January 26, 20211

Acts 16
Paul’s 2nd Missionary Journey

“We reached Philippi, . . (where we met) . . . Lydia . . , a merchant of expensive purple cloth . . . . . As she listened to us, the Lord opened her heart, and she accepted what Paul was saying. She was baptized along with other members of her household” Acts 16:1-40 (NLT)

I can take no credit for having faith in God.
Free will and predestination are the same thing.

Pastor’s Reflections

Perhaps you recall Acts 13:44, “as many as were appointed to eternal life believed”. “Appointed to eternal life” sounds a lot like predestination. “believed” sounds a lot like one’s free will decision to place one’s faith in God.

Lydia believed, but did so because the “Lord opened her heart”. And it must have been real because she was baptized, had her whole household baptized (presumably children also, one of the few scriptural supports for infant baptism), and also she made her home a ministry center.

Predestination and free will are the same thing. God converted Lydia. Lydia chose Christ. Both are true.

We see time as a succession of consecutive events. God sees the entire cosmos as an eternal interaction of all spiritual and material forces and elements operating in perfect and free obedience to His will. To God all is an Eternal Now within which each of us lives and which is the actual Reality in which we live.

As CS Lewis puts it, “God is outside and above our time line. What we call tomorrow is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call “today” or “now”. All days are now for Him. He simply sees you doing things, because, though you have lost yesterday, He has not. He does not “foresee” you doing things tomorrow. He simply sees you doing them, because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him”

“You never suppose, though, that your actions at this moment are any less free because God knows what you are doing.”

From our perspective of time while God is at work in and through all things in His Eternal Now we are also acting freely, yet in a perfect interaction which God is orchestrating at this very moment. Both are happening at once.

What we learn from this is humility. In the end I can “take pride” only in my sin and failure. If I’ve done anything good, I can only thank God from whom all good and perfect things come.