Cheryl Schatz

godrulz37, You said: Being able to snuff Satan, but not doing so, is a limitation of His exercise of His all-power….which is still subject to His will and mind…He can do many things that He does not do. I would not see this as a self-limitation, but an exercise of God’s nature where His patience and long-suffering are being set out as fore-front for the time. If it was true self-limiting then God would not judge at all. But God’s justice is withheld for a time so that God’s long-suffering with mankind can be seen and He will receive praise if not now, then in the future. Perhaps we are both saying the say things in different ways. I guess that is why all of us are needed. None of us are cookie cutter knock outs of each other. We are have our own gifts and our own weaknesses so that we need each other. I have also had much energy used in the focus on the kingdom of the cults, but I also am very keen on this area that is a troubling divide between brothers in Christ. I have a friend whose brother became a Calvinist and he was persuaded that God was like what his Calvinist brother said He was–unconditionally electing some to life and others to eternal damnation. That young man has now turned away from God because of the Calvinist view of God’s determination. I have had opportunity to share with him and explain God’s love, but it is difficult right now for him to see God for who He is. He has been seriously hurt by seeing God as one who is more like a devil, then the all-merciful and loving God. My heart goes out to my friend who have been turned off of a God that they see as unjust and unloving. If I can help in one little way, then my efforts to bring disenfranchised people back to the Lord will have paid off by God’s grace. I am trying hard to balance my passions. Right now my passion for my Calvinist brothers and for those turned off of Christianity because of Calvinism overwhelms me. I really long to see the body of Christ healed. By the way, my other friend, the brother of the young man who felt despair because of determinism, has left his Calvinism aside. He has been able to see the other side that he was not fully aware of before he became a Calvinist.