What the Bible Does Say: Matthew

I'm guessing (only a guess, mind you) that my previous post may have stepped on someone's toes because of a comment I got on my other blog.  ???  Although, it may not have been little ol' me.  Still...

Anyway, at the time of my last post I was really angry.  It's time to do a little legwork.

Matthew 12:50

This passage is further explained in John 15:14-16a.  ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. ¹⁷  


The point I was making, okay hammering, was that Christ chose us.  All of my life I have been taught and believed that one could "ask Christ into his/her heart."  That is simply not what the Bible says, anywhere.  So in the Matthew 12:50 example, you are Christ's brother, sister, mother, his family if he has chosen you then you are grafted into the olive tree.  (Christ is the vine, we are the branches.  John 15:5) Romans 11:17.

The next passage, Matthew 16:16, when Peter confesses Christ, it is expressly stated that the knowledge is from the Father in heaven.  II Corinthians 4:4 states: The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.  Let's take a look at that for minute.  If unbelievers minds are indeed blinded, as Paul writes, then we are in no way capable of scrounging up some positive decision-making ability to ask Christ into our hearts.

The rich young ruler asks what good thing he must do to get eternal life.  Christ was not concerned with the young man's possessions or his actions, but his faith.  The young man wasn't able to repent because he didn't have faith.  Why?  See verse 26, below.

²⁵When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, "Who then can be saved?"
 ²⁶Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." 

Verses 28 and 29 talk about those who will, indeed, inherit eternal life. Verse 28 reads, you who have followed me. Taking a look at the disciples, for example, every time Jesus says to them "follow me."

Summing this section up, without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6a).  We cannot conjure up our own faith or make a decision to choose God, so it is a gift from God.   So when we come to saving knowledge in Christ it is the moment God gives us faith, we are then able to believe and repent.