{"id":3481,"date":"2014-06-14T19:25:31","date_gmt":"2014-06-14T23:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oldsandals.net\/?p=3481"},"modified":"2014-06-16T06:55:10","modified_gmt":"2014-06-16T10:55:10","slug":"3481","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/?p=3481","title":{"rendered":"The power to say no"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>II Timothy 1:12<br \/>\nI know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In our fallen state, we do not have the power to say &#8220;Yes&#8221; to God, but we do have the power to say no. God elects, but we can reject our election. We passively accept the salvation Christ has wrought for us (there is nothing we can do to earn it, it is entirely free) or we can actively reject the offer, the free offer of the gospel.<\/p>\n<p>God has effectively said &#8220;Yes&#8221; to everyone in the gracious, atoning death of His Son, Jesus Christ. He died, not for our sins only, but for the sins of the <em>whole world<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Now God is infinite, and knows the end from the beginning. We are finite, and actually understand very little. Undoubtedly, there is more that could be said. But it gets  tricky. It&#8217;s like trying to explain the Holy Trinity. \u00a0We have some idea, but we are brought up short. We are dealing with the mysteries of God. He is the Light of the world, yet dwells in unapproachable light.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>II Timothy 1:12 I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day. In our fallen state, we do not have the power to say &#8220;Yes&#8221; to God, but we do have the power to say no. God elects, but we &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/?p=3481\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The power to say no&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3481"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3481"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3485,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3481\/revisions\/3485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}