No only do we have a personal relationship with Jesus, our Lord and Savior, but we also have an intimate relationship with him as we celebrate at his table and consume his flesh and blood …
Robert,Here’s what I wrote in response to the same sort of question, posted in another thread a while back:
Hope this helps the conversation.
Well, that’s all for now. Sorry if I dragged this off topic. 
God Bless!Eeexcellent! The plan is working!
I think this is one of the clearest examples from scripture of the sinner’s prayer . We might also consider the prayer of the prodigal son.
“Faith without works is dead”. How can you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, and NOT want to do everything he asks of you?
When we sin, we cut ourselves off from God. There’s one part of the Old Testament that describes this. It begins in Genesis and ends at Malachi. During this time that we’ve turned from Him, Jesus is patiently waiting for us to repent and is willing to take us in when we do.
Why did Jesus so plainly give the apostles the power to forgive our sins, if this power was totally unnecesarry? “Those sins you forgive, they are forgiven, unless of course they just confess them to me first”.
Jesus does do this. Some of us just refuse to listen.
Anything we do for God is a direct result of God’s grace bestowed on us.
I don’t recall the specific scripture passage, but what about where it reads something along the lines of “not all who cry Lord, Lord will be saved” and “even the demons know God (or Christ) by name”. God definitely wants all to come to him and be saved, and yet he allows us the free will to accept him, and the difficult path he provides us for attaining our salvation or rejecting him and taking the easier road that does not lead to him. Christ stated that the road to hell was easy and well traveled but that the way to heaven was narrow and difficult.
Actually, I think this is where you misunderstand the Catholic teaching on works and their relation to salvation / justification. Our works are ways that we are sanctified and bring others to sanctification. We grow in holiness through our works, we learn to conform ourselves to the will of God through our works. In this way we slowly learn to put ourselves second to God and we demonstrate this in the simple little decisions we make on a daily basis. In this way, we begin to create on earth the heaven that God desires from this world (as in “thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”). But our ability to enter heaven isn’t a matter of attaining any given number of works points, as even the day laboror who is hired at the very last hour is given a full days wage. And we are NOT to feel deprived by the good fortune of the worker who shows up at the last minute, as their misfortune in now way affects the fact that we have received adequate compensation for our work.
I pray that as you hang around here, you may begin to realize that these silly Catholics actually know a lot of scripture (even if we can’t tell you exactly where it came from and misquote things, even if we do get the gist of the passage correct). The teachings of the Catholic Church, being protected by God himself, allow for a consistant acceptance of the entirity of scripture, not merely a select set of passages.… See what you guys have done to me?
God Bless you too Iambic Pen.
That is right! And sinners prayer will not be a good sinners prayer unless there is repentance.
Amen!
OK Lambic Pen…look at it this way:
Yes, you’re a clever bunch…Eeexcellent! The plan is working!
Right you are. I make no argument against doing good. I guess I’m still confused about how works relate to salvation. At any rate, as I do not wish to steer this thread away from the original topic, I’m going to start a new thread on this subject.
Or it ends in 2nd Machabees. But then that’s not my line…
That is true. We should rejoice, rather, at the good fortune of the one who shows up at the last minute. Many come to faith in Christ at the end of their lives. However, it is far better to come to Him soon, and serve Him all the days we are given here.
Many people on this forum can help you more than I can because they are much more knowlegeable, but when I had a similar question to the on you raised above about ‘how many works’, someone responded to me with ‘how much faith’? This really helped me. There isn’t a scorecard for how much faith you have to have in ordered to be saved according to the Evangelicals I know, and there isn’t one for works either. Works sanctify/justify us after our initial justification ( a free gift) of baptism. We become holier. By living out our faith in love (your life is in essence a ‘work’) we continually transform ourselves more and more to the likeness of Christ, further submit to His will, and further allow his Spirit to rule our lives as opposed to it being ruled by our flesh. By doing this, we are spiritually stronger and better equipped to avoid sin. This is how I have come to understand part of the concept of faith and works working together towards our final justification. I hope this helps a little.
Well, I guess I see this as two different things. When we confess with our mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, we are saved. I mean that in the sense that if we were to die immediately after sincerely making this confession of faith, we would go to Heaven. The passage that follows (Romans 10:5-13) illustrates what I’m talking about.
