Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. (Romans 11:19-21)
" + "The philosophical proposition of determinism suggests that things are determined on the basis of prior events. There is an unbreakable bond between things present and things from the past. Thus, things are the way they were determined to be. This is a rough generalization of the belief and I am certain it can be scrutinized on several levels. But I introduced this philosophy in this way to make a point. There is a certain form of determinism in our day-to-day philosophy on life. We think that things are set in motion, they cannot change, they will be as we have always seen them.
" + "In fact, change, for the most part frightens us. Even though things are always evolving around us, we get scared when we see something we have become 'used to' alter in some form or fashion. Think of times of financial crisis. People have nervous breakdowns when there is a drastic change in their social status. In fact, there have been disastrous results when people experience economic losses. I do not want to mention some of the things that have happened after people discovered that all of their money was gone. The question is why? Is it because people are upset because they lost lots of money? Or, is it that people feel like their end has been determined on the basis of the circumstances that they see? I see the latter as the reason. Determinism sets in during cases of substantial change. We believe that the change that comes sets us on a course that will never shift, the results are guaranteed. However, results are never guaranteed, we just assume they are.
" + "The sad thing is that many Christians still hold on to a deterministic mentality in Christ. There is no greater change one can make than coming under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. However, this does not determine anything, necessarily. In the verse above, Paul says that we cannot be "highminded." There is no room for arrogance or lack of thoughtfulness about the nature of our salvation. Instead, Paul says something that sounds very un-Christian: we should fear. The Greek for this word is the basis for the word "phobic" in English. It seems that God is commanding us to be damnation-phobic. In a way, he is. He is not saying that we need to sit around doing nothing in fear that we will be destroyed. I believe God is saying that we should be focused on doing God's will and staying away from being comfortable. We must reject comfort at all costs if we intend to be in Christ. This is why Paul says, "take heed." Always listening, always paying attention, requires a degree of discomfort. Following Jesus, being a disciple, means that we have to be uncomfortable because the stuff in us tells us that we are ok. It is difficult to be someone else's disciple when you were used to being your own disciple. Not to say that one cannot rest, one can rest when the leader says to rest. The key is to always "take heed."
" + "When we are following the will of God, fear is a good thing. Fear is a good thing when we choose to fear disobeying God. Fear is a good thing when it is towards the things of unrighteousness. We need to fear being angry. We need to fear having sex outside of marriage (all forms). We need to fear hatred and distrust. We need to fear doing evil. It's in our fear of things that we lose confidence in our own abilities to determine how something will go. When we start assuming things, regardless of what God has said, we lose faith. God does not want us to divorce him from his Word. We are to never assume something about the Word apart from God being its source. When we do this, we use something God has given us to bring us to him, for our own pleasures. Thus, it is necessary to be fearful about sin. We do not fear sin, as if sin can beat us, but we fear doing sin because we do not trust in our own abilities to overcome the world. The only way we can receive the victory over the things of this world are through our God.
";