Another Another Angle

This is a continuation of the last post . . . please see the anonymous comment from "Another Angle" just below.

Firstly, let me say that I don't speak for The Salvation Army. I don't have much information on their beliefs. There is a Salvation Army Handbook of Doctrine, which I don't, at the moment, have a copy of. You can find it online at THIS LINK. That will have the most detailed official info about the 11 Salvation Army doctrines.

Now, as for the issue of predestination . . .

I don't think Lorne was insinuating that our days are already planned out for us and as much as we want to act independant, everything goes just according to plan. In terms of human "plans," I don't think there is much that goes according to God's "plan."

Personally, I believe in complete free will. I choose to act in such a way that I determine to be best. God, for sake of this discussion, simply observes . . . I guess in a way, grades us.

Just today I was reading about the Rich Young Ruler . . . basically a rich man that asks Jesus what he has to do to get eternal life. It's found in Matthew 19.

Jesus response is two-fold . . . his response to getting eternal life is simply to follow the commandments. Now, there is more to consider . . . this man is a Jew, and Jesus has not yet been crucified (i.e. This man couldn't claim Jesus sacrifice to get eternal life, because it hadn't happened yet). Either way . . . it was a simple "To get this, do this." Response.

When the man questions further, Jesus says something very interesting . . .

"If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

There is obviously more beyond simply receiving eternal life. It seems to me that you can do enough to "just get by" or, for the truly motivated, there is more that we can do to further serve God. I hate to use the grading analogy . . . but there it is.

So . . . back to Lorne's comments. I think Lorne's thinking was more along the lines of "if you want to be perfect" than anything else. If you will, as a pastor, he had my eternal best interests in mind.

Hopefully this makes sense. It does to me, but obviously I can get inside my own head. There's also much more to this than one passage of scripture as well, but I think it makes the point fairly well.

Grace,

Des