Being Down On Religion

"Now to the one who works, his wage is not reckoned as a favor, but as what is due.  But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness" (Romans 4:4-5).

"For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law" (Romans 3:28).

Many people mistakenly think that the Golden Rule is the essence of Christianity, au contraire, that would make it a performance-based religion.  You can take Buddha out of Buddhism, and Mohammad out of Islam, and you basically have the religions still intact, but you cannot do so with Christianity--Christianity IS Christ! (You must know Him!)  You must, first of all, be right about Him and His work:  i.e., He is the incarnation of God or God in the flesh and He paid the price for our redemption from sin, by dying on the cross to do this and show His love for us, and rose from the dead as ultimate proof of the Father's acceptance to give us hope and reason for believing in life after death--a resurrection.  Believing Christ lived and died is history, believing He did it for you is salvation!

It is a proven fact of psychology that religious people are happier than those who profess none. Paul complimented the philosophers of Athens on Mars Hill for being "very religious" meaning they were open to speculation and accepting of religious ideas, giving him the open door to preach.  But Julian Huxley wrote Religion Without Revelation, in which he said you don't need God to know right from wrong--this is where Secular Humanism leads us.  John Dewey wrote A Common Faith to say that you can be religious without a religion (Secular Humanism is a religion without God!).  True religion is to walk in the Spirit of God and be led by Him as you live in faith and are faithful to your calling in life--in other words knowing Jesus and having a relationship with Him.

To say someone got religion is an insult to a Christian: " I tried religion," the pastor said, "and it didn't work."  His friend asked him, "What then, you're a pastor?"  He replied:  "Then I tried Christ and a relationship with Him and it worked!"" As they say:  The proof of the pudding is in the eating! I've heard of people saying that if that's what Christ can do for someone they want Him too--this is the power of one's testimony and witness for Christ to make Him known.   Many people today don't really hold anything against Christ, but against religion, especially organized religion and the church, as an institution.  Jesus plainly said that eternal life is "knowing" Him, and this means more than knowing about Him.  It is some kind of fellowship of the heart and love affair that no religion can match.

Religion has historically believed in making "sacrifices" to appease" or mollify and humor the gods who may be angry and cause bad luck, as it were, but in religion it is always the individual or society making the sacrifice (such as their children or a lamb), and in Christianity it is God Himself who makes the sacrifice because He is capable of paying a debt we couldn't pay and we owed to Him for offending Him in our sin and rebellion, and His sacrifice is infinite and cannot be measured, and therefore capable of saving mankind if they accept His work on their behalf--that is precisely what Christ did by paying the price of His blood shed for us so we wouldn't have to pay it in hell, and this is a free gift of salvation offered to all if they only exercise faith in Him.

Religion is defined as doing something "religious" or of displaying "religiosity."  Secular Humanists believe you can be religious without having religion and they are gaining ascendancy with their ethical religion without God. It's a faith to live by and has a creed to believe.  That is precisely what evil is:  Being good without God or getting along without Him in the equation.  Man's problem today is whether he can get along without the God he has left out of the picture, according to Will Durant.  You can be a Christian without being religious, in fact, this is the normal Christian way of life--a walk of faith. The righteous shall live by faith according to Romans 1:17. "[W]e walk by faith, and not by sight"  (2 Cor. 5:7, ESV).

Knowing about God will not satisfy the needs of the heart of man, but having a relationship with the personal God and knowing His will. Blaise Pascal, a French philosopher, said there is a "God-shaped vacuum" in our heart that only God can fill.  St. Augustine said that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God.  We are made to worship God and if we don't we will worship something or someone else.  Christ promised a more abundant and fulfilling life in knowing Him, which is rewarding and worth it.  "... [I] came that they may have life and have it abundantly"  (John 10:10b, ESV).

Man strives to please God by his merits and works of the flesh (morality, philosophy, good deeds, ritual, etc.). Religion is also man's attempt to reach out to God, while God has taken the initiative and reached down in condescending to man--we are incapable of finding God through the doorway of religion!  Man is incurably addicted to doing something for his salvation and the Jews asked Jesus what they could do:  He replied that the "work of God" is believing on Him whom God sent.  Salvation is a free gift of grace that cannot be earned, paid back, and is not deserved or merited. Christianity is not a list of dos and don'ts, but following Christ in fellowship and love.

