Today, I decided to start a real blog. I have toyed with them in the past, mainly for an outlet to write something that someday someone will read. Most of the posts were random thoughts, culled from random musings on days when I should have been doing some more productive with life- mainly, interacting with people.

My purpose with this blog is to chronicle my story with faith, with coming to know Christ more fully and what He means to me. Many of these thoughts, feelings, musings, meditations and prayers are difficult for me to put into words to share with another out loud. It is my hope and prayer that anyone reading this blog will be enlighten, and also challenged to discover Jesus if they have not already done so, or that they will be motivated to walk deeper into their faith.

I recently finished reading a transcript from an interview between John Piper and Rick Warren regarding doctrine, mainly regarding salvation, free will and predestination. One concept that drove home with me is that Warren mentioned that he believes in both free will and predestination in terms of salvation. That not only has God chosen his children, but that people also choose to accept the grace that God provides. He explains that he does not view the two concepts as disjunctive thinking.

Since I have been a more black and white person throughout my life, I find this concept of biblical interpretation quite striking. I have thought that most of what church leaders teach is that where you fall in the spectrum of free will or predestination determines mostly where you choose to worship. Is believing both a kind of universalism? Are we to take into account all the verses of the Bible in thinking of grace and redemption like this? If so, why do we still have separate denominations? Is it because we all like to worship differently and regardless of theological stance, differences arise in human beings since we are all broken in sin and that no amount of work that we can do here on earth will ever truly unite the church as Christ intended? Or, that is, until he returns to unite us all.

For today, I look to see how this truly affects my life. If I believe in free will, do I make better choices, regardless of how limited those are? At this present time, I cannot even perceive that my current follies with have repercussions until they have born their bitter fruit. However, even if given the choice of free will, and being that I freely accept the love of Christ into my heart, does not my weak, and sin-filled nature at times jeopardize me on the walk of faith? No matter how hard I try, there will be times that I stumble, and that I know I must depend on His faithfulness and not my own. And my mind cannot stop from asking the question: why would God give me the choice to decide my eternal fate? It is a much easier concept for my heart and my soul to think of freely deciding to accept God's love into my life. My eternal fate seems beyond my human comprehension. I know that given the choice between today's pleasures or eternity's power, my frail human flesh usually leans in the direction of the here and now. Only through Christ does my faith hold true. And if so, then my choice is not much of one. It is not to say that I am an automaton or a lab rat, destined to choose eternity versus today because of punishment or requirement, but that I am now more fully aware of the nature of sin, the gravity of the grace that is available and the strength that Christ presents to us all (ref. Philippians 4:13). I freely and willfully accept God's love in my life, to the extent that He has placed the capacity to love Him in my heart.

On the contrast stands predestination where the children of God have been named before the world came into being. How is my mind to deal with the concept that Christ has chosen his followers and all the rest, regardless of choice, works, faith or otherwise, shall perish into everlasting fire? And then, how does one know that they are chosen? It seems that some preachers extract this thought from scripture and us it to varying degrees to achieve all kinds of rationalizations. But what does it truly mean for the sinner, like we all are? I have fretted upon Judas in past months. Jesus said that better he not have been born. If Judas was not chosen, if one of Christ's own disciples was to suffer the wrath of the Almighty, what will then become of us broken, wearied, and tired sinners? I pray continuously that my life will not be in vain, that God has placed his holy seed in my soul, so that I am grow fruit in His Name, above all names. It is my sincerest prayer that the life I have been given will not be wasted on the petty thing of this life, that the choice to follow Christ's commands is, in reality, out of my hands and that I merely obey a deeper ambition and drive than my own, that I may sacrifice my life for His purposes and for all His people, in whatever capacity I can.

Amen.