First you have not proven that I have done this. You just make a claim unsubstantiated. Second, your interpretation of scripture in no way means I try to force God to go against His word. This attitude and debate tactic you are employing here is why these discussions go south.
OTOH Grace is possibly the means (actually the only possible means) from whence free will would get its power.:)
The question then becomes to whom is it granted?
After all if God is doing it then the scope could be "ALL" or "all" of the elect to choose or not to choose (of course then it would seem that the elect would only have an "apparent" choice and therefore only "apparent" free will.
Personally I have no problem with a brother or sister of either (or something inbetween) persuasion.
I'm still undecided - somewhere inbetween.
Ya, I know - How long halt you between two opinions?
Till I meet Jesus either in the air or I wake up with Him standing there. :Biggrin
There is no required work. There is only grace, given by the foreordained will of God. God grants grace and gives the gift of faith. Anything after that is our obedience to our new master now that we are a new creation in Christ.
Can a cold, dead, God hating heart believe in Christ? Or does it require a living, loving, believing heart?
Ezekiel 36:26
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
John 5:25 Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.
The dead who hear will live.
I was dead in trespasses and sins and I heard Him.
Yes, corporeal resurrection. Several instances of Him raising the dead. Lazarus, Jairus's daughter, the widow of Naim's son to just name a few.
Dead ears hear nothing. A dead brain understands nothing, a dead man can do nothing. Only the living hear, understand, and obey.
1 Corinthians 2:14
Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
If you heard, you were already alive in Christ, by the regenerating Grace of Almighty God.