Posted on 04/30/2010 8:03:48 AM PDT by Quix
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7 “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. 8 Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! 9 Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, --New Living Translation 7And when you pray, do not heap up phrases (multiply words, repeating the same ones over and over) as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard for their much speaking. [I Kings 18:25-29.] 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. 9Pray, therefore, like this: 15But if you do not forgive others their trespasses [their [j]reckless and willful sins, [k]leaving them, letting them go, and [l]giving up resentment], neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses. --Amplified Pray with Simplicity 5"And when you come before God, don't turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat? 6"Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace. 7-13"The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They're full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don't fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this: 16-18"When you practice some appetite-denying discipline to better concentrate on God, don't make a production out of it. It might turn you into a small-time celebrity but it won't make you a saint. If you 'go into training' inwardly, act normal outwardly. Shampoo and comb your hair, brush your teeth, wash your face. God doesn't require attention-getting devices. He won't overlook what you are doing; he'll reward you well. |
Mark Kirby: O Mother of Good Counsel, I am all thine, Most Holy Mary, There is no part of my life that is not open to thee, I want to be completely transparent with thee, Praying in this way, I can be at rest, |
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Thanks for your very significant contribution to the thread.
Accurate and out of a good heart.
Good on ya.
Heading to bed.
Have a blessed weekend.
Sorry to say but all that can be said is your John Hardon lied to all of you...
Joh 16:28 I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.
Joh 16:7
Joh 16:8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
Joh 16:9 Of sin, because they believe not on me;
Joh 16:10 Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more;
And there it is in the Blessed red ink...
Johnny Hardon is perverting scripture and you guys eat it up...Apparently you'll believe anything and everything EXCEPT God...
There's not a piece of God breathed scripture any where that suggests Jesus will be brought back to earth by your clerics to be turned into a wafer and be eaten...
"The magnificence and grandeur of this corrupt religion that has become so rich at the expense of people, at the impoverishing of people, has bewitched the gullible world. They preach another gospel. How can we not see that? And for any man to be called “Holy Father,” and accept it...Jesus called God Holy Father in John 17 in His high priestly prayer, Jesus said, “Call no man father,” as if any man is the source of spiritual life, “Call no man father,” and yet the whole priesthood, they’re all called father...occasionally I’m even called father which is no small offense to me. He is called Holy Father, he’s usurped the title intended for God. He’s called the Head of the Church, he’s usurped a title intended for Christ. He’s called the Vicar of Christ, vicar connected to the word vicarious, the one who stands in the place of Christ and he has stolen that from the Holy Spirit. He has set himself in the place of God, he has set himself in the place of Christ and he has set himself in the place of the Holy Spirit, and that is overstepping your bounds. I don’t think Jesus or God the Father or the Holy Spirit would go to a meeting with Muslims, say they share a common spiritual bond and kiss the Koran." -- John MacArthur, THE POPE AND THE PAPACY
The writings of 'Ignatius' were fabricated...Forgeries...You may as well quote from a Pearl of Great Price...
Exactly...
***How do you know what the saints in heaven do and don’t hear and answer? Have you been there?***
Have you?
Spiritual hermit crabs are most . . . tragic.
I believe a number of such will make Heaven--all the truly Blood Bought, submitted wholly to Jesus.
However, to arrive on Jordan's other shore and to suddenly realize what might have been . . . that too will be tragic--to some degree, likely for all of us.
We are wise to minimize such a likelihood at any stage in our lives. What a treasure to do so, young.
While MacArthur is right, he needs to chill some on that issue.
While technically Catholics are wrong in this area, they do not see it and are doing it out of recognition of his role as a spiritual leader and honor to him. Some Catholics honestly don't know any better and would not know to use the term *Pastor*. No Catholic takes spiritual leadership lightly but has great respect for the position, even for other denominations with which they don't agree.
He should recognize the intent with which it's used and worry about correcting their misconception only in regards to himself, that he's not Catholic but prefers.... Pastor (I'm presuming)
roamer: "No. In fact, y'all shouldn't even have priests."
You are very correct - priests are not a part of the offices of Christian churches. Romeans (sic) have changed the meaning of "presbyteros" to mean a "priest" instead of its true meaning of an Elder/Bishop.
roamer: "In fact, the whole of 1 Cor 4 speaks against what you have proposed, and Paul states exactly that what he is speaking of about himself is figurative..."
Peter tells us that Paul wrote some thing that are hard to understand which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other scriptures, to their own destruction (II Peter 3:15-16).
roamer: "It is foolhardy to try to bend a figurative treatise against the declared word of Christ."
Excellent observation!
everything EXCEPT God...
That relentlessly demonstrated fact over these 10+ years is perhaps the single most significant nonBiblical fact that has kept a fierce fire burning in my spirit toward being as vividly and fiercely active in declaring Biblical Truth as I more or less could these many years.