Christ paid the price on a debt we couldn't pay and owed for our sins to the Holy Father.  It was an infinite price that only God could pay with His blood--He suffered to the max on our behalf. The crucifixion is the measure of His love because He didn't have to die, He volunteered and willingly went to the cross. Religion lays down what man is obliged to do, while the gospel reveals to us what God has done for us.  There are a plethora of religions based on human achievement; however, Christianity is based on divine accomplishment, not human achievement or work.

Religion is a do-it-yourself proposition of lifting yourself up by your own bootstraps and trying to earn your way in, hoping your good deeds outweigh your bad ones at the Judgment.  Christians don't do good because they have to, but because they want to.  Works are a "therefore" not an "in order to" you might say. We don't have to, we get to!  Viva la difference!  Religion is performance-based and doesn't solve the problem of guilt that we all incur by our sin.  In Christianity salvation is a done deal and complete, while in religion the key word is "do" and is never done--all you can do is hope and you will never be assured of heaven or salvation. You just can't ever know in a works religion.  When you say that works bring salvation, that is pure religion, and when you mix works and faith that is legalism.  "[H]e saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit"  (Titus 3:5, ESV).

Christianity says that faith alone saves and works just naturally follow out of gratitude and a changed life (the Reformers said we are saved by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone--no fruit means no faith).  You don't come to God with a changed life or a resolution to improve but come to God for a changed life.  He doesn't put a new suit on the man, but a new man in the suit.  Millions of lives have been transformed and renewed by Christ, and this is not the case with other religions, because the problem we have is sin, not ignorance and Jesus came to save us from our sins.  There is no other Savior in the world and no one else by whom we are commanded to call upon for salvation by a leap of faith to believe in our regenerated and renewed hearts.

Good works do have a place in Christianity, but they give us no merit before God.  We are saved "unto good works," which means that we are not saved by them, but so we can do them--only believers have the power to do good works in God's eyes.  Good deeds give us purpose and meaning in life as we cheerfully serve our Savior out of gratitude.  The works we do are actually ordained or predetermined for us to "walk in them"  (cf. Eph. 2:10).  Note that Christ didn't die to make bad men good, but to make dead people alive!  He came to bring life and life more abundantly (cf. John 10:10).

If we have no good works our faith is dead and dead faith cannot save!  Without the evidence of good works, our faith is suspect because the true believer wants to do them.  Sin doesn't show our freedom, but our slavery and Christ came to save us from our sins, which are the issue and problem we have. Religion is the best man can do, it has been said, but Christianity is the best God can do.  This means we don't earn salvation, we receive it!  Purpose of good deeds in perspective is vital to know:  James says, "I'll show you my faith by my good works;" and Paul would say, "I'll show you my good works by my faith." They go hand in hand and you can only distinguish them, but not separate them--they are no substitute for faith, but only evidence that it is real.

RELIGION EQUAL KNOWING OR CONFESSING A CODE OR CREED; CHRISTIANITY MEANS KNOWING A PERSON AND HAVING LIFE WITH HIM, PERIOD.  SOLI DEO GLORIA!

The Beginning Of Time...

"For by him all thing were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things were created through him and for him.  And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together"  (Col. 1:16-17, ESV). 
"(For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God" (Heb. 3:4, ESV). 
"[I]n hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began" (Tit. 1:2, ESV). 
[W]ho saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began" (2 Tim. 1:9, ESV).  

The Bible begins unapologetically "In the beginning God...."  It assumes and does not prove, there is a God behind creation. This isn't just the way the Bible begins but the beginning of all logic, thinking, and rationality or reason.  Any other assumption is incoherent!  In Stephen Hawking's book, The Brief History of Time, he postulates the Big Bang as its origin (the Bible declared this in Genesis).  Just like you cannot have a design without a designer so you cannot have creation without a Creator. This is known as a teleological proof of God's existence.  

