That's OK Gil, God has taken you in to account. It's nothing new to Him.He has made provision for you as well as for me.
I understand both sides.
Peace>>>AJ:love9:
How can we get rid of our sinfulness?
- Thread starter sanctus
- Start date
That's OK Gil, God has taken you in to account. It's nothing new to Him.He has made provision for you as well as for me.
I understand both sides.
Peace>>>AJ:love9:
I get my provisions from Safeway, Overwaitea, Canadian Wholesale Club, Walmart, and out back. 
I get my provisions from Safeway, Overwaitea, Canadian Wholesale Club, Walmart, and out back.
That's good!
Peace>>>AJ:love9:
If one is dead, theres no need to eat! Spiritually speaking. But do feed your body though, you need to stay healthy.
Peace>>>AJ:love9:
After the disobedience of our first parents, Cain was the first to indulge in his wickedness, He killed Abel out of jealousy. In the same way all generations have proven to the Lord how wicked we are.
The Lord patiently waits until we change, He has shown His anger before and He has exhorted us to change, by way of the Commandments, the prophets and then by sending His own Son. Jesus came to teach us perfection and justification through faith in Him, He has left His church the gift of His Presence in all the Sacraments.
Jesus healed a man who had been sick for thirty eight years, He said to him "now that you are healed , go and sin no more otherwise something worse may happen to you" [John 5:14]. The Lord has warned us time and time again that our transgressions call for punishment.
Many people fall into the trap of losing the sense of sin, they justify themselves because they no longer listen to the Word of God. They seem to ignore that there is judgement after death and that we must be alert [Hebrews 9:27]. Some may think that becoming holy is a thing for priests and nuns, and that in order to be saved they only need to say one prayer now and then. They think that they will repent when they feel that they are terminally ill, they suppose that they are going to have a lot of time to change before they die.
They don't study the Bible to learn the commandments of God, they don't go to Church on Sundays to participate in the Lord's Supper, the Holy Eucharist. They don't frequent the sacraments that sanctify us , they don't study the Catechism to learn the teachings of the Church. They choose to be learned of the world and ignorant of God.
We live in a sea of sin, surrounded by temptation coming from within ourselves and from everywhere. As much as we struggle to live sinless, we must face the reality of our sinfulness and try to change, we suffer because of our weaknesses, this doesn't mean that we must give up, on the contrary this kind of suffering for our spiritual being is the constant call of the Spirit, giving us the Grace to carry on.
We must watch the windows of the soul, our senses:
Our eyes must be kept from seeing too much of what we can not have, or what we should not have, it could be obscene pictures that trigger desires and move our passions. Or we may also sin as we delight too much in looking at beautiful things because they may lead us to the desire for material possessions, therefore we must watch carefully, in a way we must fast with our eyes.
Watching television is a way of delighting the eyes, as we entertain ourselves, our minds are working subconsciously, and before we know it temptations creep in and we may sin by agreeing with what we see.
Other way in which we are lead to sin is by listening, we may become addicted to music or even just to noise, empty conversations, etc., this is a wonderful distraction of the mind that makes it difficult to find time to pray.
We may overindulge in our good taste for food, because this is enticing the senses to always hunger for what is excellent and delicious, we resent to spend some time with God in prayer and it becomes the most difficult moment of the day.
We may also get carried away by the smell of perfumes, lotions and other good smelling things, not that this is sinful in any way but somehow, our simplicity is replaced by vanity.
On the surface all the activities of the senses are very innocent but they lead to the slavery of the soul to the things of the world and the flesh.
To live a life for Christ we also must become very familiar with the tricks of the enemy, any good thing can be used by him to lead us into sin.
No wonder the Lord has said that we must deny ourselves, that means doing with as little as we can, eating only what is required for our nourishment, not being too desireful of exotic foods or expensive things. We must not be too anxious about what is going on in the world, because nowadays there are no good news, they all contribute to keep us tense. We must cut entertainment from our lives, since dissipation leads us to tepidity. Our souls must take the most important place in our lives. What is the good of gaining the world if we lose our souls? [Luke 12:21]
If we live our lives by the high standards of the world, we disregard the needs of the poor in order to over indulge on our vanities and pleasures. Whatever is a surplus for us should be what is lacking to the poor. But we sin by injustice not being concerned about others.
