What "belief" in Jesus?

[uglygal]

if you stop for a moment and think about it, why would the Father accept you without Christ’s sacrifice on the cross? If you reject Jesus Christ, you reject what He has done for you. Certainly you do not believe that you are solely worthy of being with the Father based on your own merits?!

Yet I was solely worth dying for based on my own merits??

Perhaps you have found some kind of peace with the idea that you have gained a certain control. By rejecting Christ, perhaps you feel comfort by having the ability to push God out of your way. You then personify that feeling and apply it as having come from the Father of our Lord. But

Make up your mind, either God loves me sooo much He would die for me even if I were the only person alive without any merits … or I am dead to him in sin and he won’t even look at me until a blood and guts sacrifice is offered to him

 

[uglygal]

Thankyou for people’s responses Some make more sense to me than others … i appreciate people helping me

 

[uglygal]

I think that it might also assist the OP, if we were to glance up from our theology texts - long enough to consult the images that God Himself provides in the Scriptures. The Good Shepherd, the Divine Physician
“I come not for the well. The well have no need of a physician.”

I find that when the "well’ get rolling, I step out of the way.

In short, for those who are struggling to find Jesus, one occassionaly thinks of the saying “You can always tell those who are being done good to, by the haggard expressions on their faces.” :coffeeread:

God saves. And if it is not clear to those who become perplexed
as to “how” God saves, in a given instance -

“It’s all here, in Holy Writ. This is how God said He’d save,”

perhaps God will do such individuals the courtesy of explaining
just how He went about saving a heart, a soul and a mind, in a
given instance.

Sometimes, the ‘cookbook’ approach becomes akin to a tornado -
and does God opt, once in a while, for a soft breeze?

“A bruised reed He will not break, and a smouldering wick He will not snuff out…” Isaiah 42:3

reen12

I hope this is true because the God I have come to know is one that is very gentle with people … very unlike the legalistic, eternally offended catholic/christian god

 

[uglygal]

There can be different ways of looking at the “Way”. Most automatically associate it with the name and person of Jesus, who is the Christ.
However, John tells us that What came to us is “The Word” made flesh, so The Word is The Way. What is that Word? It is the Word of God written on our hearts. Thus it can be said that, "No one comes to the Father but through me (The Word)
Jesus (The Flesh) is the perfect example of faith lived and the perfect sacrifice that restored us to the Father. Christ (The Spirit) is the perfect embodiment of the HS.

I trust this is perfectly obtuse.

The eternal uncreated Word / Wisdom of the Father … I love the Wisdom of the Father - I call the Wisdom of God ‘Lord’ because the Father created the world by him and by him the entire world is governed and kept in place (physical world, laws, seasons etc). The Father revealed his Wisdom to me as he revealed his spirit - his word and spirit are like his very own heart and soul, two arms that reach down to carry us and lift us to heaven to be with him.

The Father helps me understand many things that are false about catholicism and the Jesus I knew …
He has taught me that He is who and what He is … but my understanding of him is triune - the Father, his Holy Word and his Holy Spirit … but they are not three and separate (like the trinity), they are all ONE. You cannot divide and separate them because they are all together always as absolute one … just like my body, my soul, my heart (as an example) are together and cannot be separated - even in eternity they won’t be separated because my body will be resurrected.

God my Father is very *gentle *with me - he is not the catholic god who is an old grump sitting in heaven damning everyone at every turn with his endless doctrines and dogmas.

I no longer care if I am a heretic to catholics because it has so many rules and dogmas that I don’t even know and so I am probably a heretic anyway

I love my Father who is God. And if he’s not I prefer him as an imaginary friend/god than the catholic/christian monstrosity.

I have decided that I won’t allow myself to be bullied … I am not going to allow threats of hell or pointed fingers that I am stepping away from the rules intimidate me into staying catholic. My split is complete and in leaving I have found God. I am happy with him.

 

[uglygal]

continued …

I have a prayer I pray every morning that the Father my God taught me to pray.

