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I'm having doubts...

What an excellent analogy! I love it!

I know this will answer a few questions you have. I was in sort of a similar religion (it's origin is Catholic)
Please read this story. The moment I began to read your post, I felt the Spirit within me tels me to give you this.

I pray that Jesus will help you to the full truth and that He will introduce Himself to you like He did to me and show you all the things you were missing out on.
He loves you so much, so much that you will never be able to understand.
Amen


God and the Geese:

There was once a man who didn't believe in God,

and he didn't hesitate to let others know how he felt about religion and religious holidays.
His wife, however, did believe, and she raised their children to also have faith in God and Jesus,
despite his disparaging comments.

One snowy Eve, his wife was taking their children to service in the farm community in which they lived.

They were to talk about Jesus' birth. She asked him to come, but he refused

"That story is nonsense!" he said. "Why would God lower Himself to come to Earth as a man?

That's ridiculous!"

So she and the children left, and he stayed home.

A while later, the winds grew stronger and the snow turned into a blizzard.

As the man looked out the window, all he saw was a blinding snowstorm.
He sat down to relax before the fire for the evening. Then he heard a loud thump.

Something had hit the window.

He looked out, but couldn't see more than a few feet.

When the snow let up a little, he ventured outside to see what could have been beating on his window.

In the field near his house he saw a flock of wild geese.

Apparently they had been flying south for the winter when they got caught in the snowstorm and couldn't go on.
They were lost and stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter.
They just flapped their wings and flew around the field in low circles, blindly and aimlessly.
A couple of them had flown into his window, it seemed.

The man felt sorry for the geese and wanted to help them.

The barn would be a great place for them to stay, he thought.
It's warm and safe; surely they could spend the night and wait out the storm.
So he walked over to the barn and opened the doors wide,
then watched and waited, hoping they would notice the open barn and go inside.
But the geese just fluttered around aimlessly and didn't seem to notice the barn or realize what it could mean for them.

The man tried to get their attention, but that just seemed to scare them, and they moved further away.

He went into the house and came with some bread, broke it up, and made a bread crumb trail leading to the barn.
They still didn't catch on.

Now he was getting frustrated.

He got behind them and tried to shoo them toward the barn,
but they only got more scared and scattered in every direction except toward the barn.
Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn where they would be warm and safe.

"Why don't they follow me?!" he exclaimed.

"Can't they see this is the only place where they can survive the storm?"

He thought for a moment and realized that they just wouldn't follow a human

"If only I were a goose, then I could save them," he said out loud.

Then he had an idea.

He went into barn, got one of his own geese, and carried it in his arms as he circled around behind the flock of wild geese.

He then released it.

His goose flew through the flock and straight into the barn - and one-by-one, the other geese followed it to safety.

He stood silently for a moment as the words he had spoken a few minutes earlier replayed in his mind:

"If only I were a goose, then I could save them!"
Then he thought about what he had said to his wife earlier.
"Why would God want to be like us? That's ridiculous!"

Suddenly it all made sense.

That is what God had done.
We were like the geese - blind, lost, perishing.
God had His Son become like us so He could show us the way and save us.

As the winds and blinding snow died down, his soul became quiet and pondered this wonderful thought.

Suddenly he understood why Christ had come.

Years of doubt and disbelief vanished with the passing storm.

He fell to his knees in the snow, and prayed his first prayer:
"Thank You, God, for coming in human form to get me out of the storm!" <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
 
Why don't you answer your own question instead of assuming brother SLE believes in a 'not honest' GOD as you said. That's a pretty foolish statement to make.

He also told YOU what to do and not do throughout the entire Bible. GOD knew what you will do anyway. So what? Does this mean GOD should go around saying nothing but "I already know?"
If God knew then to me there is no free will.
 
I'm amazed that a man of your intelligence has to ask that question. I find it hard to believe that you don't know the answer, especially since you say you're "born again".

SLE
I know what those words mean to me but I don't know what those words means to that persons.
My meaning can be different from meaning of that persons.
For this reason it is better to ask what it means to that person and then see if we both agree.
 
The tone of the tread seems a little strained in places. If we aren’t doing this for the sake of instruction in a fashion that still communicates the love we have one for another, we are losing more than we are gaining.
 
