Guest post by Jeanette Andrade
May 30 Scripture Selection: Romans 9
Food for Thought: Rom. 9:31-33
This scripture is all-inclusive. It applies to anyone and everyone who desires to attain righteousness that would make him suitable to be in the presence of God, not by the law, but by faith. Just faith. And we have the assurance that “whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame (or confounded).” Faith in Jesus, regardless of the origin or nationality of the person, will not leave anyone wondering what went wrong when standing before the Lord. Instead, it will bring the believer to a very positive outcome.
Peeking ahead, Chapter 10 continues with this theme, referring to Israel, but also applicable to other people as well, Paul says in verse 3 that “they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.” So many people are guilty of this! The answer to this is found in the next verse: “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes.”
Confirming the simplicity of the Gospel of just how to be found righteous by the Lord, verse 9 of the same chapter spells it out: “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Thankfully, verses12 and 13 make it completely clear that there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek when it comes to the opportunity to be saved. We all qualify. The only requirement is faith to call on the name of the Lord. It’s that simple.
Digging Deeper (What scriptures can further enhance today’s reading?):
Getting Personal (What has God shown you in today’s reading?):
Confession of Faith (Example: Lord, based on Mat. 1:21 and 23, I understand that Jesus is God, and I receive Him as my personal Lord and Savior.):
Important Events on This Day (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.):
suyts space 
This is one of the passages which are hard for many people. But, it’s also an awesome passage in that is demonstrates the intellect of Paul. Much of his work is reasoning. It’s a most wondrous gift Christ, through Paul gave us. For much of this reading, I would title it “His will, our will, free will.”
God knows what we’re going to do before we do it. But, He gives us the opportunity to choose. Really, it’s a sad statement towards humanity. Earlier, in Romans, it was iterated and reiterated that we are Christ’s siblings. We are the sons and daughters of God. And, we are granted free will, just as Christ has. But, we were, and are, disobedient.
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God knows what we’re going to do before we do it.
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The logic of that statement leads to the conclusion of predestination or double predestination. It also leads to a problem with the faithful, because if everyone’s final outcome is predetermined–what’s the point. For there to be actual free will, God has to be surprised at/with our choices.
Jim
No. The point is that you make your decision; even when God can perfectly forecast your decision – you yourself can’t. For you, it is your free will, for God, it is foreseeable.
THink of it as a huge impedance gap in computational abilities.
No science fiction writer has ever managed to plausibly describe a hyperintelligence – we can’t comprehend it for our limited resources. God is the ultimate hyperintelligence.
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DirkH says:
May 31, 2014 at 3:20 am
No. The point is that you make your decision; even when God can perfectly forecast your decision – you yourself can’t. For you, it is your free will, for God, it is foreseeable.
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This is a superb example of George Orwell’s “doublethink” concept. If I watch a movie hundreds of times (like “It’s a Wonderful Life”) so I know what’s going to happen, at what point do the characters on the screen have free choice?
Jim
Sigh. Nothing to do with doublethink. Different perspectives. You are in the model, God runs the model. Knowinf the future is equivalent to running the simulation; due to computational irreducibility there is no shortcut. You don’t have the resources? Too bad, you’re outta luck. God has.
Depressing? I think not. I’m not depressed by prophecies. Where do you think they come from?
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DirkH says:
May 31, 2014 at 11:10 am
You are in the model, God runs the model.
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That’s a bad analogy. I run models to find out what will happen. God already knows what will happen and doesn’t even need to run the model. In any case, the actors in the model don’t have free choice–not if I know the outcomes beforehand.
Jim
Jim Masterson says:
May 31, 2014 at 1:23 pm
“I run models to find out what will happen. God already knows what will happen and doesn’t even need to run the model.”
How does he know if he doesn’t run it? You either run the iterative model or determine the future state analytically – but that’s computationally equivalent. So “running the model” and “knowing the future” is semantically equivalent.
God already knows what will happen and doesn’t even need to run the model
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Jim, I’m 100% convinced my sister in law was a test
And of course, if God wants to, he could also nudge you in the direction he intends any time – interfering with your decision making. Let’s say, convince you of the path you should be taking. I think that this is what often happens with those Muslims who give lucid testimony about how they found Jesus – and there’s a reason it happens to them.
Agreed. He does call many and choose a few.
Jim, I don’t believe knowing an outcome deprives a person of free will. If I were clairvoyant and knew what people were going to choose, it doesn’t mean the people didn’t choose.
Either your free or your not! Ya can’t have it both ways.
…you’re….
Knowing at choice to be made doesn’t eliminate the choice made.
Yeah it does, unless you want to paint those that don’t conform to be a non-believer, That’s the whole premise of the climate nutters claims.
Let’s say I know a family who chooses things which cause them to live in poverty. This family ran into some money a few months back. I stated, then, that by May, they would have none of the money left. This turned out to be true. I knew this because I knew the choices they would make. Did I take away their choices? Did they not exercise their free-will? Of course, they did. Only they exercised it poorly.
Free will or was it all planned?
Me says:
May 31, 2014 at 5:44 pm
“Free will or was it all planned?”
Maybe God just looks at the statistics and says, yeah, looks about right, let’s proceed with the plan.
The Flood was a model reboot.
Are you serious?
Me says:
May 31, 2014 at 6:08 pm
“Are you serious?”
Half serious. If that helps.
Yeah! No it doesn’t help.
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suyts says:
May 31, 2014 at 5:15 pm
Let’s say I know a family . . . .
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Now we are arguing degrees of God-power. If God looks upon our choices as if they were history to Him–He even knows what choices you’ll be faced with before you have to make those choices, then I don’t think that leads to free will.
However, if He’s just a good guesser–like you–then free will isn’t affected. When many say He knows what you’ll do before you do it, they are giving Him far more power than just super intuition.
As for that family, they may not really have much free will if they always make bad money decisions.
Jim
Spending what you have is the rational thing to do in a welfare state. You must first impoverish yourself before you get to leech.
Jim, God having given us free will also gives us morality. There is no morality without free will and a standard by which one is able to judge decisions. Both of these give God even more glory. God taught the angels something by making us.
God cannot be surprised by our actions. He is either pleased or displeased.
As I mentioned, 15 % of Muslims in UK have already converted to Christianity.
Report about safe houses for threatened converts.
http://www.20min.ch/panorama/news/story/Briten-wollen-ehemalige-Muslime-schuetzen-26916816
Oh excuse me, that German language article links to this British one
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/article1414776.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2014_05_24
Dirk, I’m sorry that I haven’t gotten to this sooner, but I wanted to thank you for the great news that Muslims are coming to the Lord in the UK. The Lord is pouring His Spirit out on all flesh! Great things are ahead!
Now, regarding this subject of predestination and all: What an interesting discussion you all had! But I have decided that all I need to know is that according to the Bible, “the just shall live by faith” and that faith pleases God (“Without faith it is impossible to please God.”) Jesus said that is we have faith the size of a mustard seed, then we could cast a mountain into the sea. God expects us to make those decisions. So when bad things happen, I do not necessarily attribute them to being part of God’s plan or His doing. Rather, I see them sometimes as evidence that more people need to live by faith. God is love, and He is doing everything He can to avert tragedy and bring people into victory over evil. I leave those deeper discussions to you all. I don’t want to sprain my brain.
When God said “Lazarus come forth”, Lazarus said “I’ll get back to you on that”.