I remember the day when I first met my
Savior. It was so unexpected. At this time I was not a serious
seeker. Though I had grown up in a Christian home and had for much of
my life desperately wanted to get saved, at this time in my life, it
was not something I thought much about. Life has to go on. If someone
asked me then if I was a believer, I would have to think about it for
a while. Then I would tell them, “I'm certainly not a disbeliever.”
I was attending a Christian liberal
arts college. With several of the other students, I was in a gospel
band. I love to sing. I've always loved to sing. The words of the
songs we sang were just the words of songs.
One evening those of us in the band
went to North Park College to hear a gospel group called Andre Crouch
and the Disciples. I asked one of our teachers to join us, but he
said to me, “You guys. You seem so normal in class. But then you go
to one of those concerts and suddenly, it's like you're possessed,
you're jumping and bouncing all over the place. “Not me,” I
assured him. “I don't bounce.”
So the concert began and I really
enjoyed it. In the midst of the music, I heard some words, “take me
back to the cross where I first met my Savior.” The words made me
sad. “I've never been to the cross,” I thought.
My mind went
through all the reasons I needed to go to the cross. I remembered
situations where, at the time, I had excused my bad behavior. “I am
so not innocent,” I thought. “What a pig I am.” But my thoughts returned to the cross; because of the cross, excuses were not necessary. I
had a sense of the Lord's presence. I deeply understood that He cared for
me, that He wanted me. I thought.
“That is so nice."
And that was that.
And I've been a Believer ever since.
Did I make a really good choice then in
accepting the Lord Jesus as my personal Savior? I think so. Though it
wasn't a choice in the ordinary sense of the word. It was more just
accepting something that had been dropped in my lap.
Is this really good choice that I made
the reason I deserve to go to heaven and not be condemned to hell?
Again, I think so. I still can hardly believe it. It just seems too
good. The Lord is too kind to me.
A choice means that one has two
options. But at that very special time, it didn't begin enter my mind
that I could choose to reject what I had just been given.
So that means I believe I was chosen,
for I did not choose, not really; therefore I believe it is all of
God and nothing of myself? I don't think I believe that.
But if I did believe that, must I also
believe that God is arbitrarily; choosing one and rejecting the next? I know I do not believe that!!!
From beginning to end, the Scriptures
tell the story of people who either chose to accept or chose to
reject God. The book of Hebrews tell us: By faith Abel offered a
better sacrifice. By faithlessness, Cain offered his own sacrifice
and then made the choice to sacrifice his brother. By faith Enoch
walked with God and thus never saw death. By faith Noah did as he was
instructed, odd as his instructions might have seemed to him. There
is no meaning to the word faith without an understanding of choice.
How can anyone dare to suggest that
Scripture teaches an arbitrariness to God? Have they never read John
3:16? “Whoever believes in Him.” In Scripture, to believe is to
will to believe, or perhaps, to will to not disbelieve. John 3:18
“Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not
believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name
of the only Son of God.”
Along that same line, can we dare to suggest that God is not
absolutely, totally, perfectly good? His goodness may transcend our
understanding of what is good, but it is never less than our
understanding of what is good. Never would He reject one who comes to
Him. As the Psalmist writes, “A broken and a contrite heart You
will not despise.” The prophet Isaiah offers an open invitation,
“Come everyone who thirsts, come to to the waters; and come he who
has no money, come, buy and eat.” The Lord Jesus said, "Come unto Me all you who labor and are heavy laden."
There are many Scriptures that speak of
the choice being God's choice. But in the Scriptures we also read that God
is not willing that any should perish. In Matthew we read of the Lord
Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, “How I would have gathered your
children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you
were not willing.”
It could be that John Calvin was not a
Calvinist, if a Calvinist is one who denies man's need (capability) to respond to
God, or if a Calvinist is one who believes God's choice of His chosen
is mere arbitrariness, or if a Calvinist believes God's goodness has
no relationship to our understanding of goodness.
But, as far as I am able to understand,
those are the three main things that differentiate a Calvinist
from your run-of-the-mill Christian. And that is why I am not a
Calvinist.
