If you are a Christian, what is the real reason for you not being a Catholic? - 2

[dcb188]

This is to meandean. Your concept of “the law” might be incorrect or your use of it may be incorrect. Maybe it is better for you to define how you are using that term, because being a member of the Catholic Church may not at all be “under the law” the way you are using it. We use these terms in arguments but neither side knows how the other is using the terms and until I see what you mean by “The law”, the arguments keep going around in a circle…do you mean rules and regulations? if you do, then as long as those rules and regulations are not put ahead of Jesus Christ and what He did, then they are not “the law” as you use the term. If “the law” means that Jesus Christ is second to it in importance, then of course that is wrong. So I would need a definition not of the law but of how you are using it. But I will step back and let your worthy opponent battle it out with you, because she is doing a great job. I don’t want to jump in but I wanted to know what you mean by “the law”.

 

[Mike_Barberena]

I trust in Jesus. I don’t trust in you. Following Jesus is not a burden. From what I can see from what you have written, you don’t truly follow Jesus, you pick and choose what you want to do. Jesus said “if you love me, keep my commandments”. That’s what I try to do every day. I’m not “under the law”, I’m following Jesus.

I trust that Jesus is true to His Word. Anyone that does trust Jesus would do as He asks. When He said “Do this” to the Apostles, it wasn’t a SUGGESTION. That’s why we have the Mass, because Jesus said to DO THIS.

Actually God calls us to be submissive and obedient, it is not just about the law, it is about Grace, Favor, Blessings, and Truth, Jesus set the Doctrines of the Catholic Faith and many want to be independent of that and thus the reason for Chaos, it is easier to be disobedient than to follow Christ’s Truth, reflect on the truth and not the law, Jesus Warns us that we must follow the Law of GOd His Father, but we must follow Him who made the Law which is Jesus. May i suggest an imitation of Jesus Christ in obeying, which He called us to “Obey Everything”. Salvation is for a selected few, it is the harder road to travel and the easiest to Heaven.

 

[MelanieAnne]

self righteousness will always fall short of the grace of god. you have works and works fall under the law. god can only forgive our sin if we accept his son’s righteousness, which is given to all who believe in what he did on the cross. now to all who accept this free gift, he will accept as well, for he sees his son’s righteousness placed into our account and not ours. and if you truely believe, than why go back under the law from which he saved you? works will always cry out, give me more to do, and grace says it is finished.

Your writing shows that you do not know what we believe. When you have truly learned what we believe, come back and preach to us, if you still believe it’s appropriate for you to do so. Right now, you’re telling us things as if you know something about us. You don’t, as your writing amply demonstrates.

 

[ibkc]

am i leading you to me? if i am , then go back to your cup of coffee.

Thanks for the permission. I have a nice mocha here that is mighty tasty.

but if i am pointing to jesus, then you choose who you going to follow. my choice is christ. thats what his word said to me,jesus said follow me. so i follow him. in fact he said that to peter as well, peter asked, lord what about him? and what was jesus’ reply?

If you think Catholics do not follow Jesus, you are sadly and sorely mistaken. The entire mass is centered entirely around Jesus and His sacrifice. That we acknowledge a teaching authority given by Jesus to Peter in no way takes away from our single-minded devotion to Christ.

 

[dcb188]

Peter is not worshipped. Jesus Christ is. And I still would like to know what “the law” means, precisely, to you. It seems to be used in this way. All rules and regs off to one side, follow Jesus only and do not have any rules or format or regulations about anything, Period. Is this more or less what you mean when you use the term “the law”?
We do follow Jesus Christ, and that is the center of real Christianity, Catholic or Protestant, hopefully. Everything else is subordinate but it is still there and some things are still valid and useful. Jesus is first, but that does not mean that He wants us to ignore or abandon all else, as long as that “all else” is secondary to Him.

