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Can somebody show me where somebody uses freewill to "accept Christ" or be saved?

I wonder where Christians get this from. If you consider that Romans 9 says -

13 As it is written, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”

14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not!

15 For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”

16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.

Can we come to God on our own. This says no -

6 However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.

7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory,

8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

9 But as it is written:

“ Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,

Nor have entered into the heart of man

The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.

11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.

12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

When it comes to faith, people always seem to make the claim that they have faith which saves them and then they attribute it to themselves. But doesn't God give the hearing ear? (Proverbs 20:12)

Romans 10:17 - So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Ephesians 2:8-10 -

8For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,

9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.

10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

If we can come to understand the gospel and love God all on our own, then is it still grace that saves us or is it our own spirituality? Ephesians 2:8-10 plainly says that we are saved by grace through faith, NOT OF OURSELVES lest anyone should boast.

How does free will fit into all this?

5 Answers

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  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    It doesn't. I've been telling people for years that it is not about US. It is, and always has been, about God. Not one human ever born (other than Jesus) can take credit for anything in their life. If you receive an award for any kind of accomplishment, you didn't accomplish it, God did. If you land the job that you've been trying to get for months and you finally get it, you didn't get that job, God did.

    I don't know where the term 'free will' even came from, since I've never read it in the Bible. However, even so, free will is just a choice. You either choose God or you don't. People who I know personally that don't have God in their life, are always getting into trouble with the law, have bad things constantly happening to them, etc. When people do have God in their life, it isn't about free will. It's about needing Him.

  • 1 decade ago

    There's different views on this....some believe that God chooses who He wants to save, long before they were born. Others are out of luck.

    Another view is that God wants ALL to be saved, but that He only saves those who He knows ahead of time will accept Jesus.

    Others believe that the verses about Jacob and Esau are not actually talking about them, as people, but as their tribes. Or their behaviors in the fact that Esau represents SIN, and Jacob represents Salvation.

    We are saved by our faith in Jesus Christ. Yet faith without works is dead. A person cannot say...."I'm a Christian", and yet not change a thing about their lifestyle. That would be an example of "faith without works"

  • 1 decade ago

    If you seriously want to know, please send me a note via y/a and I will have a Bible study with you.

    "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

    (Luke 14:26-33 ESV)

  • yao
    Lv 4
    4 years ago

    Friendship, no that's no longer risky....my contacts only this week helped me turn my head removed from the darkness and in the direction of the easy....that's no longer delusional in any respect, yet a certainty.

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  • 1 decade ago

    God's word here proves free will = But as many as have received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name. (John 1:12) ~ To have received Him means to associate with Him as His companion or attendant, to give Him access to yourself, to regard His power, not to refuse or reject Him, to choose Him. The word right in the NKJV I use, is power in the KJV. It also means power of choice, liberty of doing as one pleases, permission. That's our free will given to us by God to make the right choice of becoming a born again Christian.

    who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:13) ~ God makes you into His family, born again by the Holy Spirit, through your faith in Christ's work. ~ But some people have a misunderstanding faith. I did before. Faith is not the license to sin. So receiving Jesus Christ into your life is not good enough, you must let Him make you born again by the Holy Spirit to be a child of God. Someone born again is set free from the bondage of sin.

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