To finish my response to your earlier posting:
I did not mean to leave the impression that Christ was “just some big ‘arrow’ to God. In fact, I am not quite certain how you came up with that specific thought. He is also the “truth,” and the life. To know Christ is to know God, because Christ had the mind of God. (“if you know me, you know my father”). I said, “to show us the way,” for clarity, as that is exactly why He came, but perhaps it would have been received had I said, “He was/is the way,” which to me could be more ambiguous, depending upon the receiver, I suppose. When I say “He is the way,” I am speaking of his teachings, which must be followed if we are to have the mind of Christ, which is consequently the mind of God. However, I must state this clearly: Having the mind of Christ does not mean ridding our minds of dirty thoughts and curse words, or cleaning up old negative feelings. It means discipline and readiness to accept what is. Because God is omnipresent, and omnipotent, because he is “above all, through all, and in us all,” it is then reasonable that to have the mind of God, we must open our minds; not close them. Jesus said that we must come as little children, again implying eager minds, eager to learn, accepting, loving, and so forth.
I must correct your apparent for “the cross.” It was not the cross, rather it was what he did there! He could have been nailed to the side of a building, or crushed under a rock, if and I say, IF that had been the tendency of the times. We must stop being fixed to things, and know that his love is intangible. I feel the same way about the fish and the sheep. Those were pertinent to the times; however, to tell someone who drills oil for a living that he will be made fishers of men, would seem strange. There were many shepherds then, but not here. Christ was right on with his analogies, and it is time that Christians are, or so it seems to me, but what do I know? J
re: ticket…..No, we are not the purchaser, because we have no worth with which to purchase anything from Christ; we are the recipient of his unmerited favor.
If salvation is not a process then why did James say to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling?” Actually, what I mean by “the plan of salvation” however, was that God had a plan for our salvation. Suggestion: I think it is best to stick with what is important rather than so readily getting into semantics. You say there are no rituals, really? Then what is it you think one must do to be saved?
You are really stretching things to say there are no rituals. I think of baptism, communion, kneeling, raising hands, clapping, folding hands, witnessing, gathering for meetings, Sunday School, and so forth. These are all practices for attaining what one needs to keep with the beliefs of different denominations. Those I gave are rituals included in all Christian beliefs. In some there is the sign of the cross, genuflecting, facing the altar when kneeling and so forth. It is a bit pretentious to try to write these off with some obscure happenstance of one dying before he has a chance to be baptized or to take communion, or whatever. Another definition for religion is: ~a point or matter of conscience. Another is: ~a particular system wherein the quest for the ideal life has been embodied. Another is: ~a recognition on the part of man of a controlling superhuman power entitled to obedience, reverence and worship. Ritual is not a bad word. Rituals were heavily practiced in the Jewish religion, which was the foreshadow of things to come, if you believe in biblical prophecy. Anyway, again, I admonish you not to cloudy your testimony with semantics. Better to say, “This is not like other religions inasmuch as …………..” Buddhism claims not to be a religion also. So what! Save that dogged stubbornness for things that really matter.
Oh, so works come afterward. Getting saved is easy, is it? Tell me with a straight face that suddenly believing in Christ and his sacrifice, in God and His plan, in Faith and its abundance, in Grace and her glory, just poof, and there it is. Magic! Right? Wrong.
As for those symbols not being essential to eternal life, I agree, but they are still rituals. You seem to take the position that you can decide what the word, religion, means, rather than using the meaning it already carries. This can make you sound uneducated, or at the best unrealistic, and what does it matter if one call Christianity a religion? It is, according to definition, though unique.
Of course, God judges the heart. You know man does not, right? He cannot. It is not such a wonder that God judges the heart, since He created it and knows how it works, speaking metaphysically, of course.
“Heart felt acceptance is full hearted belief.” I have no problem with that statement, as I am supposed you mean as opposed to half-hearted, so I will leave it at that.
What are you saying, “Is that the only thing Christ gives us?” Why do you jump on every statement like that? You are fearful, and you do not even realize it. You are so afraid that I, in my ignorance, will leave out an important step that pulls your beliefs altogether and makes sense of them. Before you get all hot under the collar about this, think about it. You cannot wait to make sure that I “have it right,” or else what? I will go to hell and it will be your fault, --is that possible? Or, I may lead folks astray with my half-assed religion, right? Please, give God some credit.
