Sinner vs. Saint

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I know I post often. I have been growing a lot spirituality during this Lent. I have had periods in my life where I was praying daily and centering my life around God, I am usually the strongest against temptations, then I find myself drifting away.
  1. How do you keep a lifelong strong relationship with God or will it always be ups and downs?
  2. Do you ever wish you could navigate your own life without praying for God’s guidance on choices?
  3. Why do even people the closest to God fall into sometimes mortal sins?
 
CRATUS said:
I know I post often. I have been growing a lot spirituality during this Lent. I have had periods in my life where I was praying daily and centering my life around God, I am usually the strongest against temptations, then I find myself drifting away.
  1. How do you keep a lifelong strong relationship with God or will it always be ups and downs?
  2. Do you ever wish you could navigate your own life without praying for God’s guidance on choices?
  3. Why do even people the closest to God fall into sometimes mortal sins?
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Yes there will always be ups and downs, God knows the future so is best to Guide you, and think God allows one to fall in sin to keep you humble.
 
CRATUS said:
I know I post often. I have been growing a lot spirituality during this Lent. I have had periods in my life where I was praying daily and centering my life around God, I am usually the strongest against temptations, then I find myself drifting away.
  1. How do you keep a lifelong strong relationship with God or will it always be ups and downs?
  2. Do you ever wish you could navigate your own life without praying for God’s guidance on choices?
  3. Why do even people the closest to God fall into sometimes mortal sins?
Click to expand...
  1. Ups/downs are the natural pattern of life, until we roll back our eyes. There is no stability while in the mortal flesh.
  2. We have all the freedom we want, but only God can guide our decision making.
  3. Because the spirit is willing, however, the flesh (which is not only the body) is weak.
ICXC NIKA
 
CRATUS said:
I know I post often. I have been growing a lot spirituality during this Lent. I have had periods in my life where I was praying daily and centering my life around God, I am usually the strongest against temptations, then I find myself drifting away.
  1. How do you keep a lifelong strong relationship with God or will it always be ups and downs?
  2. Do you ever wish you could navigate your own life without praying for God’s guidance on choices?
  3. Why do even people the closest to God fall into sometimes mortal sins?
Click to expand...
  1. I would say that there’s no contradiction between a strong relationship with God and the ups and downs we naturally experience, since we are both flesh and spirit. Strong human relationships have ups and downs, happy times and struggles, sad days and great joys. Why would we expect our relationship with God to be any different? The key is not to let the hard times harden us so that we can’t embrace the joy when it comes, nor to let the happy times make us complacent so the hard times catch us off guard.
  2. Sometimes I do, but I realize that if I hadn’t prayed for his guidance, I’d be a far nastier person than I am now. It’s tough to submit to the will of God, it really is, because we’d like to do other things. But I know that there is greater peace in seeking his will than in seeking my own.
  3. Everyone sins. Everyone has free will, and we have a broken view of the good because of our fallen nature, and so we abuse our free will–not using it for God but using it for that which is contrary to his will. Thus we sin. Those who are very close to God sin, and those who are very far from God sin. Being close to God is not some kind of check that locks down your free will and makes it impossible to sin; God would not deprive us of the freedom he gave us so as to seek him. Those close to God fall into grievous sin precisely because they are tempted even more to turn them away once they have progressed so as to be close to God. Those far from God fall into sin because their resistance to temptation is often less. Those close to God also have a keener sense of their own sinfulness–this is not scrupulosity, but real humility, realism with oneself, realizing just how much weight his sins carry and how much he needs God more and more to overcome them. I could go on and on.
-ACEGC
 
The closer you get to God the more ups there will be. You will trust in Him more and even understand the blessing the gift of tears can be (even Jesus wept). Eventually you will be so close to God you will be in heaven an you will always be rejoicing in the Lord 🙂

Blessings!
 
Greetings in the love of God.
I did not read completely one of the longer reply posts.
I just would like to share something that just popped up in my mind when I read your question.

Some random thoughts:
All saints are sinners. Saints and their words themselves are proof to this fact.
I guess not all sinners are saints. All sinners are called to be saints.

So whatever I say, I pray to God to come from the Holy Spirit.

How do you keep a lifelong strong relationship with God or will it always be ups and downs?

