Isn’t your salvation God’s will?

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Isn’t your salvation God’s will?
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James
Chapter 4

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we shall go into such and such a town, spend a year there doing business, and make a profit”–
14 you have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears.
15 Instead you should say, “If the Lord wills it, we shall live to do this or that.”
16 But now you are boasting in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
17 So for one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, it is a sin
**

Why is it that people he say that they “know for a fact” that they will go to heaven because they “believe” (OSAS), or that their salvation is guaranteed, use the term “God willing” when it applies to everything except their Final Judgment or their Salvation?

**Why is it that the same people who recognize that it is right and it is written in the bible that everything is by God’s will, refuse to recognize that “everything” includes God’s will in their final judgment? Why aren’t they willing to acknowledge “I hope to go to heaven, God willing”, the most important will of God and like everything thing else that is God’s will, put their salvation in the Lord’s hands and let it be His will.
 
I used to be a Southern Baptist preacher, and I am very familar with the position held by many Protestants concerning eternal security. It boils down to using various passages that seem to support the claim that you are assured of your salvation without taking other passages that make clear that salvation is not only something that you receive when you convert, but it is also a process that takes place, we are being saved (1 Cor. 1:8, 2 Cor. 2:15, Phil. 2:12), and also we have the hope that we *will be *saved (Rom. 5:9–10, 1 Cor. 3:12–15). It is nothing more than a result of false teachings, due to lack of Church Authority that is led by Apostolic Authority, and that authority is only found in the Catholic Church.
 
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copland:
I used to be a Southern Baptist preacher…
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Is your conversion story available anywhere?

RyanL
 
No, because I have yet to convert. I took RCIA, and when I got far along, my wife withdrew her support of me converting. So I have held off. She let me know that there would be serious problems if I did, so I backed off. I am still as on fire for the Catholic Church as ever, and I have been able to gently be able to reveal truths about the Faith to her. But sometimes I wonder what God has planned because she seems unwilling to talk much about it. She is very involved in a ‘church of God’ denomination, and I still go with her for the sake of peace. Please keep me in your prayers.
 
Dear Copland,

Have you made a connection with Markus Grodi’s Coming Home Network? He was a former presbyterian pastor who found it difficult to convert for lack of job and other reasons. He has the Coming Home Network www.chnetwork.org to help other protestant clergy have support on their Journey Home (name of his program on EWTN). They will even pair you with someone and pray for you. Check them out.

For a piece of unsolicited advice and as someone who has done years in marriage counseling with my husband’s opposition to religion - if you are being respectful of your wife’s beliefs and attending with her, she should do the same for you. Don’t let her bully you emotionally. I will pray for you. I KNOW how difficult it is to be torn between what God is asking of you and the spouse He gave to you. Carrie
 
I suspect our salvation is God’s will.
Rom 8:28-30:
We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined he also called; and those he called he also justified; and those he justified he also glorified.
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Alan
 
I am far from an expert on what each Christian demonination believes outside Catholicism, but a few points really strike me as odd when you try and step back and look at the big picture here:
  1. Choosing to pick at specific phrases of the Bible, without considering the whole message in context, doesn’t work in our lives - how do we expect it to work with God? If you read in the paper a sports story that said, "Joe Torre rests Derek Jeter due to his injury. Said Torre, “Jeter is very hurt. He’s not capable of playing or contributing right now.” and someone later said “Joe Torre said Jeter is not capable of playing he must not be good any more”, isn’t that way out of context? No one would believe it.
  2. With regards to “Saved forever” - imagine your marriage. Imagine one spouse says “I truly love you, but I am going to commit adultery as much as I want because it’s fun - it does not infuence my love for you. As we approach old age I will probably stop.” Would any spouse buy that? Why do we think God would? Why does anyone think there is some non-dissolvable “contract” of salvation that permits us to have a life of sin, and disobedience to the things God clearly wants us to do? God wouldn’t think that way any more than we would - He would say “You read the contract wrong, that’s not what it meant (and here comes the thunderbolt)”.
The reality is, the faith and grace inside you grows as you do the things God and the Church espouse - almsgiving, prayer, reading the Word, sacraments, don’t sin, etc. Every sin hurts us and our relationship with God. Not that our secular world can always give hints to our relationship with God, but with what you know about life do you REALLY think someone can say they honestly believe in Jesus Christ and that he died for our sins, and then go through a life of sin, and truly expect God will embrace them? Nobody would!! We know the truth – not performing the things God expects is an indication of whether the Faith and Grace of God are in us - just like in our own lives, our ACTIONS show whether we love our spouse not our words. While it is true that the actions could look right and there is no love (same thing as saying good works alone do not save), with no action there is no love (with no good works there is no faith). This is just plain old common sense, which happens to be backed up by the Bible and the CCC.

My conclusion - a lot about our relationship with God is “common sense” from our own lives, becasue we were created in God’s image and with God’s lessons. If more people would wise up and think about this, a lot of minutae arguments about salavation and other topics would go away.

My .02…
 
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copland:
No, because I have yet to convert. I took RCIA, and when I got far along, my wife withdrew her support of me converting. So I have held off…
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Copland,

To echo what was said earlier, I would highly recommend the Coming Home Network. There are a multitude of people who have been exactly where you are now, and we should always turn to our brothers and sisters in Christ to help us. I will pray for you.

Are you still in the ministry?

RyanL
 
On the basis of reason alone it should be obvious that salvation is not God’s will. Nothing trumps His will. Therefore no one could be damned. But we certainly can be. When Our Lord was asked what must be done to be saved, did He not say to keep the commandments. Does that not reasonably imply that if you do not keep the commandments you will not be saved?

Remember that after Genesis and Adam it was God’s will that no one could enter heaven. That did not mean it was God’s will that all humans were damned. For all eternity God KNEW that He would send the Redeemer to allow the just to enter heaven.

But He did not guarantee heaven to all. If He did so, it would mean we have no free will and could not refuse heaven. However, we can refuse heaven by committing grave sin. If salvation was God’s will, sin would be impossible.

As an aside to Copland consider that in your free will you are being asked to make “Adam’s choice”. I think you know what it is. PLEASE pray and reflect on it.
 
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