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.
God's covenant with Abraham and his seed
56-0223 §15
...ps maybe somebody will feel sorry for me and come down to get saved." No, no God don't run His office like that. You don't run your office like that. Jesus come for one specific purpose: that was to redeem those that God foreknew would be redeemed, see. Now, God's not willing that any should perish, but that all would come to repentance. But in order to be God, He had to know ... now, the word predestinate, as is used in Ephesians 1:5, predestinate there isn't a good word. It means... And speaking of predestination...
Proving His Word
64-0816 §66
Now I want you to notice, He does it that way in every age. He does it every time by the same method, He has to take believers. And then, in order to have believers to meet that Word, He's got to predestinate it to that age. You see it? He's got to predestinate this thing to be there to meet the challenge of the age. Did it get you? Did you feel it? Did you see it? Do you understand it? That's what's happening today, He predestinated it to this, by his foreknowledge. When He predestinated, in Malachi 4, it's got to...
Adoption, part 1: Ephesians parallels Joshua
60-0515E §64
...ks to destiny. Don't forget that, that election looks back here. Here it is: I was a cocklebur. I was born in sin, shaped in iniquity, come to the world speaking lies, born among sinners. Father and mother and all my whole family, sinners. I was a cocklebur. But, all of a sudden, I become a wheat grain. How did it happen? That, what is that? Election. God, before the foundation of the world, elected that the cocklebur was to become a grain of wheat. Now I know I'm a grain of wheat, because I'm saved. How do I do it...
Adoption, part 2: Manifested sons of God
60-0518 §21
...that He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. Now, the word... Let me read the next one. ... foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him... Having predestinated us... I want to stop on that word of predestinated. Now, predestinated isn't, say, "I'll choose Brother Neville, and I won't choose Brother Beeler." That isn't it. It's the foreknowledge of God that knowed which one would be right and which one wasn't right. So by foreknowledge---God knowing what he was goi...
Adoption, part 3: Position in Christ
60-0522M §94
See, an inheritance. Oh, my! Being what kind of an inheritance? ...being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will... When He was... Before He was a papa, before He was God, before He was a saviour, before He was a healer, before all of this, He predestinated, put the Lamb's name on the book, looked down through by his foreknowledge and seen your name, put it on there too. What is it? And after a while we come in the world, born of sinful parents; we walk...