You cannot be “woke” in the world and in Christ.
Freewill. Everyone chooses for themselves. I know what my rock is and it sure doesn’t come from this world.
The great falling away is upon us...I’m reading these stories every week now. Some were “not of us,” but some, well, the Enemy of our soul apparently won. I simply don’t know how a person can TRULY trust in Jesus Christ and walk away.
To paraphrase Dorothy Gale, if you "lost" your salvation then you never really had it in the first place.
There is nothing wrong with making Salvation wholely dependent upon the atoning death of his Son. Without that act (which only God could do), man could never deserve to exist eternally in the presence of God.
But that is entirely different from the assertion that man can never do anything to destroy the Faith that he (or she) so fervently beleived at some prior point in their life. If a person can completely reject the Faith that they wholeheartedly believed in previously and still attain the Beatific Vision, then it makes a mockery of Faith in the first place. Bottom line: people have free will and there is at least one “work” a person must do. Namely to beleive (and to continue to beleive in) the Gospel as preached by Jesus of Nazareth.
Umpteenth article on this.
However, God has drawn and redrawn the line in the sand and for the last several years, has been forcing people to choose sides.
IMO, the false teachers are being exposed.
Persecution always purifies the church and causes it to grow.
I think we’re in the purification time, and the growth part will hopefully be starting soon.
They are joining the normal profile Christians who are also leaving.
Organized Christian religions feel like business/political organizations these days, not a religious ones.
Christians can practice Christianity without church affiliation just fine.
I’m glad I’ve never looked to “high-profile Christians” for guidance. Never heard of this guy.
Let me guess - he came out as gay.
I believe in God and in Christ Jesus but I’m not so enamored of today’s so-called Christian churches where sophomoric and pedantic music is the order of the day and where the Marxist seminary-indoctrinated pastors all but parrot the secular Marxist party line from the pulpit.
1 John 2:19 Ping.
1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.
Persecution is coming. Those who are in the church for the pot lucks and other perks are jumping ship.
2 Thessalonians 2:1-3
New King James Version
The Great Apostasy
2 Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, 2 not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of [a]Christ had come. 3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of [b]sin is revealed, the son of perdition,
Shane should immerse himself in how the early Church thought and spoke -- which dialectic is still alive in eastern Christianity -- and he'd understand this verse like it was written in neon lights.
It's coded language:
"enlightened" = baptized
"tasted the heavenly gift" = received the Eucharist
"shared in the Holy Spirit" = confirmation/chrismation
Crystal clear to Christians at the time Hebrews was written.
Eh. So what? People come and go. The real question is “Why are these things being made into ‘News”?” There’s an agenda here.
Seems to me that when your Christianity more resembles motivational speaking, then you are already on the way out the door. Maxwell is more motivational speaker than anything else.
One BIG problem is not being born again the way the scriptures teach it. Acts 2:38 comes after the listeners of the gospel message preached by Peter (who was taught by Jesus), were “pricked in their heart” (vs 37). What they heard, they believed; for you can’t feel conviction for something you don’t believe. I strongly suspect that the man may have repented at some point, but not baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, nor filled with the Holy Ghost.
Secondly, being born again spiritually puts one in one of the seven churches. All of the saints, in all of the seven churches, are told he “that overcometh”; indicating that there is potential for not overcoming. Not overcoming would seem to be a choice. God is faithful to the faithful. So failure wouldn’t be God’s fault.
Christ died once and took all sins of all time to the cross with him. If that were not so, then anyone who sins after accepting Jesus is screwed.
But we know Paul speaking as a Christian lamented that he did that which he ought not, and didn't do that which he ought. Rom 7. Paul clearly continued to struggle with sin as a Christian. Yet he also claimed Jesus had freed him.
In Rom 8, we see there is no condemnation. What's more Paul asserts that nothing in life nor death can separate him from the Love of God
Romans 8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you[a] free from the law of sin and death.
Rom 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In 2 Tim, we see that promise depends on "He is able". Not "me is able". That's why Paul can assert nothing in life nor death can separate him. The contract is sealed. Doesn't depend on Paul any more. There is no condemnatio for the Christian. There might be chastisement Heb 12:6-9. There might be removal of stumbling blocks. But in the final analysis, Jesus will not lose one of those whom he is given. John 18.9. See post 11 too.
2 TIm 1 12 That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.
Sermon I heard yesterday was talking about this:
2 Peter 2:21
For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.