Paul says in Romans 1:20 that men are without excuse because of the abundant evidence in nature. Immanuel Kant said that two things amaze him:  The starry skies above and the conscience within.  God is self-existent, in that He owes nothing nor anyone for His existence.  We, on the other hand, owe our very being to Him (cf. Acts 17:28).  He is the sole, primary cause of the cosmos and the uncaused cause, as the Greeks said. Everything that begins to exist has a cause, but God didn't begin to exist, but is eternal and therefore no cause and is not an effect.

Genesis is vital to the Bible because there is only one logical alternative:  "In the beginning matter/energy (quantum)."  The idea of "In the beginning nothing" is a matter of intellectual suicide because the Greeks ventured:  Ex nihilo, nihil fit, or out of nothing, nothing comes. Imagine the negation of everything and nothing existing!   Absurd.  Everything in the time-space continuum has a beginning, but don't jump to the conclusion that all that there is had a beginning because this would be fatal to science, logic, philosophy, and even religion.   If ever there was a time when nothing existed, there would be nothing now.  The theory of an eternal universe, it has been demonstrated, is untenable--evolutionists cannot swallow this bitter pill of there actually being a "beginning."

There has to be something transcendent, they reasoned, because we exist.  God is therefore eternal--the alternative is that matter is eternal, and that is disproved due to the Big Bang, or the beginning of the time/space continuum.  Nothing can create or cause itself--it is illogical!  The order has to be that first there was a Thinker, then a thought, then an action leading to creation or thing.  It is so much easier, to begin your reasoning with God and then explain the universe rather than beginning with the universe and explaining God or the cosmos! Napoleon was asked if there was a God? He replied, looking to the heavens:  "Who made that?"

The existence of God and a Thinker is evident because we are thinkers which necessitates a Higher Mind for our existence and creation.   Life only comes from life because of the genetic and metabolic motor, DNA, only is made from DNA.  That begs the question:  How did the first DNA arrive?  It must be by creation, which is only logical.  There is a required Supreme Being thinking and planning everything--that's why we have a "fine-tuned" (who tuned it?) universe and the earth is made in the Anthropic Principle, or designed perfectly for human habitation--the "Creator" just happened to get things right!

Athanasius Kircher designed a model solar system and when his superior saw it, he asked who made it. Kircher told him, "No one, it just happened!" The man balked at accepting and thought Kircher was trying to pull one over on him.  He said, "Well, you believe the whole universe just created itself!"  In the rules of cosmology, nothing "just just happens" but every effect or event must have a cause:  The Big Bang couldn't have just happened by chance or accident, but someone or something intelligent was behind it to pull the trigger.  The only plausible explanation for our universe is that there is a God behind it who made it on purpose for His purposes--He told us to subdue it. 

God created the time-space continuum and is therefore outside the limits of both being eternal and having no beginning or cause.  He is not confined, limited, nor defined by time, which He created!  NB:  Scripture mentions the so-called beginning of time in two places in the New Testament:  2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2 cited above.  This was before scientists even speculated on the subject and even though there was no beginning, as recorded in Genesis 1:1!   Soli Deo Gloria!

Antinomianism Versus Legalism...

The two extremes I am referring to are libertinism or antinomianism and legalism. It is vital to know these distortions of the Christian walk and learn to distinguish them so that one can walk faithfully and obediently with Christ.  The only antidote known is a thorough knowledge of the Bible and to know Christ--Christianity is not a list of dos and don'ts but a living fellowship with the Lord.  Christianity is not a code but a relationship with Christ. 

You have to decide whether you are the kind of person who needs no law because you are regenerated and obey the new nature, or know no law because of your carnality and obey your old nature.  Martin Luther (and I believe Dietrich Bonhoeffer reiterated) pointed out that there are no disobedient Christians--for this is a contradiction:  "Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes."  They go hand in hand and the only test of faith is obedience.  A Christian can be guilty of carnality, but there is not a sub-class of carnal Christian.

Antinomianism was refuted by Martin Luther in Against the Antinomians in 1539.  It refers to a distaste for the law or literally "anti-lawism."   You might say that it designates a believer who feels he has a license to sin or for disobedience since he cannot lose his salvation and is secure in Christ.  I must stress that the Bible never gives one the right to do what is wrong or sanctions sin or doing what is right in according to your opinions, or your own thing.  We have many believers today who make up their own rules as they go along and do their own thing like the Hebrews did in Judges 21:25 when each man did what was right in his own mind or made up his own rules as he went along: whatever seems or feels right. 

