Posted on 08/27/2010 11:45:13 AM PDT by Hank Kerchief
Not only is that a personal insult, but it implies motive or mind set. Clearly outside the rules you profess to know so well and are so quick to enforce on others.
He did not force Paul to love Him or to follow Him or evangelize. He asked him a question, basically, "what are you doing?"
That's what it takes to turn us from our own reflection to the face of God
If that face of God is hateful, no real love can follow.
If you think you are doing the turning, you are detracting from the grace that belongs to God alone.
If you think no one can repent, then Jesus was wasting His breath.
Make that seven ecumenical, or church-widecouncils.
Typical, is what it is.
indeed, we are told this in all of the Roman's church's writings about Mary. Whereas God the Father is relegated to the retirement bin.
There is a simple solution. Rather than take your input from dubious sources, poorly Catechized individual, anecdotes and snippets and quips from online dialog you should seek out the Church itself and attend classes. You can always reject the teachings later, but at least you would be making an eyes open, informed decision.
As it is faith in HIM which results in salvation
I would say that faith in Him is a gift He gives in His Grace and it is His grace which conducts us to salvation.
The Grace "causes" the gift of Faith, the Faith, is the substance of things hoped for, that is an early taste of the promised salvation; and the evidence of things not seen, that is the gift which testifies to the as yet unseen salvation.
Much more likely it will be you who says ""You know, Mary is less than I thought, praise God, and that is because God is more than I thought."
In fact, it wouldn't hurt to proclaim that right this minute, as Scripture instructs.
I think the boldness with which we approach Him will not be compromised by the detailedness of our understanding of the role saints and angels and little old ladies (of either sex) have played in our Salvation.
You should hope so.
And who argues that logic and reason are the same thing?
Bring that sucker out here!
Revisionism.
But none so until the moment of their death.
And you can't get to double predestination from there.
How do you presume to change this fact? You can't. What God foreknows will come to pass.
Knowing what choices I will make and making those choices for me are two different things.
The Calvinist knows that no man's will is "free." Men are either slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness, and that end has been declared by God from the beginning.
Yes, all is moot then. We are unwitting actors, reality is an illusion.
If God wanted all men to be saved, all men would be saved. He's God. He gets what He wants.Then we have to assume He wanted humans to have free will. A side benefit of this is love is possible, and life has meaning, we have choices, our choices matter. Perhaps God created more than a cruel play.
Some are condemned and some are acquitted. Do you deny this is true?
I tend to reject the lawyer Calvin's courtroom analogies. Some go to heaven, some to hell. And God is a just judge.
Is that all you’re going to say, or are you going to explain your view?
It’s just a little ridiculous to suggest that JPII kept his disagreement with Islam to himself, or that the visiting Muslims thought he agreed with them. You know, Dante has Mohammad in the circle of heretics eternally tortured. It’s hard for me to imagine that this is not known in the lands which moan under their abominable yoke.
So all I have to do to make you love me is hit you with a two by four and poke your eyes out.
This is far from the end of Paul's story.
um, no. God knocked him flat off his horse in blinding light,and rung his bell, leaving him blind until God let him see.. Then He said "Why are you persecuting Me?
So who was Paul "persecuting" exactly? By all accounts he was stoning men, women and children or beating them in synagoques. So why did Jesus say ME.
It was because these people were Christ's church, way long before Rome made a claim to it.
When the blind insist that they see, there is no need for me to take their claims too seriously.
The ability and will and desire to repent, like all good things, comes from God.
"In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth" -- 2 Timothy 2:25
Paul was slaughtering Christians. God threw him to the ground, caused him to tremble and then blinded him.
That is love. That God did not leave Paul in his sins, but grabbed hold of him in his darkness and turned him to the light of Christ.
As with Paul, so it is with all God's children.
Thank God.
It was because these people were Christ's church, way long before Rome made a claim to it.
AMEN!
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