George Rettich

Thank you Cheryl for this insightful post. I must say I was a bit troubled about half way through, but I pushed on to the end and was greatly encouraged by your thorough answers. If anyone else finds this post difficult to read, PRESS ON! You really don’t get the full picture until you read the whole article. Some of these concepts are challenging for me, you said “Learning from the Father is a pre-condition to coming to Jesus. ” and “What comes before the giving? Faith in what God has already revealed comes before the giving.” At first I was having difficulty with this concept because of my personal experience. When I accepted Christ, I was alone, I had very little teaching and almost no concept of the Old Testament. So for me, I didn’t recognize any revelation from the Father. My paradigm was Jesus first, Father second. But in part #15 you stated “People do not “naturally” and “in and of themselves” believe in God. Romans 1 shows that God must first reveal Himself. Faith is not possible “in and of oneself”. Faith comes from the word of God.” And it’s here that it comes together for me, “Faith comes from the word of God”. During my conversion all I had was a bible which I purchased for myself, but it was in my bible that I heard the call of the Father. The confusing part was that I didn’t know it was the Father I only knew about Jesus. I am so grateful for people like you Cheryl that have the gift of teaching. May God continue to bless your ministry 🙂