 

[meandean]

Your writing shows that you do not know what we believe. When you have truly learned what we believe, come back and preach to us, if you still believe it’s appropriate for you to do so. Right now, you’re telling us things as if you know something about us. You don’t, as your writing amply demonstrates.

am i pointing to jesus, or to you? you have pointed me to your church, and i am pointing you to the cross.it is all about what jesus did on the cross, but you have shown me their is still more to do.faith and works cannot stay in the same room together, much like the spirit and the flesh. neither could sarah or hagar. one of them always had to go. i believe jesus fullfilled it all, everything was placed under him. yet the only thing left for us is either to believe what he has done, or finnish what he started.circumsision won’t save you, baptism cannot save you, church attendance cannot save you, rituals and traditions cannot save you your church cannot save you, working for god will not save you,living out the 10 cammandments is immpossible, living out the bea attitudes is immpossible, the only thing we can do to be saved is by what jesus has done on the cross, and that being saved by grace through faith, which is christ alone. now if you will accept what jesus has done on the cross, and believe with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength, his holy spirit will empower you to live out the christian faith. but if you are still trying to please god by works, there is only your cross, and you must bear it with all the law requires.

 

[dcb188]

New Testament: Faith without works is dead.
New Testament: Let us Work out our own salvation.
Good works alone do not save us. But faith alone, without good works, is dead. What is dead faith? It would seem that it would be a problem.

 

[dcb188]

Or, to put it another way, is faith that is dead (because of no good works) is that kind of faith a saving faith? I would rather believe and do good works, as the NT says, than to do one thing that the NT says instead of both. Just strictly going by the Bible here, I mean. It says to do both. So shall we do one only? i.e. faith? Do we get to choose? Uh oh.

 

[meandean]

Thanks for the permission. I have a nice mocha here that is mighty tasty.

If you think Catholics do not follow Jesus, you are sadly and sorely mistaken. The entire mass is centered entirely around Jesus and His sacrifice. That we acknowledge a teaching authority given by Jesus to Peter in no way takes away from our single-minded devotion to Christ.

i believe you want to follow christ sincerely. the judaizers said the same thing. the only problem here is is salvation by faith or by works?the judaizers said it was christ and the law, paul rebuked peter for falling into this trap in galatians chapter 2. thus, the arguement… what do you say, how is a man to be saved?

 

[meandean]

New Testament: Faith without works is dead.
New Testament: Let us Work out our own salvation.
Good works alone do not save us. But faith alone, without good works, is dead. What is dead faith? It would seem that it would be a problem.

can you live the christian life without the holy spirit?

 

[MelanieAnne]

am i pointing to jesus, or to you? you have pointed me to your church, and i am pointing you to the cross.it is all about what jesus did on the cross, but you have shown me their is still more to do.faith and works cannot stay in the same room together, much like the spirit and the flesh. neither could sarah or hagar. one of them always had to go. i believe jesus fullfilled it all, everything was placed under him. yet the only thing left for us is either to believe what he has done, or finnish what he started.circumsision won’t save you, baptism cannot save you, church attendance cannot save you, rituals and traditions cannot save you your church cannot save you, working for god will not save you,living out the 10 cammandments is immpossible, living out the bea attitudes is immpossible, the only thing we can do to be saved is by what jesus has done on the cross, and that being saved by grace through faith, which is christ alone. now if you will accept what jesus has done on the cross, and believe with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength, his holy spirit will empower you to live out the christian faith. but if you are still trying to please god by works, there is only your cross, and you must bear it with all the law requires.

You don’t know anything about the Church or you wouldn’t write what you have. We might do good things to please God, just as you might do something nice for someone you care for. We don’t believe that those good works save us. If someone has told you that, you have been misled.

We know that Jesus died for our sins. We know that, based on our own merits alone, we cannot hope to save ourselves. We know that we are looking to Jesus every day for Grace.

We also love Jesus enough that we do, as best as we can, as He Himself commanded us to do. That’s one place where we differ from you, because you claim to follow Jesus, then don’t follow Him and instead do as you please. So it is YOUR will, not HIS. That’s not following Him.

