educating eric

Sometimes a statement strikes you as unusual enough that you do a mental double-take and have to dig in to figure out what's really going on. So when I encountered "F.B. Meyer Devotional - Our Daily Homily - Devotional for June 11" ( http://devotionals.ochristian.com/F.B.-Meyer-Devotional.-Our-Daily-Homily/061... I had to stop and think at this one: "God cannot deliver us from besetting sin unless we yield ourselves to Him entirely." I agree that deliverance from "besetting sin" requires that we yield ourselves to God entirely. That's good advice in general. But any time I see the phrase "God cannot" I get worried. "God does not" wouldn't bother me a bit. But, proponent of free will though I am, I'm reluctant to say that something is impossible for God unless it contradicts his very character (e.g. it's not a limitation on God's omnipotence to say that He cannot be evil because, by definition, he isn't).

While doing a bit of quick "what does the InterWebz think of Alcoholics Anonymous" research, I came across a great quotation: "When a person is not clear about the Gospel, who Jesus is and what He did to save sinners, he is not presenting a Christian message." True. AA, at least, doesn't present a confused message claiming it to be a Christian one; they leave room for members to find Jesus as who He said he really was. A real danger in our Christianity is that we take our own non-Biblical (or extra-Biblical or, worst of all, un-Biblical) opinions and present them as if they were the words of Christ. No matter how sincere we might be, that's still wrong and dangerous. Via http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Other%20Pagan%20Mumbo-Jumbo/...