A person ought to know Jesus brother but, does this not also come with time. If I met you face to face I would see you, even if we have an afternoon together and a meal a nice chat and a laugh, we would not know one another. First we accept a person, then we get to know someone.
Yes, so it is. It's like with my wife. I met her a bit more than 44 years ago and we thought we were in love. Now, finally after close to 44 years of marriage we are in love, but it took a long while to discover or develop that.
God calls us whilst we are still sinners, unworthy to be called, but He calls us. When we accept Jesus we probably accept Him based on what we are told we certainly do not accept him because we know him, at that stage we certainly don't know him. Hence the milk comes first, faith comes by hearing, if we are not fed we will wither and die, go back to the old self.
"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." Psalm 51:5
That was just the beginning and really a very poor one at that, but... there's been some progress for some of us. Thank God for that.
There is without doubt, I think, a fine line when we try to understand OSAS. The argument will always remain was a person saved in the first place, but I believe there is a stronger argument, based on scripture, that a person can be saved, not bear fruit, not be fed the Word, not have fellowship with born-gain believers, not have sufficient prayer, that they were the seed sown on stony ground and left there, lacking food and water so they return to the old self. The only thing they knew!
I do believe in God's foreknowledge of the final end for each, yet I do not believe in predestination in sense that some people. We make the decisions which cause us ultimately to rise or fall before God. In truth, those who are to be saved are already known to God. When is that knowledge ours? We know that we have overcome some obstacles standing between us and God when we repent for the first time, but we are not overcomers as Jesus was an overcomer until we have overcome the last obstacle.
Jesus never sinned, but when he took on a veil of flesh he took on all of the temptations of any man. He was subject to: ..."the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,..." I John 2:16, but he never surrendered to any of them. We, on the other hand, all of us, had a history of surrendering those things before we met the Master. Jesus was clean, but he took on him our temptations and overcame all of them. I believe the last one was here, prior to his crucifixion:
"And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." Matt 26:39
When he had prayed that same prayer three times, then he was the overcomer of John 16:33 and when he began praying in John 17, he was in a place that he had never before been while also in his flesh:
"And now I am no more in the world..." John 17:11
He was no longer in the world of the temptations of his own flesh. He was the first overcomer. We have started our journey and we have overcome probably many things, but until we have overcome the last obstacle between us and God we still have work to do. The tools have been provided. There is now a Way where there was only a closed door before protected by the Word of God. Now it has been opened by the Word of God.
In the example lies a serious message, I think, do not bring a soul to Christ and leave it to fend for itself.
What does a new soul know about Jesus, it certainly doesn't know Jesus, that comes with time. What does a new soul know about forgiveness, faith, grace, mercy, redemption, love, true peace that passeth all our understanding. A person can come to Christ, be saved and be lost!
Absolutely. I am not a new convert, and there is still probably more that I do not know than that which I do know. As we approach God, I see us as drawing ever closer to the abyss on either side of us even as we get closer to Him in front of us. The closer we are to Him when we misstep to one side or the other, the harder will be the fall and the more difficult it will be to get up and go again. Our superficial knowledge without His quickening Spirit can be the death of us. We must both eat His flesh and drink His blood daily. Only one will leave us unprepared to continue our journey in overcoming.
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