Greatest gift of God

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oriel36:
What is born of the flesh is flesh ,what is born of the Spirit is Spirit,a person who is physically born cannot chose to be Spiritual hence it is God’s choice and decision by the gift of the holy Spirit.Anyone can prepare the ground for God’s gift but only when it pleases His Majesty can we then participate as a follower of Christ.
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Hi oriel,
I agree with you. I disagree with the tone of the word ‘pleases’ as for me it makes God out to be frivolous. I would prefer " only in His time"
Christianity is a Spiritual fountain,it is not a natural cistern to be couched in terms of natural appetites and desires.You can only eat so much choc cake or feed any other natural appetite but unfortunately many make Christ and Christianity into an exercise similar to a Stalin-like god who is ready to punish or reward us with heaven or hell.
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The flesh and the spirit are not separated and it is our aim to overcome the desires of the flesh. We can only achieve this through spiritual help. But first we must recognise our weakness, our inability to overcome by our strength. We have to call on Him and His strength. If you like a sin too much you wont ask for help, you will keep that part of your life separate from Jesus, you wont invite Him in because you dont want to risk losing that particular sin. I can tell you that if God took away His love from you this instant you would eat chocolate cake until you died from overeating.
re the Stalin like writing. God only works in love. Always. Now if you don’t listen to the Holy Spirit you are headed for trouble. This is your own doing, nothing to do with Him. He would have told you and tried to block you but if you insist in disobeying then you will suffer the consequences and He will cry for you, but He won’t prevent you against your free will. But He will try to dissuade you.
Are you calling pruning punishment? He only prunes because you express the desire to grow in the seven fold spirit of Himself. Are you talking about cutting away the dead branches of your personality. Again this is your desire and it is for your benefit.
Hell or the devil is nothing other than self-will with no connection between our temporal and Divine natures.The Eternal Life which encompasses our daily life is the one which generates the great human movements to love through the smallest kindness to the greatest masterpieces.
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Get used to the fact. Satan is real and so much tougher than you.
The devil is the devil because he would chose to love God on his own terms,it happens every day here as many believe that God needs to be defended rather than celebrated.Truly religion has become a cistern of indivual opinions rather than the fountain or the vine and branches.
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Hi Oriel,
Matthew 26:53 “Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father , and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels”?
additionally when Christ was baptised by John He went into the desert for 40 days and was tempted.
Tell me, do you believe the words you are reading.
Christ said He could pray and His Father would send. Do you believe this.
Scripture says Jesus was tempted. He was tempted.
Forgive me if I am wrong as I am not educated as you appear to be but I understand from what you are saying that once the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you become spiritual that temptation is water of a duck’s back.
If this is what you believe it shows you have no experiences to call on: just man’s wisdom.
If I am misunderstanding what you are saying I ask your indulgence and patience by requesting your answers be easier for me to understand.
Your last quote sounds awfully like a judgment. Possibly you have failed to discern the sincerity of most posters.
walk in love
edwinG
 
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edwinG:
Hi oriel,

Get used to the fact. Satan is real and so much tougher than you.

edwinG
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Oh yeah,satan is a real tough guy, what with his horns and his fork which he uses to poke me with natural desires while god wags his finger at me and tells me to behave through natural guilt.

On the other hand you can accept that human will is satan/hell and is as much a part of our human nature as God is.The Christian Way has always been a painful process of learning through experience where Divine Will and human will mesh and seperate.

It is always easier to imagine that satan is external to us as God is but Jesus tells us that there is nowhere God is not ( I AM) .
Jesus who frets over natural desires or worries over doing things or leaving them undone cannot constitute the Christian faith therefore Jesus did not suffer free will as fully God and fully man.To believe he did is to make God less than man or make man more than God.

I go to Church and enjoy my Catholic community but also there is that event which seperates my Christian belief through cultural and geographic inheritance from the One Jesus spoke of as a gift from God.The event is the birth of the connection between the Infinite and the definite,the temporal and the Eternal or God and man.
 
There has been some discussion on Free Will on this thread. Hash out the arguments if you like, but what the Catholic Church teaches is abundantly clear.

