Neither poor, nor rich

We read in proverbs 30:8-9:

Keep falsehood and lies far from me;

give me neither poverty nor riches,

but give me only my daily bread.

9Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you

and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’

Or I may become poor and steal,

and so dishonor the name of my God.

I live in a world that requires a lot more than food, clothes and a shelter: children's education, medical care, etc. I am always tempted to accumulate more money in order to deal with my retirement and with my children problems. For me, I would like to have a pile of riches that reaches the sky. Am I too greedy or am I just a prudent man?

Here, he asks: Lord, prevent me to have so much riches that I depart from seeking your help, your sustain. By other hand, Lord give me what I need to live so that I do not sin against you.

The Lord has blessed me: I have food, clothes, a house, and many other things. I have more money than necessary to keep life going. This world teaches that we must search for more and more, but Jesus teaches that we must be satisfied. This world enslaves me but Jesus sets me free. I really make some effort to be grateful to small things: even for the pleasure of staring clouds in the sky.
I pray:
"Father, you provided me with job and some ability to deal with money. So far, you have sustained me; certainly I have much more than I need to everyday costs. You gave me life and what I have now. Let me be wise to be your faithful slave so that I deal with money as you, my Lord, wishes. Do let me be greedy. Do not let me be enslaved by Mamon".

Baptism

I have 3 children. They decided to be baptized.
The pastor asked a written testimony to each one.
They thought it should be some kind of paranormal experience... The younger wrote that he believed in the Lord because he helped him to pass in a school test but he was very disappointed with such a small contact with God.
I told him that such experience was a very weak reason to believe, but I affirmed him that it is not necessary to see a fire falling from heaven or some kind of extra terrestrial experience.
I told him that he should affirm his belief in Jesus who was crucified on the cross for him due to the Word.
I really hope the Lord guides each one of them.
In some way, it is certainly an extra terrestrial experience... but till now, the Lord did not show me any special effects and I am in peace with that. Thinking better, I had some kind of strange things. I had a lot of nightmares that were gone by prayer. I see Jesus changing natural desires. Isn't it supernatural?

fecal incontinence

For months, I have problems with fecal incontinence. Thanks heaven, it is not a great problem; but is annoying. In January, I went to the doctor and told him about it. He was wondering about some problem in the sphincter, so he examined me and concluded it was hemorrhoid and prescribed a medicine.
Unfortunately, it was not so simple.
The fecal incontinence persists till now.
I had told the doctor that perhaps, it began with drinking keffir, some kind of yogurt, that I was preparing, mainly to my daughter. I stopped drinking kefir completely but the incontinence persisted. My wife guessed it was due to lactose intolerance.
Today, after a lot of observation, I am quite sure it is lactose. Diary is everywhere: a piece of chocolate, pizza, macaroni, cake, etc.; so I have to pay a lot of attention to anything; that is why it was very difficult to be certain about lactose. I hope it is not cancer.
I am quite sure that nothing happens in total absence of lactose; but it is not so easy to avoid diary.
Perhaps my Lord is taking care of me in order to prevent some cancer. I have really enjoying milk all my life. Even though I know about diary products related to cancer, I would not give up diary so easily... Who knows?!
Anyway, I believe that all things happen to the one who is loved by the Lord and certainly, it is my case.

Free Will and Time

I believed that love was possible only in presence of Free Will, the possibility of the creature says NO to its creator. This reasoning has a time component:

1. the creator asks something to the creature
2. the creature answers anything that is completely unknown to the creator, as if the creature is a black box.

Today I strongly believe that the Lord is outside the time and space domain (because He is outside and inside the Universe), so this notion of Free Will as basis for love does not apply to Him. I mean, to the Lord, question and answer may happen at the same time or even in reverse time. Perhaps it would resemble a man writing a book: he may write his story in reverse order too. May the author of a book love some personage? The analogy is not perfect, but it seems clear to me that he may love some personage and hate another one. A human author can not create personages that will really gain life outside of the book; but the Lord creates personages that will love Him for his delight and in some way, gain life outside the book. I was called to transcend.

