Posted on 01/05/2010 9:46:47 PM PST by the_conscience
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Amen!
DR E:
Even sincere Christians can practice idolatry. As you once commented, we do it every day when we put something or someone either ahead of or on the same level as the Triune God.
Truly said.
Whether a beloved spouse, child, self, things or whatever - for however long something is as important to us as God (or more so) - we are idolators.
And the thing which has robbed God of our undivided love can even be unpleasant, e.g. a stubbed toe, anger, self-pity.
Even something as subtle as worry reveals that, for as long as we are worried, we are not trusting God and believing Him.
Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day [is] the evil thereof. - Matt 6:31-34
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. – Matthew 22:35-40
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Qx:
INDEED.
AND, as Oswald Chambers quoted, I think someone else, THE GOOD IS THE ENEMY OF THE BEST. As you noted . . . loving even one's spouse or children equal to or more than God is idolatry. Yet it is good to love one's spouse and children intensely.
I think God's Spirit alone can clue us in where the dividing line is FOR EACH OF US--AND THAT LINE CHANGES--day to day, moment by moment. ONLY HOLY SPIRIT can exhort us reliably on that.
The great spiritually dangerous hazard is . . . to take such things for granted and to ASSUME that THE GOOD is safe and righteous in God's eyes. He IS THE BEST and EXPECTS THE BEST AND IS CERTAINLY WORTHY THE BEST.
INDEED. AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
THX.
WONDERFULLY AND ANOINTEDLY WELL SAID, imho.
THX.
INDEED.
HISTORICAL FACT.
Thanks.
I think this Oswald Chambers segment from that thread is worth posting here:
Daily Reflections with Oswald Chambers [January 24, 2010]
My Utmost for His Highest (The Golden Book of Oswald Chambers;1992) ^ | 1935/1992 | Oswald Chambers
Posted on Sunday, January 24, 2010 5:20:05 AM by Vision
God’s Overpowering Purpose
“I have appeared to you for this purpose . . .”
—Acts 26:16
The vision Paul had on the road to Damascus was not a passing emotional experience, but a vision that had very clear and emphatic directions for him. And Paul stated, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19). Our Lord said to Paul, in effect, “Your whole life is to be overpowered or subdued by Me; you are to have no end, no aim, and no purpose but Mine.” And the Lord also says to us, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go . . .” (John 15:16).
When we are born again, if we are spiritual at all, we have visions of what Jesus wants us to be. It is important that I learn not to be “disobedient to the heavenly vision”Ðnot to doubt that it can be attained. It is not enough to give mental assent to the fact that God has redeemed the world, nor even to know that the Holy Spirit can make all that Jesus did a reality in my life. I must have the foundation of a personal relationship with Him. Paul was not given a message or a doctrine to proclaim. He was brought into a vivid, personal, overpowering relationship with Jesus Christ.Acts 26:16 is tremendously compelling “. . . to make you a minister and a witness . . . .” There would be nothing there without a personal relationship. Paul was devoted to a Person, not to a cause. He was absolutely Jesus Christ’s. He saw nothing else and he lived for nothing else. “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).
from
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2436015/posts
I took the old LONG 2 day ones, I prayed my way through them ..
l
Thank you. You are both very kind.
With respect: FIRST he says, "I live, yet not I...." It's not a slam dunk either way. If 'he' does not live, who is this 'me' in whom Christ lives.
Clearly I am not Jesus. Clearly the shootin' ain't over yet. I like "battle of the two natures" a lot.
It seems to me Paul often talks two ways: One I (me myself personally, this is MY hobbyhorse) would call eschatological. it is, as it were, looking back from the consummation. The other is the "in the meantime" view.
I would suggest that ONE way (the best, of course, since it's mine ... of course. Wait. Are you listening? I said. of course, darn it!) to understand it is to think of the future growing in us like a germ or some kind of principle (in the medieval sense of the word.)
I would express it as "coming true" that I do not live, but Christ lives in me. The "old man", the "body of flesh" fights on like a zombie, dead but not all the way dead. The new man (Christ in me) is part of the whole "groaning together in travail" thing, coming to birth.
These are some of the metaphors and likenesses which help me think abotu what Paul says, anyway. I hope they are if not clear, then at least evocative and useful in that respect.
I know them to be anti-Catholic slander because I study Catholic doctrine as defined by the Church.
You wrote about people being misled by priests. The inference is that you thought people would treat priests as students (or disciples) treat teachers.
Having failed to make the proper inferences from the important difference that many Protestant churches hire their pastors while Catholic churches get them assigned, you erred in discussing the relationship between parishioner and priest. In that way you said something about how we treat our clergy.
I can't speak to the issue of "recall".
But my main contentions stands. On the one hand you talk about almost begging us to tell you what we teach and believe WHILE AT THE SAME TIME you tell us what we teach and believe and that it is as wrong as can be.
In my opinion, a person firmly wedded to his evaluation of a thing does not think he needs to know anything about it. He thinks he already knows enough.
More, please?
To me the two branching questions were (1) What is the difference between FELT compassion and CHOSEN compassion; and (2.a) What, if any, emotions are felt by the blessed; which is the same as (2.b) In what way, if any, are emotions rightly said to be part of the essence of humanity?
So IF I'm getting this, FK is trying on the whole and seeing how it comports with other ideas. To me this is the joy of such conversations, or one of the joys.
It’s hard to hear when you know everything. All that knowledge leaks out of the brain and obstructs the chambers of the ears.
VI. Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation.
Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. In the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.The Thirty-nine Articles
(known to Anglicans with
a sense of humor as
'the forty lashes save one.')
The basic stuff, anybody can teach.
Jesus loves you,
died for your sins,
if you give your self to IHS and invite Him to make Himself known to you you will enjoy His presence in your heart
be baptized
Receive the sacrament
Go to Mass
You know what you shouldn't be doing - don't do it.
You know what you should be doing, do it.
If people want more, then there are lots of ways to find it. At my last parish I did a weekly Bible study, and the priest did a long course on the Psalms. At my current Parish there is at least one class of some kind or another going on every evening.
DRE's have to have some kind of official okey-dokey from the DIocese I think, and, in general the more teaching one does, the more the 'pressure' to get some kind of official okey-dokey.
We have a few intro to the Bible things every year, then a number of groups that decide which book they want to (as I put it) "blitz". But there are other classes on other things. I love that I can leave a class at 2130 and there are still lights on, some poeple praying together others studying, others planning. It can't ALWAYS be that active, but it's still the most active parish I've ever been in, seen, or heard of.
I think that's more or less how it works in the real world. We
;-)
Sure I have...But MD is a peculiar Dog...Mad Dawg talks an awful lot like a Protestant but then he clearly has diverged his Protestant upbringing with all that Catholic stuff...
None of you guys sound like Mad Dawg and he doesn't sound like any of you...So I don't know that anyone could claim Mad Dawg is the Catholic's Catholic...Sounds too Protestant too me...What's your view???
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