If I Am Predestinated, Why Must I Still Strive?
1) Direct Answer
Yes, you must strive. Predestination is not a license to drift; it is God’s purpose that you be holy, overcome, and walk in obedience. The very proof of predestination is that you press on.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- The Bible says we were “chosen…that we should be holy” (Ephesians 1:4) and “predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29). That calls for a life, not laziness.
- “Make your calling and election sure” (2 Peter 1:10). If election were a reason to coast, the Scripture would not tell you to confirm it by diligence.
- “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you” (Philippians 2:12-13). His work in you makes you work it out.
- Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). The predestinated sheep are marked by following.
- “Strive to enter in at the strait gate” (Luke 13:24). The narrow way is not careless—it’s earnest.
- “Follow peace… and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).
- Grace “teaches us… to deny ungodliness” and to live soberly and godly (Titus 2:11-12).
- “Shall we continue in sin…? God forbid” (Romans 6:1-2). Real grace never excuses sin.
- The overcomer promises are to those who overcome, not to the indifferent (Revelation 2–3).
- The Bride is shown as those who came through and overcame—washed, faithful, serving, reigning (Revelation 7:9-17; Revelation 20:4). That is a life of victory, not apathy.
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- Predestination sets the end, and God also ordains the means to that end. He ordained repentance, faith, obedience, holiness, prayer, suffering, correction, and perseverance as the pathway of the elect. The same God who wrote your name also writes your walk.
- You don’t strive to become the elect; you strive because the elect Seed is in you. Life presses. A lamb nature follows the Shepherd; a holy calling produces a holy living.
- If someone says, “If I’m predestinated, I can live as I please,” ask: Where is the fear of God? Where is the chastening that God gives sons? (Hebrews 12:6-8). Where is the following of the Voice? (John 10:27). The foundation of God stands sure—“Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Timothy 2:19).
- Faith without works is dead (James 2:17). Works don’t save, but they show the life that does.
4) Reinforcing Statement
Election gives assurance, not apathy. The Bride is ordained to overcome; therefore she strives. The Seed in you makes you walk, war, and win.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 4:E-136
Before I close this subject, I know there is a question in your minds. You will want to know if I believe in the doctrine of preexistence. I don't believe in that Mormon doctrine of the preexistence of souls any more than I believe in reincarnation or the transmigration of souls. Be careful here and see this. It is not the person that comes predestinated eternally from God, IT IS THE WORD, OR SEED. That is it. Way back there, too far back for the human mind to grasp, the Eternal God with eternal thoughts, thought a...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 4:E-122
...him: and I will raise him up at the last day." John 1:12-13, "But as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, BUT OF GOD." Ephesians 1:4-5, "According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according...
God's power to transform
65-0911 §104
Don't stumble at that word "predestination." I know you do. But listen, it's not my word; it's one of God's words. You want to read it? Read Ephesians 1:5, which, "He has predestinated us to the adoptions of sons through Jesus Christ," see. Just let me just break it just a minute, just a minute to break this out of your mind. Look, just as you were in your father at the beginning (a germ seed---did you know that, every one of you?), you were in your great-great-great-grandfather also. Did you know that? Read the bo...
The Spoken Word is the original seed
62-0318 §107
Christ couldn't help being what He was. He was the Son of God. That's it. See what I mean now? See if you were intended, you see the Word of God, you believe it; because why?---there's something new. Why? Have you ever heard of strain in a family? A son will kind of impersonate his father, or the mother, or the grandfather, or the grandmother. That's strain in a family. You've heard of it, haven't you? Well, that's the same thing from predestination. You were supposed to be here in the right way at the beginning, b...
Token
63-0901M §127
What happened? Now, they were shut up. "No revival is going to happen here." "Our denomination won't sponsor such." "We'll not have that kind of nonsense among us." "I forbid any of you to go to that meeting." Jericho, right in the line of the damned. But there must have been some tape boys slipped in somewhere, for the predestinated seed. They slipped over to her house and played some tapes. She made her own house a church to receive the Message. (They still got them, you know.) The Message got to the predestinate...