Firefighter

I keep running across scores of scripture that tells us we must do something, or risk the consequences. One such passage is from 1 John:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9

We have to (willingly) confess our sins. That is an action on our part. John tells us the result is Jesus, being faithful and just, will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Nowhere does John say we hand a hand in our being forgiven and purified by confessing our sins. Neither does John indicate that the reason we confess our sins is because God forced us to…

Whenever a Calvinist is defending their position on predestination they always stick with the mantra that if an individual has the free will to accept God's gift of salvation that somehow that means that individual either earned his salvation or somehow had a hand in it. I keep coming back with “accepting is not earning."

If I'm trapped in a burning building and a fireman risks his life to save me and I agree to go with him, rather than resist or run further into the flames, that fireman saved me. The fact that I willingly went with him doesn't mean I had a hand in saving myself. I was the one who got myself in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it was still the fireman who saved me.

I've yet to read the headline that reads, “Trapped man saves self from deadly fire by agreeing to leave with the firefighter who battled the flames to reach him!”

http://freewill-predestination.com/