What Difference Does It Make?

I'm amazed at the number of Christians who don't seem to know what difference doctrine makes in their life. They can give you all the points of their specific theological bent, but when it comes to applying that to their life, they don't go beyond that. For example, because Arminians believe that man has free will, they can know that this leads to great freedom in their lives. Because Arminians believe that sanctification is a matter of heart purity, rather than adherence to the letter of Scripture, they can know God's power, love, forgiveness, and assurance in a way that many others can't. Because we Arminians believe that God not only imputes His righteousness to us, but also imparts it, we can know we have an abundance of resources with which to live the Christian life (I have blogged previously on this subject - late September to early October - so I am not going to go over it again here). Because we believe that we can live victoriously, rather than in bondage to sin (see my commentary on Romans 5-8), we can live lives of joy, freedom, and power. We believe we can know we are God's children before we die, so we can have assurance and peace throughout our lives. We do not believe God throws people away, as many insist on believing. We just believe we have choices. I've gone over much of this from a Scriptural standpoint in the time frame shown above, so I won't reiterate it here. What we believe makes a vast difference in our outlook on life, in what we can do, and in the way we do things.