If following them around most of their waking hours with coffee or tea and crumpets or chocolate covered almonds or raspberry tarts and Hagen Daz or rib-eye steaks or levitated Laz-Y-Boy's--were possible and would help--I'd do it.
If fasting to skin and bones and praying 18 hours a day, 7 days a week were possible for me and would help, somehow, I'd manage a way to do it.
I realize that many Roman Catholics et al hereon see me almost as the devil incarnate. Thankfully, they are wrong, again. I'm flawed enough. Thankfully, by God's Grace through Christ's Blood, I'm no longer near that flawed.
Many such folks seem to think that my motivation is horrendously mean spirited, carnal, even demonic.
The TRUTH is far the opposite of that.
Sometimes, it feels like I haven't learned a great deal for my 63 years of uhhhh burping and bloviating.
Sometimes, it feels like I have a lot of dull arrows in my quiver that seem to fly too often curved or wobbly.
[tears] However, I have learned the hard way and many dozens of times . . . that the very odd bird of rare plumage that God HAS CRAFTED within my skin and even between my ears and certainly within my heart and spirit--that too easily absurd character does have impact on a wide variety of personalities--and often when I least expect it--and often by some of my least winsome qualities and ways.
I've long wished it otherwise. I've long wished that the passionate caring that burns so intensely within me only came out in grandfatherly hugs and gentle Walter Brennen flavored Holy Spirit wisdom. Sometimes I can seem to be graced with and manage that brief--occasionally. Most of the time, my thrownness and assignment is otherwise scripted.
And the pot does not complain to the Master Potter unless the pot wants ground to grog-grit for the umpteenth time and mixed with new clay and begun anew on the whirling wheel of pressure, mud and risk of flying splat on the wall yet again. Thankfully, the Master Potter doesn't do that often--and usually only for effect to make an emphatic point.
I know I'm NOT one size fits all. And that's still too often frustrating and saddening.
Yet, it's NOT my job to be . . . how to say it . . . Yes, I'm to be broken bread and poured out hopefully sweet wine to those who cross my path--even Jesus' hands extended; Jesus' Heart enfolding; Jesus' Truth Freeing. Yet, I cannot be, was not designed to be, am not permitted to be the existential answer or even messenger to every person's every spiritual problem or cluelessness. What a burden of humility that would require!
I can only be me.
[lots of tears] HOWEVER, GOD HAS FASHIONED lil ol very flawed bird-of-rare-off-the-wall-plumage me--even and particularly FOR HIS PURPOSES. And, He IS carrying them out in spite of me and in spite of everyone else. PRAISE AND BLESSED BE HIS NAME.
I cannot construct, as my housemate with my wife once accused me of trying to do--I cannot construct the ideal tailormade swimming pool and under water basket weaving course to solve every person's existential spiritual growth glitch, roadblock.
THANKFULLY that's Holy Spirit's task anyway.
I have chosen and do choose and will, prayerfully, relentlessly choose to be HIS BROKEN BREAD AND POURED OUT WINE regardless of the assaults, lambasts, misunderstandings, outrages, gritches, . . . whatever . . . whether it looks like that to everyone else, or not.
So I persist in declaring as vividly and forthrightly as I can priority messages--such as the highest priority message well above "FLASH OVERRIDE:"
I don't care if every church 'Father,'
every scrap of extra-Biblical document,
every magicsterical and cluster of power-mongering elite,
every monk in every monestary since Noah,
every king, editor, general, admiral, university dean, president & potentate from hell to Alpha Centauri around the world and back said and/or says otherwise--
GOD CHOSE
[not Prottys, not scribes, not editors, not book sellers, not imbibing translators],
Of course, satan has other notions to infect hearts and minds with. "Did God REALLLLLLLLY !!!!SAY!!!! . . .??? Didn't God REALLY MEAN . . . ???"
. . . the mean, deadly
seductive buZtard
[a cross between a buzard and a . . .]
literally hell-bent on destroying to shattered eternal DEATH every believer possible.
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GOD'S WORD IS LIFE, ETERNAL LIFE AND SOUL PEACE BECAUSE THE LIVING WORD THE CHRIST IS PART AND PARCEL OF THE WRITTEN WORD--BY WHICH HOLY SPIRIT ENLIVENS AND MATURES, LEADING INTO ALL TRUTH AND RIGHTEOUSNESS THE WILLING COOPERATIVE HEART.
It doesn't matter the sweet wrapping, the layers of white hankies, the Pomp and Circumstance; the angels of light visual displays.
DEADLY IS STILL DEADLY.
HAZARDOUS TO ETERNAL LIFE
IS STILL HAZARDOUS TO ETERNAL LIFE.
Partake at your own risk.
There are no sufficient air-bags
to cushion one's landing in hell.
