Sir, may I inquire:
Does God predestine our mistakes in life, or is it because of the decisions that we make? I mean do we have free will?
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Good questions...
1. PEOPLE are
predestined by God.
God, in His grace
and mercy, has freely and sovereignly predetermined the destiny of certain
PEOPLE; not things or events or your choices; PEOPLE have destiny; things and
events don't.
God predestinated
His elect to eternal glory in Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 1:5 KJT - Having predestinated us
unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good
pleasure of his will...11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being
predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the
counsel of his own will.
Rom 8:29 KJT - For
whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of
his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
2. Free will: Yes, man has free will.
If man has no free
will, then the moral government of God over man, His creature, collapses. It's
because man has free will, he is without excuse; he is held fully responsible
for his every choice and action. He sins freely because he has free will; no
one coerces him to sin.
Free will in the
bondage of a fallen sinful nature has never saved a man from his sins and
condemnation of death
Why do the reformed
folks so adamantly deny the free will of man is a great puzzle! What are they
fearful of acknowledging this simple truth? That man with free will will
dethrone the Sovereign Lord of heaven and earth? That his free will will endanger or undermine the truth of salvation by grace alone? If that's the fear, then they have not understood the gospel of grace; then they are ignorant of the distinction between eternal salvation by the grace of God alone (monergistic) and temporal salvation conditioned upon the free choices of obedience to the will of God who has FREELY saved them. Temporal salvation involves the ACTIVE and CONSCIOUS choices of obedience to the will of the Father.
Phl 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling REQUIRES deliberate FREE WILL DECISION.
