Welcome to my blog on the religious affections!

I was not sure what to call the blog; "The Religious Affections," "Loving God," "Desire for God," etc. To call it "The Religious Affections" is a bit misleading because it brings to mind religion and not Jesus Christ or the life-giving relationship with Him as opposed to cold, legalistic religion. However, in honor of my homeboy, Jonathan Edwards, I decided on the title of his book in the end.

The purpose of this blog is not to argue the finer points of theology. I am making several hermeneutical and theological assumptions here and if you disagree with them, feel free to e-mail me personally, but please do not post your disagreements with these assumptions on this blog.

My assumptions are as follows:

1. The Bible is the inerrant word of God and is profitable for teaching, rebuking and training. (2 Timothy 3:16, Isaiah 55:11, Revelation 22:18-19)

2. Mankind is totally depraved on the whole and incapable, in our sinful state, of choosing, obeying, or even having affections for God. (Romans 3:10-20, 8:7-8, 14:23, John 6:44, 17:6)

3. God, before the foundations of the world, unconditionally elected some for salvation and effectually completes this on their behalf through predestination, calling, justification and glorification. (Romans 8:29-30, 9, Ephesians 1:3-14, 1 Peter 1:2, John 6:44, 17:6)

4. God, purposed in the death of Christ, not only to make a payment for sin as a whole, but also to purchase a particular people (the elect) by purchasing the New Covenant of faith on their behalf. All men are free to respond to the sufficient atonement of Jesus Christ, but only the elect will respond with the necessary faith that was purchased for them. (1 John 2:2, 1 Timothy 2:6, Hebrews 9:15, Titus 2:14, Isaiah 53:11-12, Luke 22:20)

5. God's grace to His elect is irresistible and the Holy Spirit overcomes, perfectly, our resistance to Him. By replacing our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh and putting His Spirit in us, He makes His purposes complete in us by enabling us to choose Him of our own free will. This is only done for the elect and not on the whole for all men. (Deuteronomy 30:6, Ezekiel 36:26, Romans 9:19)

6. God's elect, the saints, will certainly persevere to the end as it is He who began this good work in them and He will see it through to completion. (Philippians 1:6, John 10:28-29)

7. Points 2-6 are true in relation to salvation only. The elect have a responsibility to keep in step with the Spirit, to pursue being filled with the Spirit, respond to God's conviction and leading, and to live a repentant life-style. Sanctification is effected through a mysterious relationship between the choices of the elect and the overarching sovereignty of God. There is a hierarchy of rewards in the Kingdom of God in relation to the faithfulness or lack thereof for every saint. (Philippians 2:12-13, Matthew 16:27, 1 Corinthians 3:14-15, Ephesians 6:8, Revelation 22:12)

Now that we have that out of the way...I will begin work on my first post dealing with the affections.

Blessings!