Perhaps the greatest sin of all is not so much the sin committed directly but the sin of omission. There are so many good things that we are supposed to do, but we don't do them.
On the last day the Lord will not judge us for how much we sinned but for what we did not do for our neighbour. I was hungry and you did not feed me, naked and you did not clothe me, in prison and you did not visit me. I needed help but you could not help me because you were so busy with your self [Matthew 25:41-46].
If we fast regularly, and by that I mean taking less food than required, using less time for entertainment and more for prayer, spending less on luxuries but helping the poor, if we restrain our tongues by not offending anyone and if we look at every other human being as a member of our own families, then we would be ready to ascend the road of holiness that Jesus invites us to follow. [Isaiah Chapter 58]
We must bear in mind that in baptism we become members of the body of Christ. A hand is good for nothing, if it is cut off from the body; the same happens to any other part. If any part of the body hurts, all the members must do something about it, just as when we are attacked by infection and the immune system works to defend us .
The people of God are not united as they should, they don't share as in the early days of the Church [Acts 2:42-47], we must care for the needs of others, otherwise we are sinning.
The Lord patiently waits until we change, He has shown His anger before and He has exhorted us to change, by way of the Commandments, the prophets and then by sending His own Son. Jesus came to teach us perfection and justification through faith in Him, He has left His church the gift of His Presence in all the Sacraments.
Jesus healed a man who had been sick for thirty eight years, He said to him "now that you are healed , go and sin no more otherwise something worse may happen to you" [John 5:14]. The Lord has warned us time and time again that our transgressions call for punishment.
Many people fall into the trap of losing the sense of sin, they justify themselves because they no longer listen to the Word of God. They seem to ignore that there is judgement after death and that we must be alert [Hebrews 9:27]. Some may think that becoming holy is a thing for priests and nuns, and that in order to be saved they only need to say one prayer now and then. They think that they will repent when they feel that they are terminally ill, they suppose that they are going to have a lot of time to change before they die.
They don't study the Bible to learn the commandments of God, they don't go to Church on Sundays to participate in the Lord's Supper, the Holy Eucharist. They don't frequent the sacraments that sanctify us , they don't study the Catechism to learn the teachings of the Church. They choose to be learned of the world and ignorant of God.
We live in a sea of sin, surrounded by temptation coming from within ourselves and from everywhere. As much as we struggle to live sinless, we must face the reality of our sinfulness and try to change, we suffer because of our weaknesses, this doesn't mean that we must give up, on the contrary this kind of suffering for our spiritual being is the constant call of the Spirit, giving us the Grace to carry on.
We must watch the windows of the soul, our senses:
Our eyes must be kept from seeing too much of what we can not have, or what we should not have, it could be obscene pictures that trigger desires and move our passions. Or we may also sin as we delight too much in looking at beautiful things because they may lead us to the desire for material possessions, therefore we must watch carefully, in a way we must fast with our eyes.
Watching television is a way of delighting the eyes, as we entertain ourselves, our minds are working subconsciously, and before we know it temptations creep in and we may sin by agreeing with what we see.
Other way in which we are lead to sin is by listening, we may become addicted to music or even just to noise, empty conversations, etc., this is a wonderful distraction of the mind that makes it difficult to find time to pray.
We may overindulge in our good taste for food, because this is enticing the senses to always hunger for what is excellent and delicious, we resent to spend some time with God in prayer and it becomes the most difficult moment of the day.
We may also get carried away by the smell of perfumes, lotions and other good smelling things, not that this is sinful in any way but somehow, our simplicity is replaced by vanity.
On the surface all the activities of the senses are very innocent but they lead to the slavery of the soul to the things of the world and the flesh.
To live a life for Christ we also must become very familiar with the tricks of the enemy, any good thing can be used by him to lead us into sin.
