{"id":870916,"date":"2012-07-03T06:00:41","date_gmt":"2012-07-03T06:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/provbaptist.org\/?p=870916"},"modified":"2012-04-11T19:03:31","modified_gmt":"2012-04-11T19:03:31","slug":"the-freedom-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/provbaptist.org\/?p=870916","title":{"rendered":"The Freedom of God"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"At this time during the summer, we think about\u00c2\u00a0our celebration of\u00c2\u00a0Independence Day in America.<\/p>\n

It’s also\u00c2\u00a0good to be reminded that while we celebrate our independence from foreign domination as a nation — as Christians we also celebrate the fact that our regeneration <\/em>is really a declaration of dependence <\/em>upon Amighty God!<\/p>\n

We are dependent upon\u00c2\u00a0God for salvation and life and everything else. Our God is totally free to do anything He pleases within the boundaries of His own perfect character as established by His good and perfect will.<\/p>\n

In this blog, I want to continue our study of John 3 by considering the free will of God the Holy Spirit as it relates to our salvation.<\/p>\n

In verse 8 Jesus says, 8<\/sup><\/strong> The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In verse 8, the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wind\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Spirit\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are the same in Greek: \u00cf\u20ac\u00ce\u00bd\u00ce\u00b5\u00e1\u00bf\u00a6\u00ce\u00bc\u00ce\u00b1.<\/p>\n

To be raised from spiritual death to spiritual life by the Holy Spirit is no less a miracle than the resurrection of the physical body.<\/p>\n

When Lazarus came out of the tomb after four days of decomposing, no one said to him, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lazarus, how did you do that?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

They didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say that because they knew that Lazarus was only responding to what Jesus<\/em> had done on his behalf. Spiritual regeneration is the same way.<\/p>\n

The only difference is that we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t physically see Jesus giving someone spiritual life and we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t physically hear Jesus call that individual to spiritual life.<\/p>\n

But unless Jesus gives us spiritual life, we are every bit as helpless and dead as Lazarus before the call of Jesus brought him forth.<\/p>\n

As the prophet Jonah said in Jonah 2:9, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Salvation is of the Lord.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This is the universal declaration of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Salvation is of the Lord.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Therefore, regeneration isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the work of a man persuading men and women to engage their own powers to save themselves. Rather, regeneration is entirely the work of God through faith in Christ alone.<\/p>\n

That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of the reasons Jesus addressed the free will of the Spirit in verse 8. He says nothing of the free will of man, because man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s will is spiritually dead in trespasses and sins because of Adam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fall in the Garden of Eden (Eph. 2:1, 5).<\/p>\n

Apart from spiritual rebirth, your will is only \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfree\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 to sin; but no one is free to please God or to obey God in their spiritual death apart from salvation by grace through faith.<\/p>\n

That means we are dead to the things of God, even though we are very much alive to the carnal pursuits of this present age. Spiritually dead people may seem to be alive.<\/p>\n

They are physically alive. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re alive to sin; they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re alive to their own desires. But to be spiritually dead is to be dead to the things of God. It means you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve only been born once. And as we learned in a previous post, “Born once, die twice; born twice, die once.”<\/p>\n

We’ll continue from this point in our next post.<\/p>\n

Until then,
\nPastor Kevin<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At this time during the summer, we think about\u00c2\u00a0our celebration of\u00c2\u00a0Independence Day in America. It’s also\u00c2\u00a0good to be reminded that while we celebrate our independence from foreign domination as a nation — as Christians we also celebrate the fact that our regeneration is really a declaration of dependence upon Amighty God! We are dependent upon\u00c2\u00a0God … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Freedom of God”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/provbaptist.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870916"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/provbaptist.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/provbaptist.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/provbaptist.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/provbaptist.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=870916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/provbaptist.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/provbaptist.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=870916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/provbaptist.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=870916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/provbaptist.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=870916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}