Do we accept God or Does God accept us??

[aidanbradypop]

I am friends with a Evangelical Baptist couple. They are extremely good people but can tend to be on the judgemental side as well. The female, who we’ll call “Jane,” is bad for judging other’s salvation. She, as a Protestant, was raised and baptized Catholic. I do not believer from listening to her that her family were devout or Church goers but Catholic nonetheless.

She stated that she “accepted” Christ as her Lord and was baptized again because her first one was not valid because she did not decide to be baptized. That really shocked me seeing as I am Catholic. lol! The guy sitting next to me handed me back my chin after it hit the floor.

A little 5 yr old boy she teaches in Sunday school wanted to get “saved” so they said a prayer. She expected him to be an angel that next Sunday but much to her surprise he was again a 5 yr old little boy lol.

So I guess my question is…Do we accept Christ or does Christ accept us and we merely realize and embrace His grace? I have my answer already but I am wondering what Catholics and non Catholics believe?

 

[ltwin]

I am friends with a Evangelical Baptist couple. They are extremely good people but can tend to be on the judgemental side as well. The female, who we’ll call “Jane,” is bad for judging other’s salvation. She, as a Protestant, was raised and baptized Catholic. I do not believer from listening to her that her family were devout or Church goers but Catholic nonetheless.

She stated that she “accepted” Christ as her Lord and was baptized again because her first one was not valid because she did not decide to be baptized. That really shocked me seeing as I am Catholic. lol! The guy sitting next to me handed me back my chin after it hit the floor.

A little 5 yr old boy she teaches in Sunday school wanted to get “saved” so they said a prayer. She expected him to be an angel that next Sunday but much to her surprise he was again a 5 yr old little boy lol.

So I guess my question is…Do we accept Christ or does Christ accept us and we merely realize and embrace His grace? I have my answer already but I am wondering what Catholics and non Catholics believe?

Christ is the initiator. We are the responder. When we “accept Christ” as Lord and Savior, we only accept what God has already offered. I’m sure your Baptist friends believe the same thing, but they probably just don’t feel the need to say it since it is assumed that if we come to Christ based on what he has done for us, then we are only responding to what he has already done.

 

[aidanbradypop]

Christ is the initiator. We are the responder. When we “accept Christ” as Lord and Savior, we only accept what God has already offered. I’m sure your Baptist friends believe the same thing, but they probably just don’t feel the need to say it since it is assumed that if we come to Christ based on what he has done for us, then we are only responding to what he has already done.

Thanks for your thought ltwin. My aunt was a very faithful pentecostal before she was overcome with heart issues. She truly adored the Lord.

 

[ffg]

Hello,

God Gives.

Gives Graces

Gave His Pain

Gave His Life and beat death to buy our lives eternally.

He Gives and he desires us.

We are bad givers. Many times looking for something in return. That’s not giving.

We are bad at accepting too, but that’s what we need to do to receive that which we don’t deserve.

Luckily, we have a Church, sacraments, and history to help us build a relationship with Him.

 

[larryjay]

I am friends with a Evangelical Baptist couple. They are extremely good people but can tend to be on the judgemental side as well. The female, who we’ll call “Jane,” is bad for judging other’s salvation. She, as a Protestant, was raised and baptized Catholic. I do not believer from listening to her that her family were devout or Church goers but Catholic nonetheless.

She stated that she “accepted” Christ as her Lord and was baptized again because her first one was not valid because she did not decide to be baptized. That really shocked me seeing as I am Catholic. lol! The guy sitting next to me handed me back my chin after it hit the floor.

A little 5 yr old boy she teaches in Sunday school wanted to get “saved” so they said a prayer. She expected him to be an angel that next Sunday but much to her surprise he was again a 5 yr old little boy lol.

So I guess my question is…Do we accept Christ or does Christ accept us and we merely realize and embrace His grace? I have my answer already but I am wondering what Catholics and non Catholics believe?

