Posted on 11/26/2012 1:17:49 PM PST by victim soul
All sin is a conscious choice to choose a known wrong over a known right. Does a presumption that God will automatically forgive any sin once repented factor into your decisions to sin?
Peace be with you.
There is no one-size-fits-all plan for Salvation. Each has a unique plan, drawn-up by God from before the beginning of time that is perfected for every moment and circumstance in our lives.
Faith is an act of the will and unless and until we forsake freewill we must constantly strive to hold fast. Works, demonstrated in the Fruit of the Holy Spirit, are evidence of our faith. If we do not manifest abundant Fruit we are not saved.
Peace be with you.
“All sin is a conscious choice to choose a known wrong over a known right.”
No it is not. We often sin, not being aware we sinned. Once and a while, my eyes are opened to see something I had never considered. It was sin the whole time. I was unaware I was committing it! Yikes!
I'm not needling you, ksen. Really, I'm not. I'm just curious.
Tagline :o)
I wouldn’t take that question as needling Mrs. Don-o and I’m happy to answer it.
I’m assuming you mean the Catholic church. If my assumption is wrong please let me know. No, I was never a member of the Catholic church so that’s not what I left or what I was referring to.
I became a christian in a small independent baptist church. Years later we moved to Florida where I found another similar church for us to join. We were very active and I even served a term as a deacon and attended a seminary and received my Master’s degree. Then the preaching subtley started changing to focus more and more on don’t do this or don’t do that instead of preaching jesus christ crucified. It became more and more apparent to me that the pastor was using the faith of the attendees against them and becoming more and more controlling.
One night I went and talked to him about what I was seeing and what my thoughts were. Of course he disagreed with my take and tried to manipulate me by telling me I must have some hidden sin I was trying to run from or some such. I told him I had heard enough and that the previous Sunday was the last time my family and I would be there.
I spent months looking for a new church home but they were all the same. I even tried different denominations to no avail. What I found is that there is a severe lack of love in modern american churches. I may not know a lot of things and I may have forgotten a lot of things but one thing I’ll never forget is that Jesus preached love and freedom to sinners. He reserved his most harsh speech to those who tried to use religion for their own purposes.
That is why I gave up organized religion. And years later my conscience is still clear.
That puts you at odds with 2,000 years of Christian theology. (See Luke 23:34)
Sin is a personal act that must be done with with full knowledge and deliberate consent. Your definition would make a rape victim guilty of adultery and fornication.
Peace be with you.
Having hard knocks at church is really a painful thing to deal with, especially as in your case, when you were seriously invested in the church as a deacon, serving in a volunteer ministry, committed to some active aspect of parish life.
We had a situation like that in my family, where my husband and two sons were quite dedicated to a vibrant new (non-RC) mission (I was only a sympathetic observer, because I was then, and still am, a Catholic, and yet very willing to affirm the whole rest of my family being involved in --- we'll call it "St. Herman's Hermitage") (ha). Well, for 5-6 years it was encouraging and inspirational, and it turned a corner and at first slowly, then acceleratingly, went down hill. Same issue as yours: nothing "scandalous" in the sense of embezzlment or sex or suchlike, but dismaying pastoral malpractice.
In the final 4 years, the parish ended up splintering into two belligerent factions, jurisdictional split, lawsuit for the property, dissolution. Ouch.
Much more than "ouch." It was deeply wounding to my husband and to other good-hearted people.
You do need to get away from somebody who's spiritually abusive. I absolutely see that.
I will still say, though, that Christ unquestionably founded a Church, unquestionably it was not just offhand or nebulous, but as a force, a channel of enlightenment, an essential mission in this world; and that mission does not fail. He intends it to be a school of love. At the least, it gives you good practice learning to be halfway decent to people who rub you the wrong way.
And as Fyodor Dostoevsky said, "Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams."
Peace to you and good night, ksen.
Actually, the view I expressed puts me right next to Isaiah 6:5 ff, when he saw his own sinfulness that had always existed, but was now revealed.
It puts me right next to the Apostle John, who fell before Christ as a “dead one” when he saw his holiness and realized his own pitiful state.
As to your other comment about rape, you either misunderstand or are a crude Cretan. I don’t know which. I hope the first.
Peace to you.
agreed,(”Quick answer:Yes”) before I scroll on.
Anti-life positions are of the unfruitful works of darkness and must be fought, exposed (Eph 5:11).
Add too that since virtually the whole Demoncat party is anti-life, its impossible to be “Christian” and vote Demoncat.
Alan Keyes took it on the chin in his run for the US Senate against zer0 for saying as much but Dems Da Facts.
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