Clear the doubts!

Life can never be greater without the grace of God. Life would just be meaningless and fearful if one doesn’t come to know the grace of God. Sincerely pray that he can be my only treasure for the rest of my life and the only one I serve for the rest of my life. It is because of the fear that I might escape from him due to all sorts of sins and invalid reasons. Hopefully God has mercy on me and never let the day come.

I understand that I am not the only one who fears to lose the grace of God, as I met a friend last week who shared with me about his fear. He told me that he thinks God has forsaken him lately and he couldn’t help but to be convinced that he is not chosen by God as the bible told him so during his devotion lately. He believes in the predestination based on the sovereignty of God which no one can make any change of it.

Below are the scriptures: 

(Exodus 7:13) Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them as the Lord had said.

(Colossian 3:5-6) Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.

(Roman 1:28) And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

He is one of my close brothers in Christ who has been diligently serving God in his church. He has been very active to show his caring to the juniors and take the initiative to spread the gospel. I didn’t think am better than him in this evangelical stuff if I were to make a comparison with him, because he is spreading it really hard. Every time I see him being so diligent in spreading the gospel, I would give thanks to God and get encouragement then.

However, we gathered and had a conversation and discussion about the problems of faith. I shared with him about my serious decision regarding the path of my faith. He started to question me with an intention to find the strength for him to move on strong again as he got so weary and spiritually spent. He started the conversation by asking me a lot of questions and I knew that I need to be very serious and cautious of my words as I know he was not talking for fun but for some answers to hope.

He asked: “What would you do if you find yourself have been serving God in a wrong location in which you are against the will of God? As I see those who serve in school bore more fruits compared to me who serves in an outside the school. Isn’t it a sign telling me that my work was not blessed by God?”

Brothers and sisters, this would be a very common question for us to ask ourselves sometimes. We most probably want to know the exact information about the will of God on us (Where, what, how and when). But bible never gives us the exact information but only the main concept of the works. Anyway the fruitfulness of the ministry alone is not enough to judge correctly whether God blesses the work. One of the examples in Old Testament, Noah preached the words of God to the people there before the flood came, but at the end none of them chose to repent and get on the Ark. The success of his preaching to turn the sinners over was an utter zero percentage. However, that doesn’t mean that God was not pleased with his work. He did it right and faithfully; certainly God was pleased to his faithfulness and loyalty. I am one of the examples as well. I have been sharing the gospel to the friends around me but no one came to believe in Christ after all. I believe that God is pleased with whatever I was trying to do for the sake of their souls but he wants me to learn that he is the one who is taking the control for the work of salvation.

Our job isn’t to turn people into Christians; our task is to love the Lord and obey his commandments. Some false churches spread the false gospel, in the churches many people decided to become Christian who only believe in the feel-good gospel. This kind of “efficiency” may not be godly. Therefore, even though our service doesn’t seem to bear any fruits, it doesn’t mean we served at the wrong place. But if we realized that we did it in the way against the bible teaching, we are found guilty. Then we shall repent to God and begin to serve again truthfully. After all, we need to self-examine from time to time according to the bible especially our methodologies and beliefs. We might be wrong during our service but God would definitely make it right if we are biblically humble throughout the way.    

He asked: “What would you feel if you found yourself not being appreciated or valued by the brothers and sisters in the church after the long period of your service?”

Yes, sometimes we would fall into the temptation of trying to do something great in the church with the intention to gain people’s acknowledgement. We want to be acknowledged not only by God but also the brothers and sisters. We tend to secure a sense of being significant in any places we choose to stay including our church. Anyway, what does the bible say about the purpose of serving God? Serving God is a must. It doesn’t need any other better reason but merely because of the fact that God is the Lord and we were created for his glory! One would suffer if he serves God for his personal reason instead of the biblical reason as our jealous God wouldn’t share his glory with other parties and he would definitely spoil our ideas of honoring ourselves during the service. Therefore, we need to examine our intention prior to our service; otherwise we would be in trouble. With that ungodly attempt, no one can serve God powerfully. 

 He asked: “Why do we still sin even after believing in Jesus? Are we cursed in the wrath of God due to our sinful nature? Are we really chosen to be his children?”

This question is about the sanctification. Sanctification is the grace of God with the responsibility of man. It means that one can never be sanctified without the grace of God, and one can hardly improve in sanctification without putting effort to fight against sins! The whole process of salvation consists of election, regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification and glorification. Among them, sanctification is synergism while others require the initiative grace of God alone. The blood of Christ cleansed our sins and we are no longer threatened by death as we are justified in Christ and adopted by God. Besides that, as we have been regenerated, we have restored the ability to do goods. Nevertheless, we are not immune to temptation to sin, as we are still living in the world of temptation with a vulnerable flesh. Therefore, Christians can still sin against God after regeneration, as we are having the liberty to sin. Why didn’t God choose to take away our liberty to sin? If he did so, no one will sin and no one will be condemned. Yes, definitely, then the world would be the kingdom of God who glorifies the Lord alone. But if he did so, humans are not free to do anything based on their wills. Precisely saying, we do not have our own will at all. As a result, we are nothing but a robot that is thoughtless. In this case, everything would be meaningless, because humans do not serve God willingly. The service of human based on their willingness is valuable and meaningful; this type of willingness glorifies the name of God. Therefore, if we choose to sin after believing in Christ, it is really our decision to sin and we are the only one to be blame for our guilt. Though we are not immune to temptation, it doesn’t mean that the grace of God is not sufficient for us to stand against those temptations. We should believe in the sufficiency of the grace of God, with His word and the power of the Holy Spirit we can fight against sins!        

