Beloved

What are your thoughts on this.

__________________
Shalom

( SHALOM says: Completeness, wholeness, health, peace, welfare, safety soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony, the absence of agitation or discord. )

Beloved
1 Corinthians 14:1 Let Love be your highest goal.

Felix

Jesus said that our Father knows what we need, even before we ourselves know.
That leads me to believe, that God knows what happens, before it happens. So He has a plan for me and my life.
Yes, I believe, that God knows my destiny and that he chose the best destiny for me, even if I can't see the results, that will come.

Banarenth

I have put quite a bit of thought into this, and yet, i have never properly organized it. Basically, what my primary thoughts say, is that simply knowing what you will do in the future, does not change the fact that you make the choice by your own will. It's easy to wrap words like that and make sweeping statements about predestination or destiny. But that is a much bigger jump than I think most people realize.

To make a simple statement, I know that sometime tonight, I will get hungry, and go get something to eat out of the refrigerator. I can further make that same statement about any number of other people I know both casually and intimately. and I think we all agree, God knows us all QUITE well. Is it destiny that I will get something to eat?

My personal image of God is very timeless. Meaning, I imagine Him in a place that is beyond the dimension of time. From our point of view, we see events happening sequentially, but I believe God is much greater than that, and things we do now, in the past, and in the future are simply seen by God as things that happen, without respect to time itself.

__________________

epistemaniac

its not that God looks down the corridors of time and "sees" what we will do and thats how He knows what we will do.... Gods knew all the events that would ever take place in time and space before time and space were ever created, and if God steers the heart of a king like a watercourse, if he knows what we will say before we ever say it, if he knows what our needs are before we ever pray them, if he knew that the Fall would happen and that he would send his son to atone for the sins of his bride, then he knows what you and I will do before we ever do it and thus knows our destiny before we were ever born, in fact, before the universe was ever created..... and since God is all powerful, allowing or denying things to happen as He sees fit, then even our choices are wrapped up in God’s decrees. I am not saying I understand how God’s sovereignty and man’s freedom meet, but what I am happy to do is to affirm the Bible’s declarations regarding the extent and pervasiveness of God’s control over His creation. For instance

(Ephesians 1:11) In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,

so there it is in black and white... God works out all things... ALL things... according to the counsel of His will.... this is all inclusive, it leaves nothing out.... not even the choices you and I make are excluded here. If there is a caveat here, I don't see it... God's sovereign control over his creation is all pervasive and all inclusive.

Does this mean we don't have free will, that we are robots? No. We make choices constantly, but, we make them in accordance to the kind of beings we are, namely sinful, fallen, and in some cases redeemed because God willed it, not because of our effort. So, as a result of the kind of beings we are, while we can say we are free, we are defintely free within many many bounds and restrictions. I am free to flap my arms and fly away to the moon, but that doesn't mean I possess the ability to do so.

blessings,
Ken

Cross

My theory...based partially on the Bible.

Time was also created by God. He is above it and untouched by it's decaying hand, as are the angels and Heaven itself. They all exist outside the relm of time. But we as a creation don't. If you could imagine your portion of time being a clear glass tube, God can see your life from the the beginning to the end.

Rumely

All good thoughts. Well stated. I simply agree and have nothing to add except: BRAVO! I just want to play along.