UTTERLY PASSIVE

Arminians...

A [g]ospel which teaches that the difference between the man in heaven and the man in hell is something that the man in heaven did on his own steam and apart from the grace of God is a blasphemous parody of the True Gospel. The man in hell simply did not use his Almighty Will properly and the man in heaven did.... this is a man-centered works-based [g]ospel which is not good news at all.

Man does not find it within himself to properly coordinate his decisions and thus choose to save himself. A man is only saved if the LORD gives him the gift of faith. Arminians teach that faith is what man does independent from God and that God is waiting on man to straighten up and fly right. Scripture teaches that man is dead, in need of new life, and thus unable to help himself. Scripture also teaches that faith is a gift from God and not something that man must locate within his thoroughly wretched self. One [g]ospel is all about what man does and that system hates the fact that faith is given to man as a gift. The True Gospel is about what God gives to man as a gift, not what man chooses to do as an independent agent. One is works-righteousness and one is salvation by grace alone. The reason that faith is not a work is because it's not something that man does, but rather something that man receives as a gift. The rebel sinner who is guilty of high treason and who lives on death row has one option: receive mercy. Man is utterly passive in salvation, lest any man should boast.

In Christ,

Dennis Keesee

AVOIDING GOD

As one insightful friend told me once (Scott T.) "Many men go to church in order to avoid God." (as it is some manner of hiding in a bush, or finding fig leaves).

Dying to Self

When you are forgotten, or neglected, or purposely set at naught, and you don't sting and hurt with the insult or the oversight but your heart is happy, being counted worthy to suffer for Christ, that is dying to self-

When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinion ridiculed, and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart or even defend yourself, but take it all in patient loving silence,- That is dying to self.-

When you are content with any food, any offering, any raiment, any climate, any society, any solitude, and interruption by the will of God, that is dying to self;

When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation, or to record your own good works, or itch after commendation, when you can truly love to be unknown,- That is dying to self-

When you can see your brother prosper and have his needs met, and honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy nor question God, whild your own needs are far greater and in desperate circumstances, that is dying to self-

When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself, and humbly submit inwardly as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart, that is dying to self-

someone on FB named Kristen.

NEVER FORGET

We must never forget that there is no tribunal so magnificent, no throne so stately, no show of triumph so distinguished, no chariot so elevated, as is the cross on which Christ has subdued death and the Devil. (via Kim Nejudne )

POWER OF GOD

If one believes in free will, then tell those that are lost that they have the power to believe. I, however, am not ashamed to preach the Gospel for IT IS THE POWER OF GOD unto salvation to those that believe. (Romans 1:16)

oxymoron

Free will is an oxymoron. To be free is to act without compulsion, and to will is to act with or by compulsion. It matters not whence the compulsion comes, if it is willed it is not free. If we will, we are bound, and if we do not will, we are free, but we are also not human. To be human--to be a creature--is to be a slave.

--D. Matthew Brown.