This friend believes in the predestination of God in which no one can make any change of it. Yes, our God is the almighty God who created everything and everything is under his sovereignty forever. Many Christians who believe in predestination would probably be haunted and troubled by the question, “did God choose me to be his children?” I believe in predestination as well but first of all, I don’t regard it as if it is an absolute teaching of the bible because it is not literally written. Instead it was introduced by the theologians based on their understandings to the whole bible. Anyway, this topic used to be a hot topic which has been discussed throughout the history of the Christians.

Let me try to answer the question, did God choose me to be his children? Some people who briefly know about the concept of predestination would grasp this to be an excuse not to repent and believe in Jesus. They might say something like this: “God doesn’t choose me right? So I cannot do anything also but to follow this predestination to reject him. I am helpless and he couldn’t blame me for doing so!” For this kind of reaction, I wouldn’t waste much time to argue with him saying that God did choose him to be his people. Perhaps I would just say, “Yes maybe you are not chosen since you really reject to receive him.” But of course, those people who really want to be saved would be worried about this sincerely without taking it an excuse to dishonor God. To them I would remind them of other important promises of God which are expressed literally in the bible.

We have no idea regarding the name list of God’s people. We can never find any information about who are not selected and who are not. In this case, we can never get an answer for that question. But it is not about the answer, it is about the promise of God and our reaction according to the bible. God promised that those who seek him shall find, and he would give them the Holy Spirit.

(Luke 11:10)  “For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

(Ephesians 1:13) In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

(John 1:12) But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.   

There are uncountable scriptures regarding the promises of God to our salvation under certain condition and requirement. Based on these three scriptures, we can tell that, salvation is from God alone and by God alone. We need to receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior and by praying to God for asking the Holy Spirit, he would grant us according to our prayer, and this would be the prayer that God would definitely answer according to our prayer because he promised so! (Prayer to ask for other things for our own may not be answered accordingly.) With the Holy Spirit, one is called to be the children of God who are blessed with the inheritance of God. Therefore, instead of wondering if we are chosen by God, it would be appropriate to ask “What should we do to receive salvation?”

The belief of that we are not chosen by God is apparently a lie of Satan. The belief of that we are saved and no need to repent of our sins every day is also another lie of Satan. The belief that leads us to live in fear instead of faith is also a lie of Satan. As if how Satan tempted Eve to sin against God by eating the forbidden fruits, what he said was not completely a lie. “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  He said it right for the second sentence, but this message was not godly. We need to see things clearly with the light of the word of God. Then we shall not be deceived.   

He asked: “What do you do to stand against the accusations from the people around you even the people you love the most – parents?”

He was accused by his parents saying that he is just a helpful church member instead of a helpful son at home. Based on his sharing, his parents do not really support him while he is motivated to serve God. Perhaps he may not be ideally helpful to his parents; I am not going to judge which party is guilty as I do not have the right. But anyway, we need to do our part well as a son at home. Honoring our parents is also one of the Ten Commandments. Pray faithfully to God so that our parents can see the truth of serving God as well. Life of a Christian is about taking our crosses and following Jesus throughout the way. It is a life of suffering but meanwhile blessing! Our Lord is the prince of peace. The peace of God is different from the worldly peace. The worldly peace is the situation where nothing bad would happen but only good things would come. But in the peace of God, we are able to have peace even in the storms and rains.      

He asked: “I have repented to God but I still repeated the same problem. Have I been forsaken by God? Why didn’t God come to discipline his children? I keep reading the bible and having devotion every day? But why do I still choose to sin?”

Yes, reading the bible and having devotion constantly can help us to get closer to God and be cautious of our actions and behaviors in our daily life. But if we believe that we are able to be perfect by just doing all these “holy” things, then we have made a big mistake. By thinking in that way, we are to say that we are trying to deny the work of Christ in us but acknowledge our self-help salvation. Sanctification can never happen without the grace of God, the word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. Doing all these spiritual activities without correct mindset can be very unhealthy to our spiritual condition. We are striving to be holy, so we are concerned about the methodology. But while we focus on what we should do for holiness, we may fail to grasp the main thing of salvation – our Lord Jesus Christ. May he be the only reason of our sanctification. Then everything would be fine as we wouldn’t be hopeful in Christ instead of being self-confident. Some people are trying to be holy just to make them qualified to be accepted by God. But in fact God doesn’t choose to accept us while we are holy, but he chose to love us while we are still sinners. Besides that, apart from Jesus, no one is holy. Holiness is a must to Christians. But please be aware of that the reason of it is for the sake of God, no other better reason.

What is the thing we can do other than repentance after we sinned against God? No other thing we can do beside to repent for our sins. That’s the teaching of the bible. Then wouldn’t it be an endless and hopeless routine that we tell us that we couldn’t get rid of sin? Yes, precisely it is not a routine but a spiral. This spiral will get us improving slowly. Even sometime it gets to the previous position, but the altitude would be different from the previous time. It refers to the improvement in sanctification. Through the resurrection of Christ, we are no longer threatened by the death of sins but we are still possible to sin. With the strength of the Holy Spirit and the word of God, we are convinced that we can overcome all the temptations and trials. Therefore, we do not need to despair during this process. While in this process, we are getting more desperate for the day to be united with our Lord on heaven.