I'm not saying that we don't have a choice, I'm only saying that I don't understand how free will can exist with a God who already knows what happens.


Good day. Maybe it would be just like this:

Imagine God is an editor and you are a writer. You made a good novel of your own. But, when the Great Editor sees it, He revises some of it, He proofreads it, and alters some, so that our novel will be great...and will lead to Him. Maybe it is that God wants to change things if things go out of control.

God has already read our whole life before we experienced. However, we can never be like God --a mini-god-- and it is the birth of freewill . There are written events on God's eyes, and He already knows what will happen next..however, our freewill...or the power of making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances or by an agency such as fate or divine will..is quite uncontrolled. If He does, even He loves Adam and Eve so much, He would restrain them to eat the apple just before the snake tempted them. Maybe, we made the choices,,,and if ever our choices lead us to wrong things, God revises some of it for us to be stronger, to change, or to lead our souls into Him. He is a God beyond measure..and because of His immense love unto to us, I think , He sometimes alters our consequences, even we picked wrong or we picked right,,, that's why He already see the universe of our lives ahead of us.

Hope this helps...:)


God bless you. Hope this helps...:)
 
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To me the defining Scripture for this question is Is 55:8-9. On this side of eternity we do not understand God and His works completely. But, as the apostle Paul said in 1 Cor 13, only when we are 'home with the Lord in eternity we will understand spiritual things completely.

SLE
 
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From my perspective, it doesn't seem like the man had free will. The final sign indicates that an omniscient being knew that the man would choose to enter. If this omniscient being knows what is going to happen, then 'choice' is an illusion. It's an illusion because the man is merely acting out what this god-like being foresaw. Am I wrong?

Tell me if this is freewill :

A father shows 2 treats to his child and then holds them behind his back, 1 in each hand. Then he says to the child, "take your pick".

Whatever hand the child chooses, it will have been free will, no?

No one coerced the child, he got to choose, and no one could have told him that he didn't actually choose the hand he did.

So I think just because our Father knows the outcome in advance, it doesn't mean we don't have freewill.
 
reply

and I suppose I need help. I was born and raised a Catholic boy, and I spent my entire academic career in private, Catholic schools. Not that that matters...but I feel it's worth mentioning.

I have a few questions, seeing as how the nuns at my school refused to give me clear answers.

One major thing that irked me was the supposed concept of free will, when God knows everything that has happened and what will happen. What is choice when God already knows the choice we are going to make? Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't that make free will invalid?

One other issue I had was the existence of flaw, or imperfection. God, by all definitions, is perfect. What compels a perfect, spiritual being to create? If one is perfect, then one does not need. Correct? What does God need with creation?

If I may add as a supplement to the 2nd question, my teachers taught me that God created us to love Him. Another teacher taught me that God cannot be described by human words. God cannot be attributed with human characteristics, because God isn't human. He is a purely spiritual being, whose motives are incomprehensible by the human mind.

Help please

I tend to agree with SpiritLedEd on this topic. Catholicism is based on idolatry as I understand biblically and may be just another example of false Christianity? Which is not to say that some Catholics won't be found in heaven.
My best advice is to start reading an NIV or KJV bible while asking God what is the real his truth about the Bible.

Even I was baptized by a born again Christian(ex-Catholic) who has his own Catholic parents living in his home. You think You got worries? We all do and a Catholic is no different than just being part another so-called Christian Denomination. Some obey God correctly in some ways while not obeying in other ways. So work on your heartwith God and believe Luke 17:21. Then it doesn't matter whether you're in a church building or not. God knows your heart and may not give a hoot about church buildings? ;) I've got horror stories about different churches and church experiences like wouldn't believe.

You'll also get a thousand 'different' interpretations of "free will", faith, grace and mercy too but as long as your heart is true in Christ, you'll be blessed to endure to the end, IMO.

anecdote:
I was in a 7-Eleven buying a paper and a fellow commented to me saying thanks brother. And as we walked out the door, I said to him: Hey maybe we are "brothers"; are you a Christian? He just said: I'm a Catholic.

Which indeed indicates that all is not well in today's Christendom and maybe even much worse?
 
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