Assurance or Arrogance

[Lamb]

There is a difference in having the assurance in faith of your beliefs and being arrogant about your beliefs.

I have a couple of friends who absolutely hate it when Christians insist that their beliefs are correct. I've gently told them that of course they believe their beliefs are correct...otherwise they wouldn't believe in them

Arrogance comes into play when people try to be condescending in giving their opinions. It's okay to state what you believe, but you don't have to knock down your neighbor in the process.

 

[Ackbach]

There is a difference in having the assurance in faith of your beliefs and being arrogant about your beliefs.

I have a couple of friends who absolutely hate it when Christians insist that their beliefs are correct. I've gently told them that of course they believe their beliefs are correct...otherwise they wouldn't believe in them

Arrogance comes into play when people try to be condescending in giving their opinions. It's okay to state what you believe, but you don't have to knock down your neighbor in the process.

Totally agree. That anyone thinks Christians are arrogant because we believe we have the truth is an artifact of postmodernism (there is no meta-narrative, so who are you to think you have one?). But there must be a meta-narrative, for the same reason that there must be absolutes. To say otherwise is a self-contradiction.

I believe it is also arrogant when a preacher goes up into the pulpit... and delivers a sermon consisting solely of his own opinions. He is supposed to be preaching the Word of God: he is God's messenger and herald. When he puts up his own opinions, he's essentially saying that his opinions are the Word of God! The humble thing is faithfully to preach the entire counsel of God - the entire Word of God - and call it such, because then we all understand that this revelation has been given to us. We might as well boast about the (natural) color of our hair as boast about having received the Word of God as His revelation.

 

[Alithis]

Lol ,so,reading between the lines. we are immediatly confronted with accusation of arrogance because we dont like it if some one challanges our chosen denominational stance because "they are wrong to....? What?challange it? Or they are just wrong in your own eyes. ?? But that in itself would be arrogant .....

 

[Lamb]

It's not just denominational but people in general can feel that anyone who feels confident in their faith might come across as arrogant. Haven't you noticed that?

 

[amadeois]

God does not like a proud heart.

Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

 

[psalms 91]

Confidence comes across different from arrogant

 

[Rens]

Some people can't handle it when you're awesome.

https://media.riffsy.com/images/c784b7a7723db20b72d9790b0d511c5e/raw

 

[Brighten04]

Insecurity meets confidence and calls it arrogance. I just wonder why everyone does not want the free gift of grace. It is free. The sin of the world has been expunged by the blood Lord Jesus shed on the cross. We only have to believe it and receive it like you would any other gift.

 

[Ackbach]

Insecurity meets confidence and calls it arrogance. I just wonder why everyone does not want the free gift of grace. It is free. The sin of the world has been expunged by the blood Lord Jesus shed on the cross. We only have to believe it and receive it like you would any other gift.

The problem is pride. Who wants to be told that you're completely incompetent to save yourself (you're dead, in fact), and that someone else must save you? It's the main hurdle for the unbeliever.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Knowing what one's faith tradition teaches, presenting it with confidence, and believing it all 100% are quite different things.

 

[user1234]

Some people can't handle it when you're awesome.

You are! :stars:

 

[MennoSota]

Insecurity meets confidence and calls it arrogance. I just wonder why everyone does not want the free gift of grace. It is free. The sin of the world has been expunged by the blood Lord Jesus shed on the cross. We only have to believe it and receive it like you would any other gift.

John 3:19 answers your question.
"And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil."
God does not give humans grace as though it were a product on the grocery shelf marked "Free" and you just choose to pick it or you don't.
God chooses exactly whom he wills to freely give his grace. He makes the choice and no one whom God has chosen has the right to boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9) Why? Because all our deeds were evil. All of them. No human on the planet is deserving of God's gracious and merciful pardon. Not one of us know why God chose to love one rebel and hate the other rebel. (Romans 9) We just sit in awe and humility. He chose me? Why?

 

[Pedrito]

Assurance or Arrogance?

1 Corinthians 10:12 (MKJV)
12 So let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

Hebrews 6:4-6 (MKJV)
4 For [it is] impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of [the] Holy Spirit,
5 and have tasted [the] good Word of God and [the] powers of the world to come,
6 and who have fallen away; it is impossible, I say, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify the Son of God afresh to themselves and put [Him] to an open shame.

Hebrews 10:26-29 (MKJV)
26 For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins,
27 but a certain fearful looking for judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.
28 He who despised Moses' law died without mercy on [the word of] two or three witnesses.
29 Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy of punishment, the [one] who has trampled the Son of God, and who has counted the blood of the covenant with which he was sanctified an unholy thing, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?

Luke 9:62 (MKJV)
62 And Jesus said to him, No one, having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

1 John 5:16,17 (MKJV)
16 If anyone sees his brother sin a sin not to death, he shall ask, and He shall give him life for those that do not sin to death. There is a sin to death, I do not say that he shall pray for it.
17 All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not to death.

Hebrews 3:6-12 (MKJV)
6 But Christ [was faithful] as a Son over his own house; whose house we are, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, Today if you will hear His voice,
8 do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness,
9 when your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My works forty years.
10 Therefore I was grieved with that generation and said, They always err in [their] heart, and they have not known My ways.
11 So I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter into My rest.
12 Take heed, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from [the] living God.

Hebrews 3:13,14 (MKJV)
13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through [the] deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to [the] end,

Matthew 24:13 (MKJV)
13 But he who endures to [the] end, the same shall be kept safe.

Assurance or Arrogance?

 

[Imalive]

-

 

[MennoSota]

Assurance
Romans 8:29-39
[29]For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
[30]And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.
[31]What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?
[32]Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?
[33]Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself.
[34]Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.
[35]Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?
[36](As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”)
[37]No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
[38]And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.
[39]No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

[MennoSota]

Assurance
Ephesians 1:3-14
[3]All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.
[4]Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.
[5]God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
[6]So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.
[7]He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.
[8]He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.
[9]God has now revealed to us his mysterious plan regarding Christ, a plan to fulfill his own good pleasure.
[10]And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth.
[11]Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan.
[12]God’s purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God.
[13]And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago.
[14]The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.

 

[user1234]

Assurance:

I was gonna start writing different verses/passages, but there are so many, I think I'll just write.....

Assurance: The Bible

 

[MennoSota]

Assurance
Titus 1:1-2
[1]This letter is from Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. I have been sent to proclaim faith to those God has chosen and to teach them to know the truth that shows them how to live godly lives.
[2]This truth gives them confidence that they have eternal life, which God—who does not lie—promised them before the world began.

 

[user1234]

Assurance:
John 6:47~
Verily, verily, I say unto you,
He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. ~Jesus

 

[Pedrito]

So once again we see Scriptures that appear to support a particular idea, and Scriptures that appear to challenge that very same idea.

In this instance, the competing ideas are: unchallengeable assurance, and the ability to fall away.

And people line up on both sides making faces and performing Maori Hakas at each other.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-W9xgxsy2I - the first 90 seconds will do.


As usual, the truly Scriptural perspective, the one from God that combines the two perceived irreconcilables into one balanced, coherent whole, is totally overlooked, and not even searched for.

And that balanced, coherent perspective would probably be rejected by both sides if presented. Just like a peacemaker risks being attacked by both individuals engaged in fisticuffs.

It is sufficient for Pedrito to point out that both sides lack understanding, and that if individuals will take it upon themselves to discover the truth in this particular instance, those individuals will be blessed for their efforts, even if they do find they end up paying a price.