Cheryl Schatz

Ben, You said: Truly troubles me that you continue to struggle with your health and have to endure all of these tests and procedures – I hope you can find a holistic approach which cures this cancer. Thank you for your compassion! I don’t like all of the doctor’s visits and the tests, but I have entrusted myself to the care of the doctors and nurses and I am truly touched by how much they have compassion and care for those who are fighting this terrible disease. I would give myself the freedom to research and use holistic methods, but I would not use them alone. When you have a very aggressive cancer there is not a lot of time to death with it. In my case the chemo really did a great job — miraculous in fact. I will be updating my personal On the Path blog either later tonight or tomorrow as I have time. My bone scan results are in. You wrote: I asked this of you because you seemed so focussed on attempting to demonstrate that those who are given to Jesus are the ones who fear God; i.e. the Father offers salvation to all, and then gives people to Jesus who have already come to Jesus through their humble fear of the Lord. No, that is not what I believe. For example Lydia did not already come to Jesus before she was given to Jesus. The giving to Jesus happens before the coming to Jesus. I will explain more in the next post that I am working on. You wrote: The main idea I see you presenting is that for anyone to come to Jesus, they simply have to fear the Lord, and then the Father sees their sincerity and gives them to Jesus in the act of regeneration, adoption, justification, etc. If I have misunderstood you, forgive me. No, that is not what I believe. First of all I don’t believe that anyone can simply “fear the Lord” on their own. Neither do I believe that the Father sees people’s “sincerity”. I also do not believe that Abraham is the Father of sincerity. Again, I think the next post will explain more and if it is still not clear, I welcome questions. Ben you wrote: This is why I believe it would be a work, because God’s “election” is suddenly conditional on something in the person, namely their fear of the Lord. I don’t have a specific verse that speaks like this, because I believe the Bible clearly teaches unconditional election, i.e. that God chooses His people from before the foundation of the world based on the good pleasure of His will (Ephesians 1), and not due to some desirable characteristic in the people. No, I wouldn’t say things this way at all. It is not “suddenly conditional” if God has created conditions for receiving what He has already paid for. Rather it would be a plan from before the creation of the earth and the conditions would be written and communicated over and over again, not just once. A condition for salvation is not a work, unless God identifies the fear of God, or faith in God’s revelation as a work. I have not seen such a thing, so I think we can both agree that the fear of God is not a “work” of man. I think we would both agree that faith in God is not a work of man. You wrote: My statement was worded to repeat the same principle twice, namely that it seemed as though you were saying that “coming to Jesus is conditional on the character of the person”, in discussing the root condition for the Father giving people to the Son. Again, forgive my misunderstanding of your position. Apology accepted and thanks for clarifying that. So hopefully I can make this clear that I do not believe that “coming to Jesus” is conditional on the “character” of the person. I will continue in the next comment.