@djeggnog wrote:
Faith is actually the confidence one has in the reality of something unseen, like, for example, like the confidence you put in what the signature scrawled on the personal check you accept in exchange for the goods and services you will have rendered means, the confidence you place in the payor's endorsement representing the payor's pledge to you that his or her bank will honor your demand for the amount pledged even though the payor is a stranger to you. Like the psalmist said, Jehovah God has been "my confidence from my youth"; he is no stranger to me, because I've come to know him from early on, so as to "the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld" that faith is, it's easy for me to put faith in God's "personal check," that I will, in fact, receive all of that which he has pledged to me in the Bible, which is his personal check. (Psalm 71:5; Hebrews 11:1)
@Deputy Dog wrote:
I see. So "faith" in the check comes from the person that [receives] it, instead of the person that signs it? OK I think. If you say so.
Yes, and I do say so.
Let me get this straight, the "confidence" (faith) in your example, comes from the psalmist, not God?
Yes, I just said this and I believe you said in response to this: "OK I think. If you say so."
How could God be the very thing and not be the [source]?
I have put my trust in Jehovah God; I have placed my confidence in what he has given me as a pledge, his promises that were I to "do the work of God" as His word directs me to do, that I will indeed be rewarded by God for the confidence I have placed in him, he who is the source of all of the promises found in his word, the Bible.
In order to do "the work of God," we must "exercise faith" in Jesus, who God sent forth. To put this in another way, we must put our confidence in what Jesus' name represents by doing godly works of faith that demonstrate the confidence we have in the saving power of Jesus' ransom sacrifice by living up to what our baptism means. Just as I stated before, "He that believes and is baptized will be saved." (Mark 16:16) If we "publicly declare that 'word in your own mouth' that Jesus is Lord," just as did Jesus' apostles in the first century, then our obediently doing so would constitute the godly works of faith, for faith in Jesus' name, that is to say, faith in his ransom sacrifice that was made on behalf of believing mankind, is the condition upon which our salvation is assured, for those not believing will not be saved through him. (Romans 10:9; John 3:16-18)
I'm sorry but you seem much more like the [disciples] that left Jesus in John 6. They left him because, he told them (among other things) "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent."
How so? I don't understand what you are saying here.
Why do these things cause you to stumble? You should be looking to the Jesus of Hebrews 12:2 who is the Author and Finisher of my faith.
What do what things cause me to stumble? I've not stumbled at all. What is more I am one of those that is doing the work of God in that I exercise faith in Jesus' ransom.
Why do you think so many left Jesus, in John 6 after he said: "And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day"? Yet many left.
He also said in verse 44:"No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day
and again in verse 65: "For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father."
Yet in the very next verse it says "many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore."
Well, if this is what you believe from your reading of John 6:39, 44, 65, 65, I'll just leave you to this understanding, except to say, very briefly, that it would appear that those that left off from following Jesus pretty much did so because they were looking for an excuse to do so, just as so many of the apostates here on JWN have done, for many of those that had formerly been Jehovah's Witnesses had come into the truth after they had first heard the good news and thought about it over a six-month period or even longer, but after baptism, when they failed to comprehend some of the more difficult-to-understand teachings in the Bible (such as the reasons Jehovah's Witnesses believe Solomon's temple was destroyed in 607 BC).
These seized upon a teaching with which they could not agree as a pretext for leaving the truth, which is exactly what occurred at John 6:35, "I am the bread of life" and at John 6:38, "I have come down from heaven." As John 6:41, 42, states, they didn't believe that Jesus was the "bread that came down from heaven." They felt Jesus had slightest Moses, who they believed had given them the manna, "the true bread from heaven," which Jesus had told them at John 6:32, and they didn't appreciate that the Father to whom he referred as having sent him wasn't Joseph, feeling that they already knew Jesus father and mother already.
At John 6:52-60, we ca see that those that once followed Jesus thought Jesus was looney-tunes to have been suggesting to them that they eat his flesh and drink his blood, not appreciating that Jesus was speaking about their eating his flesh and drinking his blood in a spiritual sense, Jesus' "speech" seem to them to be akin to cannibalism, which repulsed them. Due to their reaction to Jesus' words, John 6:61, 64, explains that this is how Jesus came to know those who were "not believing," because they had begun to murmur.
And, as John 6:65, 66, goes on to say, none of them could come to him, none of those that left him were able to put faith in him, because it had been granted "by the Father" for them to do so, meaning not that God had done something to prevent them from believing in Jesus, but that they had no appreciation for God's word in what it stated as to the coming of God's Anointed One, the Christ, who was standing right there in their midst, teaching them about the kingdom of God. (John 11:27) It was not granted to them "to understand the sacred secrets of the kingdom of the heavens," which is what Jesus had been discussing with them. (Matthew 13:11)
In speaking of them feeding on his flesh, Jesus was there speaking spiritually regarding the ransom, about them feeding on him by putting faith in it, but many of his disciples were stumbled and left him and "went off to the things behind," because, like many of those that have left Jehovah's organization, they had no genuine love of God in them, no desire to walk with Jesus as one of his followers. (John 5:42; 6:57, 61, 66).
I believe the only conclusion can be, they did not [receive] "the work of God" and believe or come, because they were never granted faith in him from the Father.
Ok, but at least now you know that God had nothing at all to do with their becoming stumbled, or with their decision to leave off from following Jesus and go "off to the things behind." If anyone leaves off from following Jesus, it is because they themselves lack confidence in Jehovah God's promises, they themselves lack faith in the good news and in the saving power of the ransom.
@djeggnog