Heavenly Father, Eternal God
I trust in You and your mercy

Heavenly Father, God of mercy … have mercy on me
Heavenly Father, Eternal Creator …
Heavenly Father, my protector …
Heavenly Father, my dearest friend …
Heavenly Father, my joy and my life …
Heavenly Father, my treasure …
Heavenly Father, most compassionate …
Heavenly Father, most gentle …
Heavenly Father, most generous …
Heavenly Father, who wills what is good for me …
Heavenly Father, ever ready to forgive …
Heavenly Father, who keeps no count of wrongs but delights in what is good …
Heavenly Father, Father of Perfect Holy Love …

Heavenly Father, your Eternal Word redeems me and your Wisdom governs all things in existence. Your Holy Word is rightful master and Lord over all things for I am saved by your Word, your holy will

Holy Lord … *Have mercy on me *
Holy Lord, my redemption …
Holy Lord, my companion …
Holy Lord, my sanctity …
Holy Lord, my Master …
Holy Lord, my Teacher …

Heavenly Father, your Holy Spirit sanctifies me and is your merciful grace with me

Grant me the grace to love perfectly, to love you and others with an unconditional love, to be humble, to be pure, to be charitable and holy

Instead of miracles, apparitions and visions - grant me endurance, perseverance and patience.

that in my life and my death … your will be done
In my coming and my going …
In my suffering and my joy …
In my sickness and in my health …
In my wealth and in my poverty …
In my success and my failures …
In my beginnings and my endings …

I have asked for neither health nor wealth, joy nor success for these things are passing.
What I do ask for Heavenly Father is to love perfectly
to love you unconditionally
to persevere until death
to endure until eternity

My Heavenly Father taught me this because he has helped me understand what is important in life and faith

I know this is right because I can feel it deep within me

I even have the confidence to pray “your will be done” and truly mean it … I can only do that because I know my God is good. You cannot abandon yourself like that to a god who has malice or some evil in them.

I’m sorry I’ve rambled …

 

[JRKH]

U-Gal,
I don’t think you rambled at all.
Others may consider the “orthodox” view as the only one, but others do not.

Iread with great interest both your posts and I truely love your prayer/lineny. I hope you don’t mind that I copied it for my own use.

Jesus taught against false/shallow teaching and told us we would know who was a true follower by their fruit.
I see that fruit in much that you are posting.

You have embraced a kind of simple faith that is beautiful and christian in the purest sense of the word.
It is very interesting that most of what you espouse in your posts come right out of Gospel teachings.
All things made through the Word
Love God and Love Others

As always, I am sorry that you see the “Catholic god” as somehow evil ( grumpy-bullying-threatening). But I must agree with you that worshipping under threat of hell is no worship at all.
I love God because he deserves my love. He made me and sustains me. I want to be with him and with others who, like yourself, surrender to His Love.

I continue to believe that the Father has you firmly in hand, and will continue to teach you. Please be on guard though, make sure to weigh teachings against those great commandments of Love.

I’m sure others will have comments on your specific points and remember that most all here mean well and even posts you basically don’t agree with may contain good points.

Thanks for sharing your journey with us.

Peace
James

 

[Tietjen]

I’ll continue to pray for you gal.

 

[Tietjen]

I’ll pray for you as well JRKH. Perhaps with time, you’ll come to understand that encouraging people that need help to seek whatever path makes them feel good (regardless of the Truth) may be politically correct, but it certainly is not Biblical nor Catholic. God bless and peace all.

 

[JRKH]

I’ll pray for you as well JRKH. Perhaps with time, you’ll come to understand that encouraging people that need help to seek whatever path makes them feel good (regardless of the Truth) may be politically correct, but it certainly is not Biblical nor Catholic. God bless and peace all.

Thank you for your prayers.
Never said I couldn’t use all the help I can get.

May I ask a question of you?
I would like to know if you find anything “unchristian” or “uncatholic” in U-Gal’s “Litany” prayer.

Peace
James

 

[Tietjen]

Yet I was solely worth dying for based on my own merits??

No, you were not. Christ didn’t die on the cross because of your merits or because you some how deserved His sacrifice. He chose to make His sacrifice because He loves you. You in turn choose to reject Him. Still He loves you and perhaps someday you will understand that and embrace Him.

