My pastor comes from a Moravian background and they have a motto in the Moravian Church that I find useful:
“In essentials unity. In non-essentials liberty. In all things charity.”
I believe that Luke 16:10 would teach us that we ought to seek after accuracy and unity even in the non-essentials.
Is this the heart that is capable of choosing Christ?
Or will God need to make the first move ...
[
John 6:44 NASB] 44 "No one can come to Me
unless the Father who sent Me
draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.
Notice that the Father drawing a man to Christ is not the same thing as Him regenerating the man. Calvinists contend that a man cannot come to faith in Jesus unless God first saves the man; but Romans 5:2 declares that we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand. I am hoping that you will see this more readily than some other Calvinists that I have contended with.
This is NOT what Calvinism teaches. Rather ... “He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” [Philippians 1:6]
Yet, some Calvinists teach it. If you say that they are misrepresenting what Calvinism teaches in teaching it, how am I to know that in saying that, you are not the one who is misrepresenting the doctrine? Because they would say that they have it right.
Look carefully at the account of the Fall. Adam and Eve walked in the Garden with God for who knows how long before the Fall--they would have had the closest of "personal relationships" with Him. Eve knew the consequences of disobedience and that they were dire. But she WANTED to sin. Read it starting at 3:6 (Satan, acting through the snake had previously set her up by planting doubt about what God had said and His character), "The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her." The anatomy of the Fall is plain to see. She WANTED to disobey even though she had been warned. Later, Cain, like his mother WANTED to disobey God, even though he had been warned. Like Adam and Eve, we start off "blameless" and innocent but, in this world of sin and death, we soon learn the way of sin. "As in Adam all die, so, in Christ, shall all be made alive."
Here you seem to be attempting to justify having the desire to sin (and this in your own life?), saying that it is true of everyone across the board. I know that I do not desire to sin; I want to live a life of holiness. Romans 7:14-25 sometimes comes into play if I become focused on the law; but when I do not think that I have to sin it is very definitely true that I will not sin; because I do not want to sin.
If you insist that you never sin,
1 John 1:8 calls you a liar.
Denying that you ever sin, makes you a liar (
1 John 1:8).
You are misunderstanding the verse. It does not say, "If we say that we
do not sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." If it said that, it would be in contradiction to 1 John 3:5-9. No. it says, "If we say that we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." And this can mean one or both of two things. 1) That everyone has a record of sin; and if we say that we do not we are deceiving ourselves; or, 2) sin indwells each and every one of us; which does not mean that it necessarily has any kind of say over what we do; since sin can be rendered dead and powerless (Romans 7:8, Galatians 5:24, Romans 6:6).
And denying the exclusivity of Jesus' walk of complete and utter holiness, makes you a heretic, because it attacks one of the fundamental truths of our faith.
Then the apostle John was a heretic; because he taught in 1 John 3:5-9 (also compare 1 John 3:6 to 1 John 2:17) that we can walk in consistent freedom and victory over sin (a consistent life of holiness). Which does not mean that we are without sin; and neither does it mean that we have never sinned. It means that we are no longer walking according to the sins of our past life outside of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17); and also, that we are not allowing indwelling sin to control the way that we live (see Romans 8:13).
And of course, I am not saying that each and every one of us was not a sinner before we accepted Christ. For I believe that each and every last one of us was conceived in sin (Psalms 51:5).