For what it’s worth, you’re in the religious company (have to qualify that one, as you’ll see;)) of my grandfather, who founded a church, and my father, who is a monk. Not awful company;)
His4ever…
Both exist. Both are there, and both are true…in My belief system, anyway. And I got there by studying, my OWN SELF, the Scriptures. Not looking for ways to make it easier on myself or anyone else, just honestly studying the Scriptures.
So, where is the balance in what you post? IF you really believe what I just quoted, then I have to tell you…what is universally coming across in your body of posts is the “Hell and Damnation” kind of information. ACCEPT THE LOVE OF GOD OR ELSE YOU ARE A HORRIBLE PERSON, YOU ARE A SINNER, AND YOU ARE GOING TO BE CAST INTO THE FIERY PITS OF HELL AND BURN FOR ALL ETERNITY! REPENT, OR GOD WILL SMITE YOU, AND YOUR FAMILY!!!
See, what I have been TRYING to tell you for what seems like YEARS is that…we have all sinned, and come short of the glory of God. It doesn’t matter if you told a lie when you were three, and never EVER sinned again (like THAT could have happened) or if you have spent a lifetime trying to practice every single sin in the book. Doesn’t matter. Also it doesn’t matter what particular sin you do…they are ALL the same in God’s sight. So, whether you think that homosexuality is a sin or not, it ISN’T OUR PLACE TO JUDGE and it DOESN’T MATTER ANYWAY!!! WE HAVE ALL SINNED AND CONTINUE TO DO SO!!!
I believe that Christ made the propitiation for my sins, and He has covered my sins with his sacrifice. So, I believe, do you.
I, on the other hand, do NOT believe that it is MY PLACE TO JUDGE THE SINS OF OTHERS…you appear to feel that it is your duty to DO SO. If a brother or sister in Christ needs to be corrected, it is my belief that it is our duty to do so. But you appear to feel that it is your Christian duty to condemn people who are NOT brothers and sisters in Christ.
So, okay, I guess we have a theological difference of opinion. Well, fine, it happens and I am not a scholar of the original Word, so maybe I am wrong about that and you are right.
If it is true that you are right about that and I am wrong, then you are living under the law. And the law states quite clearly that YOU ARE LIVING IN SIN.
So, what is it to be? Are you living under the law of love and forgiveness, or are you living under the law?
Because it seems to me that you have a foot in both camps. For OTHERS, you have the duty to condemn. Under your interpretation of Biblical Law. For yourself, you live under the New Testament law of love, and are forgiven.
I have already said this to you, but here I go again.
“Conviction” is NOT what we are instructed to do. We are instructed to present the gospel. CONVICTION is the job of the Holy Spirit. WE are instructed to “plant the seed” and the Holy Spirit is in charge of the rest. NOWHERE do I find in the Scriptures that we are supposed to run around telling others about their sins, save the fact that they DO sin. As do we all. Not our job to point out what their sin IS, so discussions about whether or not (for example) homosexuality IS a sin isn’t necessary, right or a good idea.
I leave you with this, and again…I have said it to you before. I don’t think you heard me.
WHAT did Jesus say are the greatest commandments?
“Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God with all your heart, and with all your mind.”
“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
ARE YOU LOVING GOD OR YOUR NEIGHBOR with your posts here?
I am sorry, since I think you are sincere in your wish to help and do the Lord’s will…but I DON’T THINK YOU ARE DOING EITHER OF THESE THINGS!
Joe: Why should I waste my time with answering your questions? You’ve already publicly declared that there’s no way you’ll change your mind about the LDS.
Nice channelling of Jesus there, btw. But, for grins I’ll tell you something: you’re not Jesus either.
Oh, and as to you doing your part: You accused me of telling a lie when it was, in fact, you who was so doing.
You also started a pit thread in which you called one of the moderators a hypocrite, apparently because you were peeved at getting your third warning about insulting people outside of the Pit.
You’ll note that I have never accused you or H4E of not being Christians. That judgment appears to be reserved to you two.
[end of response to silly hijack/]
And a belated Happy Yule to you.