God has free will. Therefore the following three statements are true: the Father has free will, the Son has free will and the Spirit has free will. Angels were created with free will. All humans have free will. Jesus has freedom in his divinity. He also has freedom in his humanity!

Jesus absolutely did not sin. And, being God, he could not sin! He also could not disobey the Father. But the reason he could not do these things was not because he lacked any freedom, but because he is absolutely Holy and Perfect, and free in the truest sense. When we sin, we are giving ourselves to slavery. Free Will involves choice, and imperfect and finite human beings can damage their relationship with God, sadly, as a part of it.

Jesus could not, being Himself God. But not because he lacked freedom. God can’t sin, just like God can’t lie, God can’t will Himself out of existence. Not because he’s not free to do these things, but because he is not subject to slavery, and these things are slavery.

These are the incontrovertible teachings of the Church. The Church also teaches, for example, that the saints in heaven cannot sin, but still have free will. They can’t trip in the dark when they are in Heaven, where there is only Light.
 
Although we can discuss this issue further respectfully, I hope it is clear to everyone that Oriel’s statements are dangerously wrong and contrary to the handed-down faith of the Apostles. For one thing, human beings are not only flesh, we are flesh and spirit. Secondly, Satan is real. Mocking another person on this forum by mentioning his “horns” and whatever other junk imagery you can glean from popular culture doesn’t change the true teaching of the Church and her Scripture. Satan is real, and gains power when we deny that fact.
 
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manwhoisthursdy:
Although we can discuss this issue further respectfully, I hope it is clear to everyone that Oriel’s statements are dangerously wrong and contrary to the handed-down faith of the Apostles. For one thing, human beings are not only flesh, we are flesh and spirit. Secondly, Satan is real. Mocking another person on this forum by mentioning his “horns” and whatever other junk imagery you can glean from popular culture doesn’t change the true teaching of the Church and her Scripture. Satan is real, and gains power when we deny that fact.
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Look,the book which caused the greatest trouble in Christian history may be the 14th century Theologia Germanica where the author has quite a bit to say on free will and where it meshes and seperates from the Divine Will.That Christian work would be completely acceptable to the Apostolic church for it exquisitely reaffirms where man became God through Jesus however due to the awful split in Christianity the power of that message is lost to really silly and vacuous faith/works arguments

ccel.org/ccel/anonymous/theologia.v.XXVII.html

Anyone who imagines the Jesus in His Divine nature suffered free will is tantamount to believing that God is less than man or man is more than God.

Btw,on one hand you correctly identify satan with the junk imagery attached and then go on to talk of him “gaining power”,for goodness sake, if you wish to know what satan looks like ,look in the mirror .What do you think Paul was on about when he eloquently speaks of looking at the image through the glass ‘darkly’ but then seeing clearly through the gift of God ?.
 
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oriel36:
All that passed in the Life of Jesus came from God,he had no choice in the matter.He was not exempt from anything we suffer and indeed felt all the things we feel which hurt our human nature.Never has a greater life existed as that of Christ.

ccel.org/t/theo_ger/theologia34.htm

Why are you surprised ?.
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:ehh:

Jesus is both God the Son and Man, the Son of Man. As man he had Free Will. This is why he was tempted by Satan, experienced the Agony in the Garden, felt human compassion, etc. He could have chosen another path, in the end he submitted his will to God the Father and sacrificed his human life for our salvation.

“This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.”
 
I think the greatest gift God gave us was his SON. After all he did die for us and saved us from our sins. The Eucharist is such a wonderful gift cause it is the closest we get to Jesus on earth.

Kerri
 
Everyone has been so close. But if you had to summarize the greatest gift in one word that summarizes much of what’s been said above - love, eucharist, salvific plan, etc - then the greatest gift is…

HIMSELF

This is a gift that we access through many means, but the gift is still that we have access to Him through prayer, the word, the Eucharist, when we gather in His name etc. In addition, this also is a gift which transcends our earthly life and which we will forever glory in.

All praise and honor and glory is yours forever and ever,

Phil:bowdown:
 
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