By loving God (Love God all the time as much as possible - Deut. 6, Love is one that perfects our actions - Colos. 3, Love is the fulfilling of God’s law - Rom. 13). With the meaning of the word ‘Love’, as any other good words, changing in this world through evolving, in order to adapt to present standards of the material world, it is tough to get the true meaning of Love.
God is love. We cannot absolutely say the sentence in the reverse way. That is, we cannot say that - Love is God. If we say ‘Love is God’, then God is to my interpretation of Love.
Whether it be Love or Truth or Life or Way, God is.
I believe that we will have to desire to be close to God. And our desire has to be truthful, humble and earnest. Our desire better not stem from material. Even if it did so, it better not stay in the material. Our desire better not be second hand.
We cannot seek Him without desire Him. God would not disappoint people who seek Him with desire, especially after asking us to desire Him in prayer and love.
Love requires us to having Him as a Heavenly and Spiritual Lover every moment of our life as much as possible to our mind, soul and strength.

It is tough, tough and tough. But you know, there is one secret and easy way. It is to ask Him earnestly to help us even to love Him. Because He is love itself.

Do you ever wish you could navigate your own life without praying for God’s guidance on choices?

I have wished in this manner in the past. I believe that it is in the aspect of the love relationship, (between us and God) all the reasons, against the need to pray, lose weight.
So, for the present season of my life, our Loving God has mercifully blessed this poor sinner to be dependent on Him through prayer. Sorry for the long reply. I would like to present some quotes and verses related to prayer.

Prayer:
  • More than presenting God with a wish list of what we want from Him, prayer is God’s means to prepare our souls for what He wants to give us. - St. Augustine
  • Prayer, says St Chrysostom, which accustoms us to converse with God, is a strong bond of divine love
Importance of Prayer:
  • The soul without prayer, sends forth a bad odor before God, because he who neglects to recommend himself to the divine protection, soon begins to put on the corruption of sin – St. Chrysostom
  • As a king considers a general to be unfaithful, who, when besieged by the enemy, does not seek assistance (of the king), So God regards as traitors those Christians who, when beset by temptations, do not apply to him (pray) for aid – St. Bonaventure
  • Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that are to come, and to stand before the Son of Man -Luke 21:36.
  • Without prayer no fruit can be expected from the soul – St. Francis of Assisi
  • Let no person make little of his or her prayer, since God sets a high value on it; He will give what we ask or what He knows will be more useful to us – St. Bernard
  • A person may say, I am unable to fast or to give alms; but if he be told to pray, he cannot say I am unable to pray; because there is nothing more easy than to pray – St. Alphonsus Ligouri
Effect of Prayer:
  • Sometimes grace is more readily obtained by one short prayer than by many good works – St. Bonaventure
  • And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear – Isiah 65:24
  • He who asks receives whilst he is praying, because to pray and to receive are one and the same – St. Ambrose
  • What we ask is obtained before the conclusion of our prayers – St. Chrysostom
  • Nothing is more powerful than a person who prays because he or she partakes of the power of God – St. Chrysostom
  • St Jerome declares that our prayers are pleasing to God, in proportion to our perseverance and importunity
Why do even people the closest to God fall into sometimes mortal sins?
It could be due to one or more reasons that the Lord only knows the real truth. We can come up with so many reasons. But we cannot know the complete real truth.
Those closest to God might be are the most crucial targets of the evil spirit. I think - More we get closer, we will find the need to be more dependent on our God. But we, by our faith, must believe that God would help those who desire to go close to God, in His Grace. If we get closer to God for just being with God, and not for anything else, then God would certainly be glad to help us even when we occasionally fall.

Well, whether we know all the truths, whether we have read the Bible 100 times, and all…it is tough, tough and tough. However, it is simple, simple and simple too. It depends (on where our dependency is). The secret is to be in Love with the Lord all the times, until our mind is sane. I became to believe that the Love of God (in us) will teach us to act according to the will and to the pleasure of Him.

Best wishes, to you and the readers, in the Love of God…
 
CRATUS said:
I know I post often. I have been growing a lot spirituality during this Lent. I have had periods in my life where I was praying daily and centering my life around God, I am usually the strongest against temptations, then I find myself drifting away.
  1. How do you keep a lifelong strong relationship with God or will it always be ups and downs?
  2. Do you ever wish you could navigate your own life without praying for God’s guidance on choices?
  3. Why do even people the closest to God fall into sometimes mortal sins?
Click to expand...
  1. Ups and downs, or tests, are beautiful. Your love for God becomes stronger, the foundation is strengthened. The fight for your future and free will is a daily battle. It will never stop until final judgement. Praise God for this journey!
  2. No. Everything with God will succeed, without God leads to failure. We are called to be in communion with God. God is your best friend, why would you want to do the journey alone?
  3. Maybe it’s a wake up call. Why did Peter deny Jesus three times, and not only once? Maybe it’s because of dryness that requires rejuvenation.
God bless.
 
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