10-18-2016, 09:55 AM
(10-18-2016, 02:22 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: How does God answer this?
He already knows how much you care thus "showing" him is a moot point. "Testing" your faith when He knows the test results is much ado about nothing.
It's not about showing God. It's about proving to ourselves how much we actually want to know God and show whether we actually love him enough to go through the trials, suffering and confusion. To be clear, the bible is not hard to understand because God made it that way. The bible is hard to understand because of the differences in culture and literature and because of the fact that our "fallen nature" clouds our judgement as to what God "really" means.
Quote:Original sin is just another of the many topics Christians can't agree upon. You are a sinner. We are all sinners.
"Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden."
Romans 9:18 NIV
God will show you mercy if He wants. If He doesn't want to He won't. You live under an illusion you can control what He wants, but Romans 9:18 is quite clear. If He wants to show mercy to an unrepentent murderer instead of you, He will.
That is not what that verse means. The verse is saying that God's decision to have mercy on us is not dependent on someone else. If we follow God's will, God will have mercy on us, but he does not have mercy on us because there's some magical spell that makes him have mercy on us or because there's some higher power that makes him do it. It is ultimately His decision and no one can make him have mercy on us.
To simply put it..... All this verse is saying is that God is omnipotent and no one can make him do anything and he doesn't have to consult any governmental power to "have mercy". His choice to have mercy or not is all his own. It doesn't mean God is whimsically picking who to have or not have mercy on.