No wonder the Lord has said that we must deny ourselves, that means doing with as little as we can, eating only what is required for our nourishment, not being too desireful of exotic foods or expensive things. We must not be too anxious about what is going on in the world, because nowadays there are no good news, they all contribute to keep us tense. We must cut entertainment from our lives, since dissipation leads us to tepidity. Our souls must take the most important place in our lives. What is the good of gaining the world if we lose our souls? [Luke 12:21]
If we live our lives by the high standards of the world, we disregard the needs of the poor in order to over indulge on our vanities and pleasures. Whatever is a surplus for us should be what is lacking to the poor. But we sin by injustice not being concerned about others.
Perhaps the greatest sin of all is not so much the sin committed directly but the sin of omission. There are so many good things that we are supposed to do, but we don't do them.
On the last day the Lord will not judge us for how much we sinned but for what we did not do for our neighbour. I was hungry and you did not feed me, naked and you did not clothe me, in prison and you did not visit me. I needed help but you could not help me because you were so busy with your self [Matthew 25:41-46].
If we fast regularly, and by that I mean taking less food than required, using less time for entertainment and more for prayer, spending less on luxuries but helping the poor, if we restrain our tongues by not offending anyone and if we look at every other human being as a member of our own families, then we would be ready to ascend the road of holiness that Jesus invites us to follow. [Isaiah Chapter 58]
We must bear in mind that in baptism we become members of the body of Christ. A hand is good for nothing, if it is cut off from the body; the same happens to any other part. If any part of the body hurts, all the members must do something about it, just as when we are attacked by infection and the immune system works to defend us .
The people of God are not united as they should, they don't share as in the early days of the Church [Acts 2:42-47], we must care for the needs of others, otherwise we are sinning.
You think you've lived without God, but in fact He has been present in you always. He is present in us all, whether we acknowledge Him or not. He does not require our belief to exist.
ML, knowing the context of your comments, which are common in the Church, I must correct your statement somewhat. We realize we hold the fullness of the faith as God has revealed it to us, but we cannot deny the goodness in people outside of the Church. Nor can we determine for God exactly who and who is not saved. There is a subtle truth to all paths towards God, and we celebrate these truths. This does not mean we abandon our faith as Catholics, or that other religions are equal to the Church. But it does mean we are not limited to eternal salvation just because we are Catholic.
Throughout time God has attempted to do just that. But we are self-centred and focused only on our carnal pleasures, so we killed those voices that spoke for this forgiveness. In the end, a more tangible, observable statement was required, hence Jesus. That, if you will, got our attention.
Is the Bible the "pillar of truth" in the Christian religion? No. According to the Bible Itself, the Church is the "pillar of truth" (1 Timothy 3:15), not the Bible. Some "Bible" Christians insist that a "pillar" (the Church) was created to "hold up" another structure (the Bible). They claim the Bible is the structure being held up according to this passage. Well, if that is the case, how did the early Church "hold up" the Bible for the first three to four hundred years when the Bible Itself didn't even exist? Also, even if the Church is only a "pillar" holding up the Bible, doesn't that mean that the Church is the interpreter of Scripture rather than the individual?
Is private interpretation of the Bible condoned in the Bible Itself? No, it is not (2 Peter 1:20). Was individual interpretation of Scripture practiced by the early Christians or the Jews? Again, "NO" (Acts 8:29-35). The assertion that individuals can correctly interpret Scripture is false. Even the "founder" of Sola Scriptura (Martin Luther), near the end of his life, was afraid that "any milkmaid who could read" would found a new Christian denomination based on his or her "interpretation" of the Bible. Luther opened a "Pandora's Box" when he insisted that the Bible could be interpreted by individuals and that It is the sole authority of Christianity. Why do we have over 20,000 different non-Catholic Christian denominations? The reason is individuals' "different" interpretations of the Bible.
The "Bible" ("books") is the most sacred book, the "Word of God", for the Christians... the whole Bible has been translated into 275 languages, and substantial parts into 1,720.