Against Free Will 2

If free will is the will free from the Lord's will, then I really do not believe in free will anymore.
I was created by the Lord and He put me in my family as a third generation Japanese descendant in Brazil. I see myself as much more rational than most of Brazilians. Why? Did I choose it? Certainly not. Perhaps it came from my Japanese genetic. I am much more frugal than the majority of Brazilians. My father created me this way. Did I choose that?
As I said, I did not want any porn in my life; but I was slaved to it. Did I choose it? No.
I was born in a Methodist family. Did I choose it? No.
Did I choose to believe in Free Will? Certainly not. I was born in a proper environment. Not only the Methodist church but also the Japanese culture put a lot of pressure on: it is your responsibility.
Did I choose not to believe in Free Will? How would I find a friend who would question my inner beliefs?.
Even my wife... did I choose her? I can not say so...
In what degree can I make decisions apart from God?
For me the answers are clear: there is no way to make any decision apart from the Lord.
Well, therefore, are Arminians wrong? Are the majority of Methodists wrong?
The Bible says: Seek the Lord with all your heart, all your strength and all your soul; Seek me and you will find me if you seek me with all your heart; Repent and believe in Jesus; etc. The Bible are appealing to my what? Certainly to my will.
The Lord expects an answer from such order. He expects me to put aside my will and submit it to the Lord. This creates a fight inside me and the proper decision is to surrender to Jesus.
The Methodists (and the Christianity)  are correct when appealing to repentance and Jesus submission (even though, I really do not appreciate altar calls).
However, this answer is not apart from the Lord's will. Even the temptation and demons are under the Lord's will.
I just do not believe anymore that my flesh is totally my problem and that I have the power to decide correctly or wrongly! Or even that I myself have chosen Jesus with no God's intervention. How come! Absurd! Did I deliberately have chosen porn? Certainly not! For me, now it is very clear: I was a slave of sin and my Redeemer set me free even before I was born, at the cross.

Against Free Will

I thought that free will was generally accepted in all Christianity.
Ten years ago, I left the Methodist church (in fact, it was a branch from Methodist, not the main Methodist church) to another one because the pastor was profaning the sacred. He was basing his sermons on the importance of tithe reading Malachiah 3. I decided to scan all the Bible searching for tithe. It revealed to me that tithe was not possible to gentiles because we have no levites, no treasure house and even worse, tithe was related to food and sharing it, not money even though money existed at that time. In resume, this Methodist pastor, in particular, (please, do not generalize, the Lord works in Methodist churches too!) was at least ignorant, at worse, he was playing to say things in name of the Lord falsely. He was always joking in the pulpit saying things like: "open your eyes, Japanese" towards me. Amazing his lack of respect to the Word and to the congregation. Anyway,  I left this church.
In a new church, I tried to argument that no one could claim eternal life assurance due to free will to a friend. He asked:
- How do you know Free Will exists?
And after that, he gave me a book from A. Pink: "The Sovereignty of God". There is a chapter against Free Will.
I began to reason that it would be possible to have eternal life assurance in a deterministic view. I was somehow designed to belong to the Lord even before the Big Bang, the creation of the universe as in Ephesians 1. If it were true, it would be even truer that the Lord would lead me to repentance, to believe in Him and also, He would make me persevere in the faith. I had already repented and was a believer in Jesus, but I was missing some peace in my heart: I believed in a god that could not sustain me due to some kind of defect in me: the free will that would always made me sin.  I had been fighting against pornography for a long time. I could be free of it for months, but somehow, I was always attracted to it. I had to fight hardly not to type words that would lead me to porn in google. My flesh wanted porn, my spirit not. I thought that I was saved, but I had this fight as in Romans 7. Whenever I felled, I confessed my sins and I believed in His forgiveness. I failed so many times that I decided not to promise anything to the Lord as "I will sin no more".
The Lord was merciful to me and changed my desires. The Spirit gave me a new life with new desires. I really do not know exactly when, but I am quite certain it was after I realized how the Lord loves me so that He created me to Him, despite my problems and sins.
Today, I can not say that I have no desire at all to porn, but it is so small compared to before! I have been free from porn for some years, thanks to Jesus, my Savor, my Redeemer, my Lord. I have been believing that I belong to Jesus and it is as certain as one and one are two; and Jesus belongs to me. I eat Jesus, my Bread from Heaven; I drink Jesus, the Living Water. Jesus is mine and gives me life. I live because He lives.
Am I implying that Free Will is against the Bible as A. Pink did? Am I implying that I was not saved till I departed from the Free Will belief?
No, I am not. Perhaps, I was saved before; In fact, I think I was saved but I had a heavy life, I had to carry a heavy burden to follow Jesus and even worse, I was always displeasing Him because I knew deep in my heart that I was not living as He expected me to live. Now I think different: in Jesus, I know that I please Him. Today I really do not need to please anyone but the Lord. My mission is to glorify Him, to praise Him, to surrender to Him everyday. I have to write more words about Free Will. Today, I think that somehow the Bible is Arminian: they are not completed wrong; somehow the Bible is Calvinist: they are not also completed wrong or completed right. In fact, some verses say that man must choose, seek the Lord, depart from evil, etc.; and some verses say that it is the Lord who operates. Both are true. I have to write about it in another post.