Lady, after all the things I have said here, it might sound bizarre to say me too. However, me too. One of my biggest struggles has been, and still is, reconciling Christianity and liberalism – it very much dominated my last years of college and still comes to my mind rather often. For all that I try to be a “good religious rightist,” I don’t quite think I’ll ever succeed at it. For all the lines that I can parrot, I’m secretly an “evil liberal (or is that lie-beral?)” at heart.
cjhoworth, my impulse control isn’t so great right now and I’m now itching to see this new GD thread 
At this point in my life, there is no way that I am a religious rightist. I am instead failing at keeping both the commandment of love and the letter of the law, and if by some miracle I were to accidentally emphasize love to the detriment of keeping the law, I can’t say that that would be a bad thing.
And now getting into “heresyland,” does being born again have to be one memorable, discrete experience? Isn’t consistently growing in God much more important than having some big epiphany?
Gosh, if you’d actually read the item you quoted, you’d have seen that I did not, in fact, say that there’s no way I’ll change my mind. Evidently you don’t understand the difference between “I don’t think so” and “there is no way.”
You know, that would be particularly scathing, if only I had ever claimd to be. :rolleyes:
You really have a problem with your word definitions, don’t you? You should go and look up the difference between a lie and a mistake (which I already acknowledged and apologized for). You do know how to use a dictionary, don’t you? But then, I guess your little deliberate error (or “lie”) helps you in your quest to demonize your opponents when you can’t fairly answer their points, eh?
And this has what to do with what?
I’m not accusing you of anything. I already apologized for the insults I directed at you, and now I am only asking for information regarding your faith. I would like to see how the LDS church reconciles those words with the Bible. A relatively simple question, which you refuse to answer - preferring, obviously, to sidetrack the issue by talking about what a terrible person you think I am.
I feel like King Arthur in the coconut sketch.
A couple of quick points:
The evangelicals I associate with seem to define what “being a Christian” is as accepting Jesus Christ as one’s individual Lord and Savior – never mind what your parents or your clergyman do; what’s your relationship to Him?
By that standard, any LDS member who affirms the church teaching quoted above as valid for him or her would have to be a Christian. Granted that there are some phenomenally large questions of theology packed into what little I know of Mormon doctrine that would fit neither Joe Cool’s understanding of evangelical theology nor mine of Episcopal theology (and I suspect we could extend that for Catholics, Orthodox, Methodists, and so on) – but, as we used to say on the Pizza Parlor when the theological debates got hot and heavy – “That’s not a salvation issue.” From what I know of Monty, while he believes what his church teaches regarding theology, the key point to him is that we are reconciled to God through the salvific work of Jesus Christ who is his and my Lord and Savior. By Evangelical doctrine, that makes him a Christian.
Like I said to you once, Joe, I sincerely hope that one day we will stand together before the Throne of Grace and both get lovingly chastized about where we were wrong in our doctrine. Would it be asking too much to expect Monty to be there with us, getting the same compassionate lecture about where he’s wrong?
With regard to His4Ever’s answer to my wife about the universality of the Atonement, may I suggest a couple of passages:
My friend Mean Girl and I have had several fruitful discussions on the significance of the “universal” passages in the New Testament – and while we’ve not resolved our theological disputes, we do have agreement on one thing: We are saved, not by our own good deeds or by our own faith, but by the unmerited grace of God Who loved us even in our sins.
To me that is key. We are not “saved” through some careful footwork to jump through the right theological hoops and satisfy a legalistic deity – we are saved because of the love of God Who cared enough to send Jesus to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance. I refuse to put any bounds around His love and His redeeming work.
I do not worry for my own salvation – I am called to have faith in Him. And that means trusting Him to do what He has said He will do, and trying to do His work in this world.
That is the Good News we are called to preach – not that God Who is prepared to smite us all will be merciful to a few, but that He loves us all enough to die in agony for our sakes.
I know full well the need you feel, His4Ever, to stand by the words of Scripture and not water them down for the sake of public renown. But I say to you that the strictness of the Law and the judgmentalism of those who enforce it are the precise opposite of what Jesus came to proclaim – that the God whom the Jews had misconceived as a legalist and stern judge is really instead a loving Father who is not willing that any of His children should perish. You and I are called to spread that message.
