Thanks to all of you who have indicated you are praying for me as I wrestle with finishing the book. Here’s the current overview of content (understanding it may be subject to change at anytime).

CONTENTS

FOREWARD BY JOHN HENDRYX
WHY THIS BOOK?
WHAT ‘S THE POINT?
WHO IS THIS BOOK WRITTEN FOR?
THE PLACE TO START: AMAZED BY COMMON GRACE
A SURPRISING JOURNEY
TESTING TRADITIONS
WHAT ABOUT THE LOVE OF GOD?
WHAT ABOUT FREE WILL?
WHAT ABOUT GOD’S FOREKNOWLEDGE?
WHAT ABOUT JOHN 3:16?
WHAT ABOUT 2 PETER 3:9?
WHAT ABOUT 1 TIMOTHY 2:4?
WHAT ABOUT MATTHEW 23:37?
WHAT ABOUT 1 TIMOTHY 4:10?
WHAT ABOUT JOHN 12:32?
WHAT ABOUT REPROBATION?
WHAT ABOUT LOST LOVED ONES?
WHAT ABOUT PRAYER AND EVANGELISM?
NOW WHAT ABOUT YOU?
RECOMMENDED READING

This effectual grace blog celebrates its 1st birthday today. That’s right, somewhere in cyber space, this little blog appeared for the first time on November 2, 2010.

I feel I have grown a great deal through the process of putting together the more than 750 posts on more than a 140 different categories. I must say that I have both valued and learned from the many comments I have received, even from those who have had strong disagreements with me. I hope you feel you have benefitted by your visits here and desire to continue the journey, learning and growing together in grace and knowledge of God.

Its hard to fathom this, but last month alone, people from all 50 states of the USA and 99 different countries stopped by for a visit here. Knowing this causes two definite reactions in me. Firstly, it humbles me profoundly to know that many look to this blog for sound biblical teaching, and secondly, it fills me with holy awe concerning the tremendous responsibility just such an audience places in my hands.

Though I try not to take myself too seriously, I must take His truth seriously. It would be the height of presumption to steer even one of God’s precious sheep in the wrong direction. As Jesus made clear, to whom much is given, much is required.

My prayer is that this blog will always be a place for God’s truth to shine forth like a beacon in this dark world, and a place where His gospel is clear in its declaration and wide in its reach. May our great tri-une God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit receive all the praise, honor and glory.

If you have something positive to share in the way of feedback, it would be great to hear from you. Please feel free to write a comment below. If you don’t feel you have anything positive to share, well thanks for stopping by anyway.

May God bless you richly!

John

What the unregenerate sinner needs is not free will but a will made free.

Until God grants a new heart with new affections, man will never desire the thing (the Gospel) or the Person (Jesus Christ) he so desperately needs. That is because the will always chooses according to the desire of the heart. And that is just it – the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. Outside of God’s intervention, the sinner is not just morally neutral towards God, but totally hostile and impenetratably so. The heart is a heart of stone. It is stony only in one sense. For although it is capable of loving many things in this world it is incapable of even the slightest measure of love towards the one true God. That is the nature of spiritual death – the radical corruption of the heart inherent in all the sons and daughters of Adam since the Fall.

The will chooses that which is the greatest desire of the heart at the moment of choice. While the will makes choices every day, the one thing it will never choose is that which the heart hates above all else, namely, God as He really is. For such a choice to be made – for a man to actually enter the kingdom of God – he must first delight in what he hates. This of course is impossible. And this is why something very radical has to happen. Man needs to become a brand new creature all together with brand new desires.

The new desire has to emerge before the choice can be made. He desperately needs a new heart – a heart of flesh, one that beats to know God and until given one, he detests the very idea of it. Jesus made it abundantly clear that if this is ever to happen, he must first have a brand new nature, he needs much more than a spiritual make-over. He needs a spiritual re-birth. The old has to go, the new must come. Unless a man is born again he cannot enter the kingdom God. To fail to see this will not only undermine the biblical concept of the will, it results in a failure to fully comprehend the Gospel.