The lifelong process you speak of I would define as growing into the person God desires us to be. Without making the initial confession of faith, we cannot enter into this glorious process (though God can certainly use our “pre-conversion” experiences for our benefit). When we first confess Christ as Lord, we are still showing many traits of our former life. However, day by day, as we grow in our faith and trust in God, He molds us into the person He wants us to be. So, while the act of accepting Christ’s salvation (and ensuring our place in Heaven and our names in the Book of Life) is an immediate event, our growth as Christ’s followers is a continual process.
God Bless!I sure have learned a lot about Protestants and the differences in the sects from you and others that are not out to ‘prove the Catholics are evil incarnate’ (a quote from someone that told me they were going to save me). Thank you. And the response to Tony - a fallen away Catholic, maybe? - is very well written and loving and kind and patient. GOOD WORKThe “once saved, always saved” belief is not shared by all Protestants, and I can’t say I really agree with it either. I think, though, that the main Protestant objection to the Catholic teaching on salvation is the emphasis on works. This is not to say that one should not do good, because obviously we should all do good at all times. The problem is the apparent belief that we somehow have to earn our salvation by our works. This is seen to deny the power of Christ’s sacrifice by suggesting that it isn’t quite enough to get people into heaven.
Here’s how many Protestants see it. Yes, we waver. Yes, we sin. But through it all, Christ is there to catch us when we fall. He does not turn His back on us when we fail Him. By contrast, the apparent Catholic belief is that God stands ready to cut us off at a moment’s notice. One moment, we’re safe and secure in the hands of Christ, the next moment He acts as if He does not know us.
Well, I’m not saying that’s what I think about Catholicism. However, I am a little confused about all of this. Here’s another way of explaining it. We as Protestants (generally) believe that when we confess with our mouths, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved. We are now His children. Now, look at this from a human example. If your children did wrong, would you cut them off and treat them as if you didn’t know them? Wouldn’t you instead try to bring them back into a right relationship with you? That’s why the whole idea of losing one’s salvation is foreign to us. Now, deliberately rejecting one’s salvation is a different matter, and this is where I break with the “once saved, always saved” crowd.
To continue on the subject of works, here is the issue I have. It seems that it creates a huge level of uncertainty about whether one is going to Heaven or not. I can picture someone reaching the judgment and having God say, “Well, you accepted the sacrifice of my Son and you accepted Him as Lord of your life. However, I see here that you only accrued 9,832 “good works” points out of the required 10,000. Goodbye.” Well, this is certainly not the way I see things, so please understand that. However, I do wonder exactly what the Catholic stance is on the importance of works in regard to salvation.
To bring this back on topic, yes, the man was rude, and his behavior was completely unacceptable. I think the pursuit of truth is best handled courteously and with respect. Plus, I followed the link to his site, and it proved to be disappointing. So far as I can tell, all anti-Catholic apologetics seem to be based upon the assumptions of sola scriptura. I was reading a Baptist website today which said we were supposed to base all of our theology on Scripture and that the Catholic Church had no authority. They then quoted Bible verses to support their viewpoint. I wanted to scream, “Well, then how did they have the authority to put together the New Testament, which contains the very verses you’re quoting!?” See what you guys have done to me?
Sorry, I dont buy that blanket statement. True believers in the Savior, ones that the LORD saves supernaturally should never engage in vitriole. You might have run into some very vocal King James only Christians, but they are in the minority. Certainly there seems to be an extreme Catholic element as well.
Kaycee:
If you are referring to the Catholic Church specifically, I would argue that belief in Jesus is, always has been, and always will be enough. We just disagree with non-Catholics as to what “belief” is, exactly. For most Protestants, belief is simply some mental conclusion. For Catholics, belief is a life changing event that takes possession not only of our mind, but also of our heart, soul, and strength, thereby leading us to action.Belief in Jesus is not enough it seems, grace must be doled out from the Treasury of merit thru the sacraments.
Justification is the basis of Christ’s sacrifice alone, for without His perfect Sacrifice the Church, the body of Christ, has nothing.
Yes. And you agree with the magisterium as well if you believe in the new testament books.Faith seems to mean faith in the magisterium and all the pronouncements issued forth and ones yet to be issued!