Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLegalist
Repentance is a CHOICE. The offering of turning is the gospel in which we respond.
You say you did not say saved yet you make new birth BEFORE repentance. You can't say I have been born again and not saved. Yet you say I didn ot say saved. LOL
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We do respond to the gospel with repentance. However, an unregenerate heart cannot turn towards God. I believe that I do have a response in my salvation but it is not the decisive action. Jesus not only paid for my salvation at calvary but he also purchased the salvation work of all those who were given to him by the Father.
Why do I believe this? Looking back I can see that I tried everything I could to find God. A million times I tried to repent and come to him and a million times I failed and didn't receive what I thought I needed. I tried crying in the altar, I tried baptism, I tried speaking in tongues but just couldn't fake it anymore. I tried reading my bible and committing my life to him but it was all for nothing until I was born again by true faith that it was finished on the cross.
God pulls at our hearts and though we resist he is right there working in our salvation. A part of my resistance was the
Acts 2:38/water and spirit doctrine. I thought that if I did this he owed me salvation and that some miracle would happen and I would feel saved. But I didn't feel saved because I wasn't. I hadn't been preached the gospel and if I had it was so obscured by the message being preached that I couldn't see the gospel.
Legalist, I loved the message that I was taught to the point that I couldn't be saved. My mind was so clouded with what I was supposed to do that I couldn't see how God had anything to do with my salvation.
BTW, I do consider myself to be reformed or calvinist.