Romans 6:1 (ESV) is the rebuttal to antinomianism saying that we should not go on sinning at all after salvation ("... Are we to continue in sin, that grace may abound?").  This would be taking advantage of God's grace and nullifying it and going back to the old life before salvation. The philosophy of antinomianism is "Freed from the law, O blessed condition; now I can sin all I want, and still have remission."  It is a frantic search for freedom to run amuck.  Rather, heed Paul's testimony:  "I do not frustrate [take advantage] of the grace of God"  (Gal. 2:21)!

There is a place for the law in our life and the whole of Scripture is law and grace and one must rightly divide it and know how to apply it.  In short, we never have a right to do what is wrong, and if it was morally wrong then it is still morally wrong because God's standards of morality haven't changed.  The law is meant to show us our sin and not a means of salvation; it is the mirror that shows us our unrighteousness.  The Phillips translation says of Romans 3:20:  "Indeed it is the straightedge of the law that shows us are crooked we really are."  It is a guide to the principles of morality and nine of the Ten Commandments are repeated in the New Testament (except keeping the Sabbath). Note that the Law doesn't save us, it measures us! 

Legalism is the error of many churches that try too hard to be spiritual or "holier than thou" (cf. Is. 65:5) than their counterparts in other churches.  Believes like to commend themselves and compare themselves to others (2 Cor. 10:12).  They seem to think they have a corner on the market of spirituality and this is one measure of it.  Legalism is counter to grace and salvation by grace because one is essentially trying to earn salvation and get to heaven by good works.  But in effect they are "going beyond that which is written" (cf. 1 Cor. 4:6).  If the Bible doesn't forbid something nor imply it by the application it is not a sin, though some things may be sin to some and not to others, due to knowledge and enlightenment.  "So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin"  (James 4:17, ESV, emphasis mine).

By way of example, the Pharisees were legalists because they adhered simply to the letter of the law and not the Spirit.  Legalistic churches bind people where they should be free and exercise tyranny over the congregants.  They also stress minor issues and ignore major ones or major on the minors. For example, they condemn smoking, drinking, gambling, card-playing, dancing, movie-going and even TV (watching the hemlines, hairlines, and ticket lines!), while they forget about their lack of witness and lukewarm worship.  Weightier matters of the Law (mercy, faithfulness, and justice)  ought to be addressed first and things the Bible explicitly does condemn.  We have no right to micromanage our brother's lives and tell them what is right and wrong--that is the job description of the Holy Spirit.

In conclusion, you may say the Mormons are good people because they refrain from coffee, of all things,  and are reasonably moral people, but Christ didn't die just to make bad people good, but dead people alive; however, we are not lawless, but live to a higher law:  The law of love.
Soli Deo Gloria!

Are We All To Witness?

Witnessing primarily denotes telling of what has happened to you and your personalized side of the story--usually, there is no way to refute or deny it either, such as the blind man saying, "I was blind, but now I see."  When Christ has changed your life, you should bear witness of the miracle that only He can do ("Let the redeemed of the Lord say so..," says Psalm 107:2)--a changed life in Christ is one of the greatest of all miracles.  The glory should go to Christ and you shouldn't glamorize your sins or former manner of life.  Soli Deo Gloria!

On the other hand, some Christians don't have a "testimony" in the sense of a dramatic story of conversion (I'm saying this is all right!), primarily because they were saved at a very young age and grew up in a Christian home. Should they "witness?"  Note that Jesus said in Acts 1:8 that we "shall be witnesses" not might be when power shall come upon us (i.e., all of us).  Paul said, "that God had called us to preach the gospel to them"  (Acts 16:10, NASB).  Therefore, a non-witnessing Christian is a contradiction in terms.  But what do we mean by this? Preaching the gospel IS witnessing. Standing up for Jesus IS witnessing!  Sharing your testimony IS witnessing. Standing up for Jesus to be counting and showing your Christian colors IS witnessing!

Now, Jesus said that we are witnesses ("You shall [not might be] witnesses..."), and that means if we don't "witness" we are not saved, but a vessel of dishonor; we are all witnesses (sometimes even bad), testifying of the gospel in shoe leather or according to us.  Jesus was saying that we shall receive power and then witness.