Make up your mind, either God loves me sooo much He would die for me even if I were the only person alive without any merits … or I am dead to him in sin and he won’t even look at me until a blood and guts sacrifice is offered to him

I am sorry; you seem very confused. God does love you; He did die on the cross for you (not because of merits or your deserving His sacrifice). There are no more blood sacrifices to be offered. You have free will. You can choose to embrace Him or reject Him. There are those here that will tell you that it does not make a difference which way you decide; that there are many ways to the Father. The Bible says otherwise however. I can continue to post on this thread (as I have in some of your other threads) but you have already heard what I have to say on the matter. I have not responded to you to condemn you. I am not trying to cause you stress. I am not attempting to anger you nor cause you guilt. I pray for only good things in your future. I will not however, sugarcoat, lie, or dumb-down the Truth in order to allow you to believe that rejecting Jesus Christ is okay. It is not okay; and I truly hope that someday you will come to that conclusion.

• To all those that disagree with me or wish to argue this further, I apologize but I will not be coming back to this thread any longer. I am not running away, I have simply said everything that needs to be said concerning rejecting our Lord. Further posts will only serve to repeat what has already been said.

** To Gal, I say that I will not speak out in your threads any further. You have created a great many threads, many opposing our Lord. While I am sorry that you have chosen to go down this path, I know too that I do not posses the necessary skills needed to convince you that you do indeed need the Lord and His Church. I have gotten the impression that you wish to draw attention to yourself and that perhaps you get some sort of pleasure from having people pity you. Perhaps I am out of line here. Perhaps not. I do hope that you will do as you say in a previous thread and seek professional help. Likewise I hope that you some day will embrace the Lord Jesus Christ as God and your hope for salvation. God bless.

 

[Tietjen]

Thank you for your prayers.
Never said I couldn’t use all the help I can get.

May I ask a question of you?
I would like to know if you find anything “unchristian” or “uncatholic” in U-Gal’s “Litany” prayer.

No, I do not find anything uncatholic “IN” Gal’s prayer. What I do find “unchristian” and “uncatholic” is Gal’s declarations in the post directly above the post containing her “prayer.”

uglygal:

The Father helps me understand many things that are false about catholicism and the Jesus I knew …

That’s impossible.

uglygal:

they are not three and separate (like the trinity), they are all ONE.

That’s a lie.

uglygal:

God my Father is very *gentle *with me - he is not the catholic god who is an old grump sitting in heaven damning everyone at every turn with his endless doctrines and dogmas.

She is so very confused.

uglygal:

I love my Father who is God. And if he’s not I prefer him as an imaginary friend/god than the catholic/christian monstrosity.

The “catholic/christian” god is a monstrosity? Defend this line thinking if you wish, I will not.

 

[PazFeAmor]

** To Gal, I say that I will not speak out in your threads any further.

The “catholic/christian” god is a monstrosity? Defend this line thinking if you wish, I will not.

I think it is best that you choose not to participate anymore in these threads. You will only end up going round in circles. I know that when I use to have **manic cycles of depression **I use to go through these “I hate the Catholic God” phases and when it would pass regret it profusely. The only difference is I battled with this within myself. I wouldn’t dare to bash the Catholic Church or any religious belief because who am I offend the sacred beliefs of others.

When you are insecure in your beliefs and in yourself you go on the attack. Since UglyGal has a history of depression I can recognize a manic phase when I see it. Yes, I know I am not a physician but 30+ years of suffering gives me the experience to recognize when I see it.

I wish others would take this into account.

As I said on the other thread. My prayer is that people stop feeding/encouraging the mania and that UglyGal gets help in the real world.

Peace.

 

[uglygal]

I am not mentally ill and I do not have mania.

why do you attack me personally as mentally ill just because my faith is different to yours?

but I won’t be staying here in CA because I’m not one of you and that makes me a mentally ill person seeking pity.
I hope your self-righteousness makes you feel closer to God

 

[Valke2]

I think if you believe that doing acts of loving kindness brings you closer to Jesus or whatever name you use for God, and you act on this belief as often as possible, you’ll be ok.

 

[JRKH]

Originally Posted by JRKH
Thank you for your prayers.
Never said I couldn’t use all the help I can get.

I’m glad because I think it is a beautiful and well expressed praise to God and something this beautiful could not have come from the “Evil One”

Originally Posted by uglygal
The Father helps me understand many things that are false about catholicism and the Jesus I knew …

That’s impossible.

Why impossible?..
Jesus tried to explain many things to the Jews that were “wrong” with the faith of Abraham. It wasn’t necessarily that the truth wasn’t there but rather that the people could not see it, or had distorted views of it.
Note that Gal refers to “the Jesus that I knew”. This is a highly significant point.

Originally Posted by uglygal
they are not three and separate (like the trinity), they are all ONE

That’s a lie.

