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lacknothing said:
...you are not in the "elect" unless YOU REPENT and put YOUR FAITH in Jesus.

This is salvation by works! The work of repentance. And you wrote "YOUR" faith. The unregenerate have no faith. Nor do they have "free will." They are slaves to sin and not able to anything but sin.

Only Christians have free will. Because only Christians are able to not sin. We who have life from Above are free. We are no longer slaves to sin. Thus only we have free will. The unregenerate do not.

And faith, like the new birth, is the gift of God, not of works:

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Ephesians 2:8 says :

For by grace are ye saved by faith, and that ("that" referring to FAITH) not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.

"YOUR faith?" HIS faith is the more appropriate term. Only those who have been given faith from Above can trust in Him. Only those who have been born again can even see the kingdom. Only those who have been freed from sin can choose to obey Christ.

-R