Let me add these words from Paul:
That I am posting this tonight from my home – the very computer on which I am posting it – is clear and present witness to the truth of those words. Please, dear lady, see your way clear to show people God’s love, as our Lord commanded us to.
{Esprix does a happy non-Christian dance, because he is happy he is not Christian}
Esprix
You know, I don’t KNOW if a devout LDS member is or could be a Christian. I DON’t KNOW! I don’t know if the person sitting next to me in the pew on Sunday morning is going to meet me in heaven some day, either. It is, quite frankly, between that person and God. Again, NOT MY BUSINESS!!!
The nice thing about this, for me, is that since it is NOT MY BUSINESS TO JUDGE this, I don’t have to worry about it.
It is GOD’S BUSINESS, not mine. I was never once, in all the Scripture I have read, EVER told to make a judgement as to who was and who was not going to meet me in glory. Only God can make that judgement, and I have never seen any passage in the Bible which indicates that I have that ability, or that responsibility, simply because I have accepted Christ’s sacrifice and been forgiven for my many sins.
In fact, I have seen MANY Scriptures that exhorted me to “Judge not that ye be not judged.” “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” and etc. I don’t know how you could misunderstand that and think that you DO have the right to be judging others outside those who are your brothers or sisters in Christ.
I am, in many ways, a simple woman. I love those I love with passion and devotion and a singleminded intent to make their lives better. I will do whatever it takes to make this so, if it is within my power. I want them to know about my love for Christ, and I hope I make it clear that any good thing within me is beCAUSE of the love of Christ. I do NOT beat them over the head with a baseball bat about it all the time, because IT IS NOT MY JOB. It is the Holy Spirit’s job to convict if necessary, NOT MINE. All I can do is live my life so the love of Christ shines through, and make it clear that I am only who I am BECAUSE of the love of Christ.
And the truth is, I don’t really know many people I don’t love…I think THAT is a gift God has given me. Of course, there are many degrees of love, and I am not saying that I love my close friends the same way I love people I don’t know. BUT, the love is THERE, anyway. I know that this is a difficult concept to grasp, and that many people think that when I say I am sending love and prayers, I am just saying it. I MEAN it, but I understand if people don’t believe it.
One of my best friends is Jewish. The another is now agnostic, having been driven from faith by by the same hateful stuff being spewed here by His4ever. Am I bitter about that last thing? Yes, I am. Or at least as bitter as I have it within me to BE…which isn’t much. Not toward God, who didn’t DO it…but toward the people who felt they had the right to judge her life to the point where all she saw was these people instead of God. To those people who “judged” her although they were just as imperfect as her and the rest of us, but still felt compelled to tell her how “sinful” she was. Am I going to browbeat my friend about her “lack of faith”? No, I am not. She KNOWS what I believe, she sees me live it as best I can, and she loves me. It isn’t my place to convict her to “come back to God”…in fact, I would almost consider it sacrilege to assume that I COULD inspire her to “come back to God.” It is, once again, NOT MY BUSINESS. It is between God and her. GOD can do it, I certainly can’t, nor would I be presumptuous enough to think that I COULD.
This whole thing hurts my heart. It hurts my heart to the point where it makes me cry sometimes, because I feel God’s love in my life so immediately and compellingly that I don’t know how I could have made it through sometimes without it. And then I worry about the people I love who don’t FEEL that love when something awful happens to them. And you know what? I support them with MY love when awful things happen to them, and I want them to know that MY love is the love of God coming to them through me, and I don’t know if they believe that, but again…it ISN’T my place to make that determination…all I can do is to TRY to live the love of Christ.
And I can see that I am just rambling on here, and have maybe strayed far from the subject of this thread. I am very sorry, and now you all can see why I stay out of GD.
But may God Bless You for listening to me anyway.
I’ve started the thread. Polycarp, it’s good to have you back!
