Thread:SouthWriter/@comment-31246436-20160908152409

I did some research about predestination and this is what I have learned:
 * Romans 9:22-23 "22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—" God predetermined the general outcomes - either wrath or glory - but the saved or the destroyed determine their own fate (in response to God's initiating grace). The criterion for inclusion or exclusion in "My-people" (verse 25) is whether sinners pursue righteousness by faith or in self-reliance (see also Romans 9:32, 10:3-4)
 * Romans 10:9-10 "9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved." One must willingly choose to accept Christ as their Lord to be saved. Confessing sincerely that Jesus is Lord results in salvation.
 * Hebrews 10:26-31 "26 If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27 but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. 28 Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." It is possible to lose one's salvation by deliberately sinning, so the predestination doctrine doesn't work. Also, if we are predestined, ultimately God is responsible for the sins we commit. If God predetermined where we go when we die, then it is reasonable to believe that God predetermines what we say and do, which implies that God causes us to sin. However, Psalm 5:4 tells us that there is no evil in God nor does He delight in wickedness. So He wouldn't have caused us to sin, making Him not responsible of sin, which implies that our actions are not predestined. It is our fault that we sin, so it is also up to us if we choose to accept salvation or continue living dead in our sins (Romans 10:3-4, 9-10). But God has predetermined the end results of those who follow or reject Him (as I mentioned above), without predetermining who they are (Romans 9:22-23). If God had predestined us, then those who are predestined to be damned don't have a fair shot at salvation. So if God has predestined us, then God is evil, and I believe He is a good God and not evil.
 * John 1:12 "12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—" Those who choose to receive Christ & believe in His name are given the right to be children of God. Obviously we are not predestined to be children of God.
 * You may also want to check out John 5:24, 34, 40, 6:47, 8:24, 31, and 9:35-39. 