That is a pretty strong accusation from a person who believes in three persons perfectly united in one God.
United in a way that cannot be understood by mere motals.

This accusation is also counterproductive - To accuse one of lieing implies malice on the part of the “liar”. If malace does not exist then the person may be mistaken but is not a liar.

Originally Posted by uglygal
God my Father is very gentle with me - he is not the catholic god who is an old grump sitting in heaven damning everyone at every turn with his endless doctrines and dogmas

She is so very confused.

Agreed.
But we must remember that Gal is trying to sort out error from truth in the way that things were presented to her growing up. It takes time.

Originally Posted by uglygal
I love my Father who is God. And if he’s not I prefer him as an imaginary friend/god than the catholic/christian monstrosity.

The “catholic/christian” god is a monstrosity? Defend this line thinking if you wish, I will not.

Nor would I. But if one reads what she believes of The Father, and what we believe of the Father, if one looks at the beauty and joy she is learning from God and one recognizes that everyone is unique and God will deal with them as unique, then it is possible to take this good and build on it.
The Father, in His own good time, will bring Gal to a full understanding of all that was wrong and right in her past.

Peace
James

 

[fhansen]

It might be helpful to recognize that feeling compelled to believe something-thinking that believing in something is the right thing to do-and actually believing it are two different things. And that conversion, according to the Catholic Catechism, is a process that requires time. And that all of us have had to go through changes-we weren’t always where we are now-and God in His mercy knows this and saves us “while yet in our sins and transgressions” -and in our various states of ignorance.

 

[JRKH]

It might be helpful to recognize that feeling compelled to believe something-thinking that believing in something is the right thing to do-and actually believing it are two different things. And that conversion, according to the Catholic Catechism, is a process that requires time. And that all of us have had to go through changes-we weren’t always where we are now-and God in His mercy knows this and saves us “while yet in our sins and transgressions” -and in our various states of ignorance.

VERY WELL PUT. THANK YOU:thumbsup:

Peace
James

 

[Godlovestrength]

so are you saying I am damned? that I have overstepped the line?

Sister NO person has the right to or to think that you are condemed for God tells us that He alone is the Judge. We and that is ALL PEOPLE are here for one thing and that is to LOVE one another the way God loves us and we are not able to love with out loving God. and you say you have found God and if you love God then that is how you understand…

I have found God the Father so this doesn’t make sense to me? If what you say is true than I shouldn’t experience and find the Father … but I have? so either your wrong … or …

You are not wrong. I had Jesus, and I related to the Holy Spirit. But never thought much more about Him until some person said to me “Wayne the Holy Spirit told me to tell you He loves you”!!! Wow !! that blew me away and I didn’t know what to say.
I never thought of it like that. How could this be? I knew God the Father loves me He created me, Jesus loves me He died for my sins but how was this to be that the Spirit of God Loves me?

I cryied and didn’t know what to say but then I thought “yes! what I have to do is fall in love with the Holy Spirit the same way as I have with the Father and Jesus.”

Since then I have never looked back and the relationship has just bloomed.
What I did was to let go and let God show me how to do what I didn’t have the understanding to do myself.

You seem to be some what in the same place I was?

God bless

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Godlovestrength

How true!

Faith comes from the will, not from the intellect. Many people can believe in Jesus, understand that the teachings of the Catholic Church are true, but still not have faith. Faith requires giving of ourselves, that is our will, to Christ.

“Ye must be born again,” as Jesus said. However, we can not be born again until we die to our old self.

We receive faith in proportion to how much of ourself, we give over to Jesus.

For many, turning their will away from their old attachments, is too much for them, so they just outright reject Jesus. But they never knew Jesus to begin with.

Jim

 

[Godlovestrength]

Sister you say

***I have found God the Father so this doesn’t make sense to me? If what you say is true than I shouldn’t experience and find the Father … but I have? ***

You along with every other person has an experience with God at some time and some how.
To some much is given to others a little, to one Jesus apears (like Paul), to me when it was my time God sent a person to tell me something profound (that the Holy Spirit loves me) it struck me off the horse (as Paul) but that happened at the time that suited God not me. Your time with the Father is now, the revelation of Jesus will come at the time where the Father who loves you reveiles to you not sooner, for you would not be ready until God says.

Be at peace
Godbless you

Godbless