Aidan:

Your friend may have not chosen to be Baptized when she was an infant, however, her parents decided for her which was their duty.On this point of Baptism, your friend didn’t need to be baptized again because if she would’ve remained Catholic, at her confirmation, she would’ve had the opportunity to re-affirm her Baptism and her faith. We Catholics get it all with the Sacraments. No need to become Protestant. :blessyou

 

[ChrisB103]

Christ is the initiator. We are the responder. When we “accept Christ” as Lord and Savior, we only accept what God has already offered. I’m sure your Baptist friends believe the same thing, but they probably just don’t feel the need to say it since it is assumed that if we come to Christ based on what he has done for us, then we are only responding to what he has already done.

Nice and succinct answer here which is perfectly in line with the Catholic faith.

 

[guanophore]

I am friends with a Evangelical Baptist couple. They are extremely good people but can tend to be on the judgemental side as well. The female, who we'll call "Jane," is bad for judging other's salvation. She, as a Protestant, was raised and baptized Catholic. I do not believer from listening to her that her family were devout or Church goers but Catholic nonetheless.

Most Catholics that become Baptists are very poorly catechized in the faith. I know, I used to be one!

She stated that she “accepted” Christ as her Lord and was baptized again because her first one was not valid because she did not decide to be baptized. That really shocked me seeing as I am Catholic. lol! The guy sitting next to me handed me back my chin after it hit the floor.

Baptists are “bible christians”. They do not receive their faith through the paradosis that was handed down from the Apostles, but extract it from the pages of Scripture. They know very little, if anything, about the history of the faith, and since they see adult baptism as the “norm” in scripture, tend to believe it is the only valid form.

So I guess my question is.....Do we accept Christ or does Christ accept us and we merely realize and embrace His grace? I have my answer already but I am wondering what Catholics and non Catholics believe?

Both.

God pours out his grace upon all, and gives sufficient grace to all to be saved.

Some do not respond to His grace, and do not enter salvation.

 

[JonNC]

I am friends with a Evangelical Baptist couple. They are extremely good people but can tend to be on the judgemental side as well. The female, who we’ll call “Jane,” is bad for judging other’s salvation. She, as a Protestant, was raised and baptized Catholic. I do not believer from listening to her that her family were devout or Church goers but Catholic nonetheless.

She stated that she “accepted” Christ as her Lord and was baptized again because her first one was not valid because she did not decide to be baptized. That really shocked me seeing as I am Catholic. lol! The guy sitting next to me handed me back my chin after it hit the floor.

A little 5 yr old boy she teaches in Sunday school wanted to get “saved” so they said a prayer. She expected him to be an angel that next Sunday but much to her surprise he was again a 5 yr old little boy lol.

So I guess my question is…Do we accept Christ or does Christ accept us and we merely realize and embrace His grace? I have my answer already but I am wondering what Catholics and non Catholics believe?

Romans 5:

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Matthew 16:

Then Jesus said to his disciples: If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Through grace, God accepts us in Baptism. In greatful thanks and by grace, we receive His love and follow Him.

Jon

 

[Gaelic_Bard]

I am friends with a Evangelical Baptist couple. They are extremely good people but can tend to be on the judgemental side as well. The female, who we’ll call “Jane,” is bad for judging other’s salvation. She, as a Protestant, was raised and baptized Catholic. I do not believer from listening to her that her family were devout or Church goers but Catholic nonetheless.

She stated that she “accepted” Christ as her Lord and was baptized again because her first one was not valid because she did not decide to be baptized. That really shocked me seeing as I am Catholic. lol! The guy sitting next to me handed me back my chin after it hit the floor.

A little 5 yr old boy she teaches in Sunday school wanted to get “saved” so they said a prayer. She expected him to be an angel that next Sunday but much to her surprise he was again a 5 yr old little boy lol.

So I guess my question is…Do we accept Christ or does Christ accept us and we merely realize and embrace His grace? I have my answer already but I am wondering what Catholics and non Catholics believe?

“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” - 1 John 4:10

“For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you” - 1 Thess. 1:4

 

[aidanbradypop]

“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” - 1 John 4:10

“For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you” - 1 Thess. 1:4

Are you a believer of Free Grace Salvation or Lordship Salvation?

 

[Gaelic_Bard]

Are you a believer of Free Grace Salvation or Lordship Salvation?

I really wouldn’t align with either. They both have their good and bad points.

