Re: Passover: The 7 Feasts of Israel and Jesus

Yes God does the work not us, God chooses us, not us Him. But our view on what it means to be born again is different. Christ says to believe in Him but He also tells us a lot of other things that we are supposed to do. The fact that God is the one that does the work in us (and not by our own effort) doesn't change the fact that it still has to get done.

'And when we believe in Him, we know we are born again, we know we are washed by the blood of Jesus.'

Then why did Jesus specifically command us to eat His flesh and drink His blood if we were already washed in His blood from the beginning of our belief?

Notice that many of His disciples that had been following Him up to that point left when Jesus gave that teaching. They were okay with it when it was just about faith and belief but when Jesus got specific about what they had to do, they were offended and didn't want to hear it.

It is not through the effort of man that man is saved, Christ does all the work. I don't know if you had a chance to read my earlier post about how having the actual experience of Christ transforms us. It is Christ that transforms us, not our own effort. You are right that striving of our own effort is the wrong way and I'm glad you understand that, but Christ gave us many commandments that we still have to follow. The only way to follow His commandments are by being transformed by Him. That is what Christ's gospel is all about, man being transformed by Christ. Man is not transformed by grace. Grace is what makes us worthy of being transformed (because otherwise we are not worthy). By grace we are saved means because of grace we are saved. Grace does not transform us, Christ transforms us and He offers this by grace. It's a subtle difference but an extremely important one.

I do think we need to understand specifically what Christ meant in every commandment that He gave us. If we don't understand, then we need to pray and ask Him. If we think there are some commandments that are impossible, then we need to pray and ask Him.