Pupose of Life [or Ownership]

The purpose of anything must be determined by the owner of the thing. In America we tend to accept the philosophy of self ownership. This immediately leads to us defining our own purpose for life.

Sunday school today was about how the purpose of our lives is not determined by ourselves, but rather it is determined by God who created us for himself...He owns us. The Bible says that the Earth is the Lord's and all who dwell therein. It is completely up to him to appoint some as vessles of honor and some as humble vessles. He owns each and every moment of our lives...lives which themselves belong to Him.

The bedrock value of the modern America is self determination. We are dedicated to preserving our right to self determination. We want to choose everything and we want to be whatever we decide. We train children early that they can be whatever they determine they want. Our consumer mentality of choices and making the choices we prefer solely because we prefer it is key to understanding modern America.

This carries over into the church. I am not Roman Catholic for one reason. With the Council of Trent, the Roman church no longer preached the gospel of Jesus Christ. The question at Trent was whether good works were necessary for salvation or whether they followed salvation. The Roman church said they were necessary for salvation.

The problem today is that the vast majority of evangelical church preach that same false gospel. They preach that we must weigh the information in our non-prejudiced minds and make a choice. One Missionary Church I often pass recently had a sign reading,"Christians aren't born...they choose." The evangelical churches are preaching that we are saved by grace through faith and enacted by our choice. Everything rides on our doing something.

The Bible is clear that the Lord chooses whom He wills. It isn't our choice or our acceptance...He chooses effectually. His choices are without denial. He is God, and it must be so.

I guess I'm saying that if I wasn't in a Reformed Church then I'd just become Roman Catholic instead of all the other Romanized, Americanized nonsense out there.