CJ
Having read many of H4E’s rants, and as one of those condemned to hell fire by her - because I’m a Buddhist - I just want to say something about H4E’s spiritual advisers.
The first time I saw her posts online I thought - she reminds me of someone else online - BETTY BOWERS
http://www.landoverbaptist.org
http://www.bettybowers.com/index.html
Does anyone else see this alarming similarity - could H4E actually BE Betty’s pseudonym???
His4ever has always come across to me as a Pharisee, placing burdens upon the shoulders of others that she herself is unwilling to bear.
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men–robbers, evildoers, adulterers–or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Luke 18:9-13
This thread seems to have turned out okay after all, in the last amount of posts.
But i do not think His4Ever will Ever 'get it".
I read the article and found nothing in it that Jesus may have taught, in my opinion your friend is not a Christian and does not understand the teachings of Jesus. Anyone who subscribes to this kind of philosophy is not Christian. So I am wondering why it is labeled Christian?
Love
Leroy
I, like Scotticher, am hurt by the people who teach others to fear God. I am at a loss to understand their hardness and lack of compassion. I feel they do much damage to others, trying to convert them. I want to yell at them, but they listen not.
God is love, compassion, and truth. He will always be there when someone; anyone calls for His help. It doesn’t matter what you have done or not done, what you believe or don’t believe. God is greater than any mistake you will ever make. He is there for you, with His love and compassion and safety. He holds us all safe for all eternity.
Love
Leroy
I see that you’re still misunderstanding. Teaching others to fear God is not the point, in my humble view. The point is what’s the truth? We shouldn’t be saying “this must be the truth because it’s what I want to hear” or “this has to be the truth because I don’t like that other way” or “after all, I’ve had an experience in the spiritual world”, etc. How in the world can it be damaging to try and convert or win people to the only Savior their soul can ever know?? This is the teaching of the Bible, not mine.
There is no hardness or lack of compassion in those who seek to win the lost. It’s because they have love and compassion and know God’s word that they do so. Of course, if you don’t see the Bible as an authority, as you don’t, then nothing more can be said. You’re still presenting an unbalanced view of God’s character according to what the Bible tells me, imho. As long as you quote only the love verses, I’ll continue to share the others. In my view, you’re placing your trust in the wrong thing : your information from your near death experience. This is just my opinion. I wouldn’t put my faith in that, but in God’s sure word. He should know what’s in the afterlife, after all He’s God.
Psalm 119:10 - The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom…
Proverbs 1:7 - The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
His4ever, here’s the Revised Standard version of verses 1-23 of Psalm 119:
Looks like a prayer to me. And verse 10, which is bolded, bears no resemblance to the passage you have quoted above.
The KJV version: “10 With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.”
Maybe you’re misremembering? Given that there are some 150 Psalms, mixing them up is hardly difficult.
Anyway, here’s Proverbs 1:1-19:
BTW, notice that quoting only Proverbs 1:13 gives way to a “scriptural support” of hoarding and greed. See now one reason some of us prefer to go with more than just a lone verse.
Right back at you, sister:D And as long as you keep presenting God’s anger and scorn and all that as being equal to his love, you’ll have a fight on your hands.
His4Ever, a devotional is a short worship service. Please examine your OP for any signs of worship.
If I were a non-believer, I would be put off by your tactics and words – not drawn to them.
Since your purpose seems to save souls, has anyone at SDMB been converted by your words yet? (Just curious) Converting through condemnation seems so counter-productive.
May you find “the peace that passeth all understanding.”
To His4ever
The point is you teach fear of God, without compassion and justify it by Bible versus. If you don’t know, I will tell you again, the Bible is full of contradictions about what to do and what to believe. So everyone chooses the path they want to walk. It is apparent that you have chosen the path of fear. I have chosen the path of love, compassion and truth. I try to follow the teachings of Jesus, which taught forgiveness and love and service to others.
If you can not find the contradictions this address will show them to you once and for all.
http://www.ffrf.org/lfif/contra.html
Love
Leroy
Esprix , why are you happy not to be a christian?
Because lots of his followers seem to be not nice?
Or …what?
I am curious vanilla