By definition, a witness witnesses.  We are not witnesses of the resurrection, for instance, as the apostles were.  The issue:  Is there a difference between witnessing and preaching the gospel, of which we are all commanded to do as ministers of reconciliation (he gave us the "ministry of reconciliation" according to 2 Cor. 5:18).  (They are not mutually exclusive, but one can do both or either one, you can witness without preaching the gospel, unfortunately, depending on your definition of "witnessing.")

Witnessing and preaching the gospel is something any believer can do, and he must know the gospel, first of all, to be effective and know Scripture as the seed to sow and trust God for the increase and timing, as well as open doors.  We just have to be ready "in season and out" to plant seeds.  Some sow, some water, and some reap, but God gives the increase.  Note:  Just saving souls is not all that is entailed in the Great Commission, as some infer; there is the subsequent making of disciples (not just converts) through baptism, teaching and preaching in edifying onto maturity so that they are ready to go out and start the cycle over again.

Many believers today say they witness, when in reality only a very small percentage (less than two percent by some polls) are engaged in any regular kind of active witnessing, and it has usually been a long time since they have shared their faith.  We must be willing to speak up for Christ and to stand up for Jesus, as it were. We must pray for opportunities to open doors (as even Paul had to do), and for God to make it known to us where we fit in and our role in the body.  The church body at large is to fulfill the Great Commission together and each one exercising their gift is a common way to do this--if they don't know their gifts they will be mainly ineffective or neutralized.

Just telling your own story without mentioning the way of salvation or the gospel (you must make a beeline for the gospel message as soon as the door opens) and this kind of witnessing can be duplicated by a another religious convert who testifies of how Buddha or TM changed his life, or that Allah lives in his heart for a Muslim.  The point is not your personal story, but the power of the gospel to change lives ("... [F]or it is the power of God unto salvation..," according to Romans 1:16).

In conclusion, to say that you don't witness, in that you don't believe in telling your personal testimony, but do share the gospel and your faith in Christ unabashed, is not unbiblical, because the Great Commission refers to sharing the good news of Jesus as the way of salvation basically in any manner necessary or that works--find your niche in the mission!  Soli Deo Gloria!

Are We Puppets On A String?

To Christians misinterpreting predestination, it seems like we are saying God is a despot and we are puppets on a string, robots, or automatons. Robots don't have a will as we do; however, we do not have a neutral volition, but one biased to evil.   Does God just pull the right strings?  He does know how to push the right buttons just like you do to someone you know, like spouses.  Are we stronger than God's will and is God's sovereignty limited by our freedom? (Cf. Rom. 9:19)  No!

These are age-old disputes and what kind of a God wouldn't be 100 percent sovereign?  He doesn't just reign on a throne, but He rules all things great and small, such that there is not even a rebel molecule in the cosmos.  Before preceding, I would like to point out two kinds of will:  mundane or natural; and moral or towards God.  It is in the latter that God makes the final decision as to whom will be regenerated by belief because no one can come to the Father unless the Father draws them and it is granted by Him (cf. John 6:65:44).  

John 15:5 says that we can do nothing apart from Christ. It is as if all of us choose to go the way of the devil and God had to choose out of His mercy to save some and demonstrate His grace and justice in action. We were all free (in Adam as our representative) and we chose the wrong path!  We are, therefore, sinners by choice, by birth, and by nature.  

Predestination means that our destiny is ultimately in the hands of God ("we are not the captain of our souls nor the masters of our fate"), and that if we were left to ourselves, none of us would want to be saved or have the will to believe--even our desire for Christ is of God.  God reserves the prerogative to save whom He will and show justice to whom He will (cf. Rom. 9:18).  Some men receive justice and some mercy. Romans 9:19 says that no one can resist His will.  God's will is always done with or without our cooperation.   

Now, our will have little to do with our believing in Christ, for we are simply clay in the hands of the Potter and God is the one who decided our character and personality.  Just like a dove will voluntarily choose seeds to eat and a vulture will feast on carrion, so God knows us and we are fearfully and wonderfully made to His specs. In the same manner, we act voluntarily and not by compulsion, and never act unwillingly so as not to be culpable.