Bibles in different languages, commentaries, dictionary, concordance, encyclopedia
It contains two main parts: The Old and the New Testament; both are the "Testaments" left by God for you and me, and we should read them with as much care and love as we would read the Testament of our father, or the one of the rich uncle who left a fortune for us... God, our Father, left us an immense fortune in his Testaments.
The Original Documents of the Bible:
1- The "New Testament":
- All books written in Greek, with the quotations from the Old Testament taken from the Septuagint.
- We have 4,500 manuscripts in Greek, 67 papyrus, 2,578 parchment, 1,600 lectionaries mainly in the Codex of the Vatican, London, Paris, Cambridge, and Washington.
2- The "Old Testament":
It was written mostly in Hebrew and Aramaic, some in Greek... and we don't have any of the "original documents"; what we have today mainly are the "Greek Bible", the "Hebrew Bible", and the "Dead See Scrolls":
A- The "Greek Bible", the "Septuagint":
From the 3rd century before Christ, it is the oldest document we have. It is the Greek translation made in Alexandria by a Group or 72 rabbis (6 from each one of the 12 tribes), and hence the name of "Septuagint" given to the translation. It has 46 books like the actual Catholic Bibles, and it was the common version of the Bible among the Jews during Christ and well after Christ ; the one used and quoted by the Evangelists and Apostles when they wrote the New Testament.
- It was translated to Syriac, Coptic, and Latin in the 4th century (the "Vulgate" of St. Jerome).
B- "Hebrew Bible", Masoretic Text":
Written in the 6th to 10th centuries after Christ, by a Group of scholars from Babylon and Palestine, introducing vowels and accent signs to the Hebrew. They, of course, used the Septuagint to produce it. It has 39 books, like the Protestant Bibles.
C- The "Dead See Scrolls":
They are very important, because they are in Hebrew, dating from the 3rd century "before Christ", when the oldest Hebrew Bible we had, the Masoretic, is from 700 "after Christ"... it pushed back the curtain 1,000 years! on the earliest Hebrew document we had.
Every book of the Bible is represented. 7 scrolls are in Israel, but most of them are in Jordan, with a remarkable similarity to the ones we have in Greek and Hebrew. A most important discovery on the OT.!.
Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Bibles:
A total of 73 books in the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, and 66 in the Protestant Bibles.
1- The Old Testament: It is he same as the Jewish Tanakh.
- The Catholic Bibles have 46 books, as the Bible of the Jewish of Alexandria, who wrote the Septuagint, the version quoted by the Apostles in the Gospels and Epistles.
- The Protestant Bibles have 39 books, as the Bible of the Jews from Palestine.
They do not have:
- 4 Historic Books: Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees. (and Additions to Esther)
- 2 Wisdom Books: Wisdom of Solomon, and Ecclesiasticus of Ben Sirach.
- 1 Prophetic Book: Baruch. (and parts of Daniel: The Prayer of Azariah, the Song of the Three Young Men, Bel and the Dragon, and Susana).
2- The New Testament: With 27 Books in all the Bibles.
The "Four Gospels", are the heart of the Bible:
The Old Testament prefigures and characterizes the Christ of the Gospels and His Church; and the books after the Gospels show the development and expansion of the Church of Christ, and clarify important points of the Gospels... every page of the Old Testament talks about Christ and his Church... so, if when you read any book of the Bible you don't see there Christ or his Church, you have missed the main message of that book, read it again after praying! (Lk.24:27,44, Jn.1:45, 5:39).
A total of 73 books in the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, and 66 in the Protestant Bibles.
1- The Old Testament: It is he same as the Jewish Tanakh.
- The Catholic Bibles have 46 books, as the Bible of the Jewish of Alexandria, who wrote the Septuagint, the version quoted by the Apostles in the Gospels and Epistles.
- The Protestant Bibles have 39 books, as the Bible of the Jews from Palestine.
They do not have:
- 4 Historic Books: Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees. (and Additions to Esther)
- 2 Wisdom Books: Wisdom of Solomon, and Ecclesiasticus of Ben Sirach.
