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To: vladimir998
Seeing as nobody can read another person’s mind to know what they really are intending by their outward acts, how is anyone supposed to tell you actually worship God rather than the man standing in front of you in church? Don’t tell me you don’t worship the guy in front of you and that your proof is that you say things about Jesus, post your testimony, etc. After all you’re just living in darkness (you worship the guy in the pew in front of you after all) so you must be deluded or lying, right? Maybe you secretly worship the Easter Bunny. How would I know otherwise? Maybe you are a member of a strange cult that sacrifices chickens to Thor and children to Molech. How would I know otherwise? You know how I know? Basically I take you at your word that you’re a Christian of some kind. Sadly, you won’t extend the same courtesy to us. The reason is obvious too.

Geez...your answers just seem to grow more and more goofy. When God COMMANDED the Israelites to NOT make and/or bow down before graven images to serve them, worship them, do things for them, sacrifice to them, etc., He was talking about both their actions as well as what was in their hearts. We communicate what we believe by what we do where others can see us.

If I had a statue of the Easter Bunny in my garden and I planted flowers around it and went there every day, kneeling before it and praying to it, you just MIGHT have reason to believe I worship the Easter Bunny. I can tell you that I'm not, but my actions belie my words. If I pray to the EB to save me, protect me, help me, to comfort me, to rescue me, to bring me to heaven, to intercede with Jesus for me or to give me grace, how is that not worshiping the EB? If I sing songs to EB, recite repetitive prayers every day, built an Easter Bunny cathedral, had EB statuary that I kissed, crawled on my knees in penitential pain as some kind of preparation to come before statues of the Easter Bunny...would you conclude I worshiped the Easter Bunny?

OH, but you might say, the Easter Bunny isn't real! But neither is the Mary of Catholicism. You can declare all you want that "worship" of Mary is not official Roman catholic teaching, but you cannot claim to know the motives of all the Catholics who really DO worship Mary. At best you can say the people you know don't - and even that is questionable - but you cannot truthfully declare no Catholic does. You aren't God. He, however, does know the hearts of men and is why He commanded us to have no other gods before Him, to make NO graven images to bow down before them and to serve HIM alone. I don't claim to know who is a Christian or who isn't a Christian because I can't see someone's heart. But what we all can do is know whether someone is professing the truth because we have God's rule of faith for measuring what is the truth - His sacred word - and He gives us the Holy Spirit to illuminate His truth to our hearts. We witness what we believe by what we do. If people can look at what we do and it looks like we are worshiping someone/thing other than Almighty God, then we are doing it wrong.

    Remember: Actions speak louder than words.

561 posted on 03/28/2015 9:59:07 PM PDT by boatbums (God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.)
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To: vladimir998
One more thing...James says we demonstrate our faith by what we do, by our works. "Show me your faith.", is what he says, because that's all anyone can see - not what's in our hearts. That IS how we show the kind of faith we have by what we do, how we act and not just by what we say.

If I profess I don't worship the Easter Bunny, but my actions sure look like I do, then what good is it to claim I don't? A sure sign that someone worships someone or something is by how much time they spend doing it. If I pray ten times as many prayers to the Easter Bunny than I do to Almighty God, then no matter how much I protest and deny that I don't worship the EB, my actions make me out to be a liar. This is why God forbid His people from DOING the things the pagans did as well as believing in their false gods. He is a jealous God, His glory He will NOT share with another.

581 posted on 03/29/2015 1:51:06 PM PDT by boatbums (God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.)
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To: boatbums

“If I had a statue of the Easter Bunny in my garden and I planted flowers around it and went there every day, kneeling before it and praying to it...”

We don’t pray TO statues. See, even your own attempt at analogy is ground in the typical erroneous understanding of the anti-Catholic.


627 posted on 03/31/2015 5:53:09 AM PDT by vladimir998
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