We did not choose our nature, and it is our nature that primarily, along with nurture that determines our fate and consequent choices.  No one will deny having made their own decisions.  There is no such legitimate doctrine as determinism whereby God makes us do something we don't desire or there is an external force acting upon us--that is coercion and the opposite of freedom.  

But just as all man can only do evil and sin (non posse non peccare or the inability not to sin or that he is unable to please God in the flesh or is dead in a moral/spiritual sense), man is free in the sense of self-determination (he has to admit he made the decision or confirmation).  God is also free but He cannot sin and we will be free in heaven without the ability to sin too.

The British monk Pelagius thought that man had the ability to make a free decision apart from grace, but Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, said we are "free but not freed."  We have lost our liberty like a person in jail that is free in the sense that he still makes decisions apart from being a robot.  We are free to act according to our God-given nature, but we've lost the inclination to do good; therefore, we are still human, just not good.  

What this entails is that we don't need an absolute free will, but wills made free--that is the crux of the doctrine because if the Son sets you free you shall be free indeed (cf. John 8:32).   We still remain human with the faculty to make choices, such as what we want to eat, but we have lost all ability to please God and to believe in Him!

Jesus clearly said that we didn't choose Him, but that He chose us in John 15:16 and Matt. 22:14 (ESV) says:  "For many are called, but few are chosen."  We wouldn't have chosen Christ, had He not first chosen and loved us.  The problem with our freedom is that it is a curse because we didn't choose Him  (Adam is our representative) and God had to choose us.  We were free but didn't choose Christ and we wouldn't have come to Him unless He had wooed us and drew us to Him, taking the initiative. 

God took the initiative and the first step in such a way that we never did anything we did not want to do, and without any outside coercion or force acting upon us.  Our righteousness, including faith and repentance, is God's gift to us, not our gift to God (we have nothing to offer Him but our sin):  "Who makes you to differ?  What do you have that you didn't receive?"  (1 Cor. 4:7).

Love must be voluntary to be love and we loved God because He first loved us and God worked in our hearts a regeneration that loves Him willingly--we never do anything we don't want to do and in this sense, we are not robots but free agents.  However, God is able to make us do His intentions by His omnipotence, which is stronger than our will.  For example, He can turn the king's heart like a stream of water (cf. Prov. 21:1). 

Again: "The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps"  (Prov. 16:9, ESV).  Jeremiah 10:23 says, "I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps."  In the example of loving a mate, we can think that it was all voluntary, but God knew what we wanted and couldn't resist and brought them into our life--so whose in control?

We can never frustrate God and catch Him off guard, not being able to run His universe at will.  Just like you can manipulate your friends to do you a favor, God knows how to work His will in you. God can make you love Him without violating your free will or making you do it against your choice.  We do indeed have the power of choice and must choose Christ, but we cannot do so of our own power because of our depravity--our wills are depraved too.  ("... [H]e greatly helped those who through grace had believed," says Acts 18:27.)  

We cannot believe apart from grace as God gives us the power.  The whole Christian life is not hard, it is impossible and we could never live it without the power of God in our life. Humanists and semi-Pelagians or Arminians argue, however,  that the will is not affected by sin and is not depraved, but absolutely and totally free.

We didn't come to Christ of our own independent and free volition, but were called and drawn by the Father with efficacious grace or what Reformed theology calls irresistible grace (better named efficacious grace that works what God intends)--i.e., He intervened. This saving grace is demonstrated in Philippians 2:13 (ESV) saying. "[F]or it is God who works in you, both to will [God changing our will or making us willing] and to work for his good pleasure." And in Psalm 110:3 (ESV) as:  "Your people will volunteer freely in the day of Your power...." (Also refer to Jer. 20:7; Heb. 13:21 and Col. 1:29.)   

We were chosen by God according to His good pleasure, "according to His own purpose and grace," (cf. 2 Tim. 1:9).   Jesus used the analogy of the wind blowing where it wills, and that is how one is born of the Spirit.  The bottom line is that, though we possess a depraved will capable of decision, God can cause us to believe in Christ and repent according to His good pleasure.   Soli Deo Gloria!