In contrast, we believe Him when He directed the Apostles and all the early church to re-present His Sacrifice. And we still do that today. We care enough about His Sacrifice for the whole world to focus on it often, at least once a week. In summary: You talk about Jesus. We commune with Him, just as He asked us to do. You can repeat this “under the law” business as often as you like, it doesn’t change the Truth.

 

[dcb188]

Remember the NT verses re faith and works. We only get one shot at this and we had better get it right. Because when we are asked why we did not do what He commanded, we had better have real good answers. We cannot say, oh, I wanted to do the faith part of the NT but not the good works part. Like I said, uh oh. This stuff is absolutely crucial but we are not investigating it by looking at the NT under a magnifying glass, so to speak, and reading these verses about good works and the verses about salvation. What we are doing is substituting what we think it is saying for what it IS saying. I cannot say uh oh to that, too many times. There is no subsitute, no forum, no message board, no Church, that is a substitute for looking at the New Testament and reading what it says about salvation/good works/faith and in what context all those verses are placed in. Context is king. But good works are an important part of salvation although they do not GET us salvation by themselves. But these things are already in the NT, I am not making this up today just for discussion purposes. Go to the NT and read these verses for yourself. This is like talking about something we have not seen for ourselves yet. I would never be in a discussion about taking a trip to Europe and my experiences, unless I first go to Europe. How can we discuss something that is in front of us but is not being read or referred to? There are Protestants who are so anti-Catholic that it gets in the way of their just looking at the NT. So back to basics is more than just a nice expression. Our “basics” is the NT. Let’s go there…see what it says, not what we say.

 

[ibkc]

i believe you want to follow christ sincerely.

And I believe the same of you. The problem in your case is that you have been deceived into thinking that the Word of God is so insignificant and lacking in strength that it is limited to the pages of a single book. That is not your fault. But there is plenty of time for you to open your eyes.

the judaizers said the same thing. the only problem here is is salvation by faith or by works?the judaizers said it was christ and the law, paul rebuked peter for falling into this trap in galatians chapter 2. thus, the arguement… what do you say, how is a man to be saved?

By faith AND by works. Each is dead without the other.

Melanie Anne is right. You are preaching and proselytizing us without even a halfway decent understanding of who Catholics are, and what we believe. You come here and preach to us based on assumptions made from an incorrect understand of Catholicism. Please slow down. Try to cultivate a little humility, take some deep breaths, and let the truth about Catholicism into your heart. It will do you good.

 

[MelanieAnne]

Remember the NT verses re faith and works. We only get one shot at this and we had better get it right. Because when we are asked why we did not do what He commanded, we had better have real good answers. We cannot say, oh, I wanted to do the faith part of the NT but not the good works part. Like I said, uh oh. This stuff is absolutely crucial but we are not investigating it by looking at the NT under a magnifying glass, so to speak, and reading these verses about good works and the verses about salvation. What we are doing is substituting what we think it is saying for what it IS saying. I cannot say uh oh to that, too many times. There is no subsitute, no forum, no message board, no Church, that is a substitute for looking at the New Testament and reading what it says about salvation/good works/faith and in what context all those verses are placed in. Context is king. But good works are an important part of salvation although they do not GET us salvation by themselves. But these things are already in the NT, I am not making this up today just for discussion purposes. Go to the NT and read these verses for yourself. This is like talking about something we have not seen for ourselves yet. I would never be in a discussion about taking a trip to Europe and my experiences, unless I first go to Europe. How can we discuss something that is in front of us but is not being read or referred to? There are Protestants who are so anti-Catholic that it gets in the way of their just looking at the NT. So back to basics is more than just a nice expression. Our “basics” is the NT. Let’s go there…see what it says, not what we say.

I asked MeanDean about “when we are asked why we did not do what He commanded” and there was no answer. Just more blather about “under the law”.

I think he/she is just here to rant at us. I find it pointless and tedious. It’s like talking to a wall. I’m done.

Did you ever take a look at his/her NAME?

 

[meandean]

You don’t know anything about the Church or you wouldn’t write what you have. We might do good things to please God, just as you might do something nice for someone you care for. We don’t believe that those good works save us. If someone has told you that, you have been misled.

