twenty farmers, and a cheerleader…or just Baptists, or Americans, or Lutherans, or Africans, or Anabaptists, or Protestants, or Europeans, ect. ect. ect. And if salvation isn’t extended to everyone, then that has to mean that God has condemned some people to hell before they were born. Before the world was created. I don’t think so. You do?

If we do not have to make the choice to accept Jesus as Lord and King of our lives, then we are simply robots, programmed robots. If we don’t have the chance to make a choice that affects our eternal destiny, than how can we have the ability to make any other choice? Your right…salvation is only made possible by the grace of God, not of works. BUT that grace was freely bestowed on every person that has ever drawn breath. Can you really say Jesus died to give you salvation…but not me?

I don’t mean to argue for the sake of arguement…that’s not me…but somehow I can’t find the beauty you refer too. All I see is hopelessness and despair in your idea. How can you tell people about a loving God and tell them they might spend eternity in hell…by no choice of their own? Again, you’re right…we do mess up…but that’s what the blood of Jesus is all about. He came to call sinners to repentance (Matthew 9:13). Who are sinners? EVERYONE. (Romans 3:23)

If we have no choice, then what is faith? What is trust? What is love? What is joy? If we can’t be certain that salvation is available to us how can we love God…not knowing if He actually loves us? I’ve struggled with a lot of fear in my life, very much of it centering around death/the after life. I would get so freaked out…laying in bed at night my stomach would churn, legs shaking, my head feeling like it was about to explode just from thinking about forever. I’m not joking. Forever…without God. I’d beg God to take away the feelings…the fear of not knowing. I clung to the promise that He’d never leave or forsake His children, that He’d already defeated death and the grave. That I could KNOW I was saved (Romans 10:9-13). And if we can’t know we are saved…there is no true hope.

Would you die for a bunch of people who were already bound for Heaven? Of course not. It would be pointless. And Jesus’ death was not, by any stretch of the imagination, pointless. He died so we can live, but WE have to accept or reject. In Luke 24:46-49, Jesus tells His disciples that repentance should be preached to the nations, that they are witnesses. Repentance is a choice. Salvation is a gift. We confess or deny. We believe or scorn. We accept or reject. Jesus has made salvation possible…what we do with it is our choice.

I’ll be praying for all of us to see the truth of God’s word, not simply each others points of view or the beliefs we were raised by. We have to choose what we believe. God grant us the wisdom to accept His truth. God bless, everyone. Keep seeking.