 

[aidanbradypop]

I really wouldn’t align with either. They both have their good and bad points.

I was raised Southern Baptist which taught Free Grace Salvation.

 

[Gaelic_Bard]

I was raised Southern Baptist which taught Free Grace Salvation.

I am SBC, too and I do know that you will find a lot of SBC churches that hold to the standard say the sinners prayer and you’re good to go. To say it’s a shallow theology is a pretty hefty understatement. The danger in Lordship Salvation is that, in reaction against free grace, the pendulum can swing too far into legalism.

 

[aidanbradypop]

I am SBC, too and I do know that you will find a lot of SBC churches that hold to the standard say the sinners prayer and you’re good to go. To say it’s a shallow theology is a pretty hefty understatement. The danger in Lordship Salvation is that, in reaction against free grace, the pendulum can swing too far into legalism.

The good ole sinners prayer. I have yet to find that in Scripture. Ever heard of Chip Ingram? He is a Free Grace guy. I really enjoy his work and talks though. The opposite of Chip would be Mr. John MacArthur and Lordship Salvation. It is really interesting to listen to them both and then compare the two. Chip believes we accept God’s invitation to Salvation by form of Grace through Faith through Chist. MacArthur believes God has already accepted who He wanted to accept. Very interesting.

 

[Byzantine_Wolf]

So I guess my question is…Do we accept Christ or does Christ accept us and we merely realize and embrace His grace? I have my answer already but I am wondering what Catholics and non Catholics believe?

Scripture says before God’s grace we are “dead in the trespasses and sins”, “following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air”, and were “by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph 2:1-3). However God, “when we were dead in our trespasses” (in other words, we were still spiritually dead), and “made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (Eph 2:5). Paul adds later: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph 2:8-9).

If we are to say that we accept God, then no one would ever accept God - spiritually dead men cannot come to life outside the work of God. This is compounded by the words of Christ with: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn 6:44). The words “no one can” is literally “no one has the power to” in the original Greek. In other words, without the drawing of the Father (and the word for “draw” here signifies an effectual, strong pulling, not a passive invitation), no one would come to Christ. This pulling and drawing is not a “realizing” of our salvation, but a regeneration by God, bringing us from death to life, and placing us into the safe arms of the Savior who died for us.

In summary: Soli Deo Gloria.

 

[Theojunkie]

Hi, new to this forum.

I grew up Catholic, left Christ from a practical standpoint, became a zealous Calvinist, and now am back Catholic again as a happy Augustinian/Thomist.

What Byzantine_Wolf says is true (and perhaps a shock to some, the Catholic Church would agree with what he wrote). And what the OP’s Baptist friend implies (if nothing else by her sloppy language) is false.

“We love because He first loved us”. Even “Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts!”… yet also, “Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live,” and “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

We do accept Christ-- but only because God first accepted us in our sin through the work of Christ on our behalf and graced us with the power and desire to love him. And we love him freely, because we want to, because of grace.

So, indeed soli Deo gloria. God saves us in a way that neither we can take credit for (e.g., if we were the first to act), nor removes the reality of our personal decision to trust Him (e.g., if he were to violate our conscience or desires).

A few samplings from the Catechism of the CC:
1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.

1998 This vocation to eternal life is supernatural. It depends entirely on God’s gratuitous initiative, for he alone can reveal and give himself. It surpasses the power of human intellect and will, as that of every other creature.

1742 Freedom and grace. The grace of Christ is not in the slightest way a rival of our freedom when this freedom accords with the sense of the true and the good that God has put in the human heart. On the contrary, as Christian experience attests especially in prayer, the more docile we are to the promptings of grace, the more we grow in inner freedom and confidence during trials, such as those we face in the pressures and constraints of the outer world. By the working of grace the Holy Spirit educates us in spiritual freedom in order to make us free collaborators in his work in the Church and in the world:

155 In faith, the human intellect and will cooperate with divine grace: “Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.”

2008 The merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. The fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man’s free acting through his collaboration, so that the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the faithful. Man’s merit, moreover, itself is due to God, for his good actions proceed in Christ, from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit.

… much more in there, but I won’t post them all. usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/epub/index.cfm#