Pro Free Will

I was practically born in the Methodist church. I do not remember attending to any message about "Free Will", perhaps, because it is impossible to find "free will" in the Bible. However, I developed (due to reading, thinking, etc.) a reasoning like this:

• God created everything good and saw that it was all good. So, how does evil entered in the world?
• God created some kind of evil as in Isaiah 45:7: I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. God created the possibility of evil when He gave Free Will to his creatures.
• Free Will is the basis for love. Would someone create a machine that says "I love you dear creator" and feel pleased about it? Certainly not. Love has meaning when based on free will, when the creature decides by itself to love its creator and it has a will that is free from the creator.
• The evil becomes real when the creature decides not to love its creator, up to this moment, we have just the potential of evil.
• The creature is responsible and must be punished for bad decisions in face of free will. In absence of free will, we have no responsibility. God is fair to punish its creatures when the creatures make bad decisions. 
• A bad decision is to look for its own glory, instead of praising the Creator. Satan and humans made bad decisions.
• The saints are those who chose Jesus, accepted that He died in their place. 
• We, as humans, must search the Lord as in Matthew 6:33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. The Lord expects that all humanity respond to it. He loves all human being, gave free will to each one, and expects that everyone seeks for Him.

Basically, it was my belief. For me, the book "Mere Christianity" of C S Lewis gave some comfort supporting these ideas. I even developed some despise to Calvinists. I thought that they were some kind of Christian fundamentalists that love so much their own doctrine despite sending many to hell. Who can claim in good conscience that is saved by Jesus? Even worse, how can one claim that some other guy is destined to hell? 

I thought that it was ridiculous to have eternal life assurance. 

My reasoning was like this:

• In Jeremiah 17:9, we read: The heart is deceitful above all things  and beyond cure.  Who can understand it? Certainly, I knew that although I claimed to have chosen Jesus, accepted Him in my heart, I was a sinner. There were many things that I did not like to do, but I did it anyway. Why did I sin? Because, my heart was not all prone to the Lord. But, did I have control of my heart? Jeremiah said that my heart was deceitful and I could not agree more.
• I was certain that perseverance is crucial to salvation. In Revelation 2:7, we read: 7 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. If life is a battle and the Lord demands victory and my heart is deceitful, how can I be sure that I will be choosing the Lord up to my death? If the Lord demands perseverance, how can I be certain about it? I can not. I had many cases to base it. I saw many in church falling. Many that I thought were really saved but showed up to be a great deception. 
• As the heart is deceitful, no one can claim eternal life assurance because no one can say anything about his own perseverance. Perhaps, one could claim that is saved today, but can not say anything about tomorrow. So everyone could at maximum have a fragile salvation because salvation depends on each one hearts, each one choices, each one seeking. 

That was my reasoning 10 years ago. I had concluded that we can't believe in salvation assurance and free will at the same time. They are incompatible, at least, for the "free will" that is defined as the will free from the Lord's will. Given what I had in the Methodist church, some verses of Bible craved on my head, the reasoning was quite good. In fact, it was somehow against the main stream belief in the Methodist claiming Free Will and Salvation Assurance at the same time. 

Now, I think very different. I will write about it other day, but my problems began when I could not say to myself: "I have eternal life assurance" and who claims it, is lying to himself. I wanted to prove it to others whenever possible.