And even to arrive in Heaven and realize how outrageously one has foolishly, lazily, cowardly missed their personal Mark of the High Calling potential IN JESUS, IN GOD'S LIVING WORD--THAT alone is sufficient cause to ponder most carefully
Thank you for stating the Catholic position so succinctly (in the midst of your post)
However, it is also still true that CHRIST SAID HE WOULD NEVER LEAVE US NOR FORSAKE US. I believe HE IS IN US VIA HIS SPIRIT. It is still existential Biblical truth that HE NEEDS RETURNED TO HEAVEN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF THE FATHER THAT HOLY SPIRIT COULD DO HIS--CHRIST-IN-EVERY-BELIEVER WORK. There are mysteries involved. However, I think that much is clear. I'm not, at this stage of my growing out of the "terrible two's" overly dogmatic about every nth detail of "THE REAL PRESENCE" in the Lord's Supper issue. I can argue both sides of it, to SOME degree. My bias still is that CHRIST set it up as a commemoration rather than an existential magical moment. Holy Spirit already resides as Christ within every Believer. I am UTTERLY CONVINCED that the 'magical moment' industry that the Vatican edifice foists on the world is at best a grossly distorted into an ALMOST exclusivist gig that is a travesty against the broken Body and Blood of Christ. I can imagine that God is large enough, gracious enough and Merciful enough that HE WOULD STILL, nevertheless, meet many folks AT THAT POINT AND INSURE THAT ACCORDING TO THEIR FAITH--IT WAS MADE SO BE IT, UNTO THEM to some serious, real, Biblical degrees and ways. HE IS SOVEREIGN IN HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH EACH INDIVIDUAL regardless of a lot of other stuff. I'm convinced that God is much, MUCH more intent on Holy Spirit dividing between the bone and the marrow within each Believer's heart, mind, soul and body in ways that produce spiritual growth and ultimately register in their conscious, moment by moment, daily, praying always, life. Coasting through the day on a magical moment with the Lord's Supper is NOT HIS focus, nor His way, imho. However, Pentecostals, Calvinists et al can also construct idolatrous magic moment talismans* in their own systems and habits, too. [*yes, I checked the spellling, for once. LOL]
OH DEAR!
The golden plates of Ignatius?
My, my.
To my reading,
those who convincingly HAVE been THERE and returned to tell about it—tell a VERY different narrative than the Roman Edifice would have us believe on such matters.
I agree.
I AGREE:
JG: “Should we call priests “Father”?”
roamer: “No. In fact, y’all shouldn’t even have priests.”
You are very correct - priests are not a part of the offices of Christian churches. Romeans (sic) have changed the meaning of “presbyteros” to mean a “priest” instead of its true meaning of an Elder/Bishop.
roamer: “In fact, the whole of 1 Cor 4 speaks against what you have proposed, and Paul states exactly that what he is speaking of about himself is figurative...”
Peter tells us that Paul wrote some thing that are hard to understand which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other scriptures, to their own destruction (II Peter 3:15-16).
roamer: “It is foolhardy to try to bend a figurative treatise against the declared word of Christ.”
Excellent observation!
You are welcome.
However, Mark, a LOT of your pontificators
sound and write quite otherwise.
. . . quite often.
There's a good measure of sobering truth in your words.
However, it is also still true that CHRIST SAID HE WOULD NEVER LEAVE US NOR FORSAKE US. I believe HE IS IN US VIA HIS SPIRIT.
It is still existential Biblical truth that HE NEEDS RETURNED TO HEAVEN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF THE FATHER THAT HOLY SPIRIT COULD DO HIS--CHRIST-IN-EVERY-BELIEVER WORK.
There are mysteries involved.
However, I think that much is clear. I'm not, at this stage of my growing out of the "terrible two's" overly dogmatic about every nth detail of "THE REAL PRESENCE" in the Lord's Supper issue. I can argue both sides of it, to SOME degree.
My bias still is that CHRIST set it up as a commemoration rather than an existential magical moment. Holy Spirit already resides as Christ within every Believer. I am UTTERLY CONVINCED that the 'magical moment' industry that the Vatican edifice foists on the world is at best a grossly distorted into an ALMOST exclusivist gig that is a travesty against the broken Body and Blood of Christ.
I can imagine that God is large enough, gracious enough and Merciful enough that HE WOULD STILL, nevertheless, meet many folks AT THAT POINT AND INSURE THAT ACCORDING TO THEIR FAITH--IT WAS MADE SO BE IT, UNTO THEM to some serious, real, Biblical degrees and ways.
HE IS SOVEREIGN IN HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH EACH INDIVIDUAL regardless of a lot of other stuff.
I'm convinced that God is much, MUCH more intent on Holy Spirit dividing between the bone and the marrow within each Believer's heart, mind, soul and body in ways that produce spiritual growth and ultimately register in their conscious, moment by moment, daily, praying always, life.
Coasting through the day on a magical moment with the Lord's Supper is NOT HIS focus, nor His way, imho.
...
However, Pentecostals, Calvinists et al can also construct idolatrous magic moment talismans* in their own systems and habits, too. [*yes, I checked the spellling, for once. LOL]
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