We know that Jesus died for our sins. We know that, based on our own merits alone, we cannot hope to save ourselves. We know that we are looking to Jesus every day for Grace.

We also love Jesus enough that we do, as best as we can, as He Himself commanded us to do. That’s one place where we differ from you, because you claim to follow Jesus, then don’t follow Him and instead do as you please. So it is YOUR will, not HIS. That’s not following Him.

In contrast, we believe Him when He directed the Apostles and all the early church to re-present His Sacrifice. And we still do that today. We care enough about His Sacrifice for the whole world to focus on it often, at least once a week. In summary: You talk about Jesus. We commune with Him, just as He asked us to do. You can repeat this “under the law” business as often as you like, it doesn’t change the Truth.

is it by faith or by works? is it christ alone, or by christ and something else?

 

[dcb188]

According to meandean it is faith.
According to the New Testament it is faith and works.
Hmmmmmm. decisions decisions

 

[meandean]

And I believe the same of you. The problem in your case is that you have been deceived into thinking that the Word of God is so insignificant and lacking in strength that it is limited to the pages of a single book. That is not your fault. But there is plenty of time for you to open your eyes.

By faith AND by works. Each is dead without the other.

Melanie Anne is right. You are preaching and proselytizing us without even a halfway decent understanding of who Catholics are, and what we believe. You come here and preach to us based on assumptions made from an incorrect understand of Catholicism. Please slow down. Try to cultivate a little humility, take some deep breaths, and let the truth about Catholicism into your heart. It will do you good.

regardless of what you think of me, the gospel is all i am sharing with you.works is not faith, it is law, did jesus fullfill it all or not? your answer shows the foundation which your building on. is it the rock christ jesus, or the shifting sand?

 

[MelanieAnne]

is it by faith or by works? is it christ alone, or by christ and something else?

We are saved by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ who, in His Mercy, gave His Life for our sins, and the sins of the whole world.

This is the last time I will respond to you because I find that there is no real dialog going on here. You are “talking” but you don’t “listen”. I don’t need for you to preach to me, I have a Pastor and several other Priests far more qualified to listen to, and EWTN besides.

Have a nice life and good luck with that question when Jesus asks why you didn’t follow His Word.

 

[ibkc]

regardless of what you think of me, the gospel is all i am sharing with you.works is not faith, it is law, did jesus fullfill it all or not?

Yes, He did. What is your basis for questioning that we Catholics do not believe that He did?

Faith without works is dead. It is right there in the Bible.

your answer shows the foundation which your building on. is it the rock christ jesus, or the shifting sand?

The Rock is the universal Church, founded by Jesus Christ himself. The shifting sand is the ephemeral nature of Protestantism, built upon man’s stubborness and pride.

 

[dcb188]

Just a couple of quick observations. When you present a choice like “Is it Christ Jesus or shifting sands?” of course it is Christ and not shifting sands. So it is a loaded question. Do you like Motherhood more than Nevada gambling?
Additionally, and this is not a minor point. We all type according to our own style. SOME OF US USE ALL CAPS and some of us use all lower case letters. But lazy as we can be sometimes, when we are typing madly along, we pause at the name Jesus or God and capitalize those words, as in Lord rather than lord because I am typing fast. The failure to do that is a tiny tiny indicator of something different in actions than the words coming out indicate. Professed love of Jesus Christ means that in little things like typing, it is customary, indeed reverent, to capitalize that which should be capitalized. But do you see this as another irrelevant point or do you see the point that your words are one thing and you profess to love Christ, yet no capitalization of those names, and is it because it is too much trouble? Just observations, as I said. I can tell that you are not about to delve into the NT so I will do it for you over the next few days. It is my “dry” period at work so it will be a good project for me. Then I will quote you every single mention of faith and works and salvation that we have talked about but unfortunately just did that, talked, without going to the New Testament. If you think the typeset thing is a petty thing, think again about it a little and see what it connotes. It may seem to be a small thing, but is it, really?