wisdomseeker:
i wish you could clarify to me what you just said. i am simple.
Well I guess this goes to the larger question posed by this thread, so I’ll try to clarify a bit (this is a large topic though – I’ll just touch on some key passages):
- “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, …]” (Eph. 1:3-5, NASB)
- “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Eph. 2:4-9, NASB)
- who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, …]" (2Ti. 1:9, NASB)
- Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them. (Psa. 139:16, NASB)
- “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy . . . So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.” (Rom. 9:16, 18, NASB)
- The One forming light and creating darkness,
Causing well-being and creating calamity;
I am the LORD who does all these (Isaiah 45:7)
- The LORD has made everything for its own purpose,
Even the wicked for the day of evil (Proverbs 16:4).
- "Remember the former things long past,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’ (Isaiah 46:9-10).
- The lot is cast into the lap,
But its every decision is from the LORD (Proverbs 16:33).
These are just an example of some passages that show us the nature of divine providence and God’s sovereignty. They make the picture pretty clear, wouldn’t you agree?
Here’s a good description I like:
*The divine action although of infinite power can only take full possession of the soul in so far as it is void of all confidence in its own action; for this confidence, being founded on a false idea of its own capacity, excludes the divine action. This is the obstacle most likely to arrest it, being in the soul itself; for, as regards obstacles that are exterior, God can change them if He so pleases into means for making progress. All is alike to Him, equally useful, or equally useless. Without the divine action all things are as nothing, and with it the veriest nothing can be turned to account.
Whether it be meditation, contemplation, vocal prayer, interior silence, or the active use of any of the faculties, either sensible and distinct, or almost imperceptible; quiet retreat, or active employment, whatever it may be in itself, even if very desirable, that which God wills for the present moment is best and all else must be regarded by the soul as being nothing at all. Thus, beholding God in all things it must take or leave them all as He pleases, and neither desire to live, nor to improve, nor to hope, except as He ordains, and never by the help of things which have neither power nor virtue except from Him. It ought, at every moment and on all occasions, to say with St. Paul, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts ix, 6) without choosing this thing or that, but “whatsoever You will. The mind prefers one thing, the body another, but, Lord, I desire nothing but to accomplish Your holy will. Work, contemplation or prayer whether vocal or mental, active or passive; 10the prayer of faith or of understanding; that which is distinguished in kind, or gifted with universal grace: it is all nothing Lord unless made real and useful by Your will. It is to Your holy will that I devote myself and not to any of these things, however high and sublime they may be, because it is the perfection of the heart for which grace is given, and not for that of the mind.” *
ccel.org/ccel/decaussade/abandonment.ii_1.i.i.vi.html