- 1 Prophetic Book: Baruch. (and parts of Daniel: The Prayer of Azariah, the Song of the Three Young Men, Bel and the Dragon, and Susana).
2- The New Testament: With 27 Books in all the Bibles.
The "Four Gospels", are the heart of the Bible:
The Old Testament prefigures and characterizes the Christ of the Gospels and His Church; and the books after the Gospels show the development and expansion of the Church of Christ, and clarify important points of the Gospels... every page of the Old Testament talks about Christ and his Church... so, if when you read any book of the Bible you don't see there Christ or his Church, you have missed the main message of that book, read it again after praying! (Lk.24:27,44, Jn.1:45, 5:39).
Under your understanding brother Sanctus, the Catholic Church is “the” Church by which the sole interpretation of the bible rests, and any other. Would not be, thus, the argument.
My understanding is that I am the church in this respect: If I trust and rely in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Master of my soul, and upon this rock, meaning faith in Him, Jesus, that upon that faith, He will build His church.
Please understand that His church is not a physical church, but a spiritual church.
If then it be a spiritual church, then the church is made up of believers, which is faith based.
You recall Jesus saying, that His Kingdom is not of this world? Well, then, how on earth could we be members of that kingdom when we are in the physical?
If His kingdom is a spiritual kingdom, then only spiritually could we then become members of it, yet being in the physical. Understand?
There are scriptures to confirm that. One is: Joh 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Now, one can do that anywhere in the world, because there are no physical limitations.
The nation of Israel had their temple of requirement that there is where they could only worship God in, but Jesus said: Joh 4:23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
“In spirit and in truth”, meaning from your spirit’s heart. And there is where the “true” worship is, not in some man made building.
The “church” is made up of spiritual believers, not physical members of any organization.
That is why I, appeal to the heart of my brethren, because there is where I find the truth of their understandings.
Looking at the heart I will find:Luk 12:34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
By the way, brother Sanctus, the bible is my source for everything under the sun. (Son)
In it, I find who God is, what God is and how He deals with mankind.
There is where the Catholic church and all other religions, get their info, but just in how they think it should be. Their way.
I don’t have but one way, and that way is Jesus.
Nobody, I mean no body can come to the Father except they go through Him.
Believer or non-believer, all must go through Him either while still alive in the flesh, or after this life expires.
Some will be pleasantly surprised, and will say, why didn’t somebody tell me this while I was alive on earth?
Does the story of Lazarus and the rich man, ring a bell?
Why suppose I am so calm, patient and long-suffering towards my fellow brethren?
Because, my heart goes out to them, for if they knew in their hearts, how much they are loved by God, their lives would change out of gratitude.
Hence, the heart I post with my salutation: broken hearted. (Or in other words, my heart goes out to those who no not the love of God, but could, and yet deny Him and or His word, making it of non-effect in their lives.
If you are going to be a priest, then be a priest of the heart. There is where healing takes place.
Love you brother, in Christ.
Peace>>>AJ :love9:
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Something good might come out of this, after all.LOL That was a nice post to wake up to.
Peace<<<AJ:love9:
Already has AJ Thanks to all of you here pharo's heart has found a touch of peace. But Peace doesnt come with a baseball bat it comes with heart. Yall KNEW that......others are just learning. Like I said before.....Im not convertable although I put it on my list for Yule. A nice Blue Mustange
My heart pumps liquid. It is a muscle that receives and sends signals through the autonomous nervous system from and to the brain. That's all it is.
As far as christ being in us whether we accept it or not, I'd have to say not any more than we have leprachauns, poltergeists, goblins, Disney's dwarves, and tooth faeries in us.
As far as christ being in us whether we accept it or not, I'd have to say not any more than we have leprachauns, poltergeists, goblins, Disney's dwarves, and tooth faeries in us.
I can only conclude that despite his omniscience he made a pretty bad job of designing and building us. Why would a perfect being create such dreadfully flawed creatures to worship him, knowing exactly how awful we were going to be?