Josh,<br><br>Others are doing a great job of pointing you to the Savior Who truly saves, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. You would be wise to hear them, and lay down your arguments, which are now self-contradictory and, far worse, in open denial of God's glory in ordering our redemption from beginning to end.<br><br>How self-contradictory? You state: [color:red]He can save all who will hear Him. He does not need my help</font color=red>. On a quick reading, it sounds almost right. But that little word [color:red]will</font color=red> exposes your denial of your following statement. <br><br>You are saying: <br>God saves [color:red]those who will hear Him</font color=red>; the act of [color:red]willing to hear</font color=red> being, in your own view, totally contingent upon the creature, God being unable to overthrow the creature's will and remain the kind of God you hope Him to be; meaning that He absolutely DOES need your help, which, again, you want us (or maybe yourself?) to believe is not the case: witness your following sentence: [color:red]He does not need my help</font color=red>. <br><br>It seems you think you are doing the (un-)sovereign (un-)savior a huge favor, because (in your mind) He will be infinitely disappointed to have had you reject His suit. Of course, He must continue to be a little anxious until you "cross the finish line". Actually, what is to prevent you from rejecting Him in heaven, Josh? Will He override your will there? One begins to suspect that God should praise you eternally for doing the right thing to make Him happy.<br><br>This is what is coming across from your posts, Josh. Your distortion of the entire panoply of redemption, that <font class="big">[color:blue]God will save His people</font color=blue></font>, reminds me most of several conversations with local Jehovah's Witnesses, each of whom admitted that, in the final analysis, their security was directly contingent upon their performance. Which of course, in their denial of their own wretched, fallen condition, they somehow hoped they would be able to achieve.<br><br>I do pray that your eyes will be opened, Josh, to your utter need for a Savior, not one who waits, impotently, for you to accept or reject His suit of you, but One Who truly saves; so that you will be able to confidently state:<br><br>"My only comfort, in life and in death, is that I belong--body and soul, in life and in death--not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil; that he protects me so well that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him."<br><br>That is the Comfort you so desperately require, Josh, and to which many are pointing you; not what you so glibly dismiss by implying that I am trying to get you to believe something on the mere grounds of "how good it makes me feel". <br>

In Christ,
Paul S