You wrote: “That’s not a real church. that’s an organization that condones wrong doing and asks for nothing in terms of repentence.” That is an incorrect assumption. The families of which I speak did initially repent, and they were good people, do not take this wrong. They were enslaved with extremes which did them no earthly good, and certainly no heavenly good. They came to church, spent hours at the altar, had open testimony, the forgiveness, the whole thing. But, the part to which I so much objected was that thereafter every testimony one from that family would give said the same old thing, and all the people would shake their heads. It just did not seem right. Forget that crap. When you keep on about something so wasting, you give it some kind of false worthiness, and there is no worthiness to excess, because it works against us. Whatever works against us in that way separates us from God’s calling. Anyway, I wanted them to talk about moving on. One of the biggest faults with organized religion—in general—is that they fail to nourish the believers. They are so busy trying to raise the count from 303 in church last Sunday, to 313 this Sunday, they forget that those who are there need to grow. What we call church is supposed to be for the saints, not for the sinners specifically. This is why Jesus said, “go.” He did not say “put up a building, make the services interesting to even those who know nothing about God, and folks will come. Then when they do, get them to the altar and do not let them go until they accept what you tell them.” In looking through the Pauline epistles, we find words to believers. In looking through the books of James Peter, John and Jude, we see words to believers. In Hebrews, the same. Those learned men wrote the best they knew how to encourage and edify believers; we ought to do the same.
You cannot “show” someone that Jesus loves them. That is ridiculous; how could you do that? “By this will they know that you are my disciples, in that you love one another.”
(Possibly paraphrased.)
You wrote, “But we are to become conformed by being submissive to Christ.” You have that a bit wrong. I think you are referring to: “Be ye not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind….” There again, we have that “Mind of Christ” thing.
If I am understanding you correctly, you live in constant fear of sinning. We sin. We are flawed. “It is finished.” What is so hard about that? Filling your heart and your life with love for God and His creation, which of necessity includes your fellow man, and seeking wisdom, hungering for truth, thirsting for rightness is what you need to do. You occupy yourself in that manner and stop that nonsense of worrying about whether you sin. Of course, you will! “If we sin we have an advocate with the Father.”
You wrote: “Let’s make sure that we use God’s Word to deduce what is avoidable and acceptable.”
Hokus pokus. We shall be cursed if we quote Spinoza, that dear man who lived his life as close to Christ’s teachings as anyone I could mention. That moderate, studious, well-educated, disciplined man. Oh, do not quote him. Quote rather this preacher or that, this Christian book or that. Hear this, my friend:
“Of all the writings and philosophy,
(which are never quite enough for me),
there is mainly one who comes to fore,
whose words have given so much more
than met my ears in any pew.
(He confirmed and blessed what I too knew!)
Just because you do not know the man, nor has he (apparently) been approved by our headquarters, you would admonish me, with my seventy years to be careful. I shall admit to you then that my headquarter is where my Head is, that is with my heavenly Father.
Another verse from that same poem just may make you smile.
In youth, time seemed to have no end;
so many hours were mine to spend.
There seemed little need
to strain my mind, and
no thought of changing any ways.
There was much I was sure I knew
in those earlier puppy days!
A way out of suffering, you say. Hmm. I know of no way out of suffering. It is illusionary to think that believers do not suffer many of the same things as do non-believers.
“Hell is a real place.” ------Are you sure about what kind of a real place, JCarl? I can truthfully say, with much conviction, and years of study, meditation and prayer, that I am not at all convinced that anyone will burn forever. According to the book of Revelation, death and Hell will be tossed into the lake of fire, which will burn “forever.” I think this is metaphorical.
I still think “your work” is to love and lift up and accept, but you will work that out. You are a good young man, and I know God has His hand on your life, so to speak, and I believe that God finishes what He commences, no matter how much time it takes, and sometimes we do become sidetracked, thereby robbing ourselves of all that God has for us, but He, is always there, it is we who forget to notice.
Well, now I am finished, and I think I have said enough about your last post. I wish you the very best; indeed I do. No matter what comes your way, know that God can and will give you the strength and courage to get through it, and any time you err, His grace is sufficient, keep going. It is well worth the effort.
Pmt
