Nothing depends on you, except your acceptance of God's gracious gift. Jesus did everything because you can do nothing to earn your salvation. And even faith is a gift from God. Ephesians 2:8-9.
That's a good point. However, I think the thief on the cross really did commit a crime. Whether he deserved to be shamefully and agonizingly crucified or not, I have no clue.
Jesus was a public enemy for the Jewish religious higher-ups, and he also threatened Rome on a smaller scale, and his entire ministry he garnered attention and derision from those people, so their midnight trial and illegal crucifixion of Him happened. However, with the thief, he was just a nobody, just some guy, which leads me to believe he really did get caught red handed, perhaps stealing from government officials or someone wealthy, thus earning himself a spot next to the Son of Man.
I have a sense that the writers of the Gospel who mention the thief would have included info about the man had there been anything else to say, as there were only two other convicts there at the hill of Calvary that morning.
Either way, whether he did steal or not, he was still a sinner, like you and me. And so Jesus pardoning him due to his faith still stands, and still has vast meaning for us.
If another believer sins, rebuke that person; then if there is repentance, forgive. Even if that person wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asks forgiveness, you must forgive. (Luke 17:3-4)
Without going into anything in much detail I would point out that you cannot have forgiveness in the first place without the act that is to be forgiven. You cannot even have the concept of there being something "good" without there also being something you can point to and say "bad". Also, what is good and what is bad is obviously always going to be relative, what is good for one person may quite literally kill another person.
What gets confusing is trying to actually make sense and assign words to everything, words are relative and there isn't any escaping this. How do you define words? With other words. Whether you believe in the absolute or the relative these are just words and you can confuse yourself infinitely with words due to their relative nature. What I'm trying to say is quit getting so attached to words! You clearly believe that what the church says is a lie, and I am not even telling you that you are wrong, just to stop being so attached to words.
Doing things for the greater good is absolutely silly, the greater good is a concept we have created that has no actual basis in reality, once again we are getting confused from taking words a little too seriously.
The intention of my post was not to convert you into a Bible worshipping Christian, because quite simply I do not identify with the typical Christian beliefs, honestly I can't tell you what I believe in words and why would either of us even want that? I was to try to get you to see the unreality of these things we call "words".
Alright I will humor you. Take any word, alone does this word have any meaning other than being a sound? No, the word only gains meaning in relation to the other words around it, as well as the whole system of reality we live in. Can you even conceive of the idea of nothing without also having the idea of something? Try. Give it a real shot, try to type any word you want to me to understand and somehow let me into the true sense of what you mean without any other words for context, or for that matter absolutely anything else in existence for context.
My entire point is that words are a tool! They are a symbol that we use to represent reality, not an actual reality in and of themselves other than being a sound, and a sound is only even a sound if there is something to hear a sound, as sound isn't just something that appears out of nowhere it is the relationship between things we call vibrations in the air, your ear, and your brain, without these other things sound cannot even begin to be called "sound".
So we see this world around us, and the way we've been brought up we find words to be an incredibly useful tool to make sense of the world. But what happens when the words don't make sense, or we simply can't find words to describe what we are feeling. Well, we can continue on coming up with words and using other words to define them to make some desperate attempt of explaining or making sense of a feeling. But does this really get us anywhere? At the end of the day the feeling we have isn't a jumble of words, it's something far different than that. So here we approach something to which we find words are no longer helping us to make sense of things, God, Reality, Religion, the nature of existence, all these things we find words are just too clumsy to describe tend to bother us because we want things to fit into our preconceived notions of how the world is supposed to be. My point is if you keep chasing after words for an answer you are chasing after the tool rather than the result produced by said tool. Don't get bogged down in words, and equally don't get bogged down by desiring certain outcomes over another, it's the same problem all over again.
Forgiving one another is entirely separate from being absolved of sin. Further...
If another believer sins, rebuke that person; then if there is repentance, forgive. Even if that person wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asks forgiveness, you must forgive. (Luke 17:3-4)
Being forgiving only means forgiving someone who ASKS for forgiveness, after ADMITTING what they did wrong AND repenting for it.
Don't take words too seriously, ultimately words are sounds we use to communicate and no matter how much we identify and feel that certain words spoken in a certain way make sense, they are still just words. You will never truly feel a relationship with God, Christ, Earth, Reality, The Universe, whatever you call it, so long as you get caught up in caring about words which are a completely different thing than the reality they are used to represent. In other words when it comes to matters of God quit trying to make sense of everything with words, you'll never be able to, it's a circular and never ending task as to define a word it takes other words and you cannot escape this simple fact. Words only have as much meaning as we give to them, as if you can't understand the words being spoken they may as well just be any other noise. Focus on what is real and don't get distracted by what is not.
Tl;dr Words are meant to guide you in a certain direction, not be the final destination themselves.
No. When you truly repent, you are forgiven, when you give your heart to Jesus Christ, you are born again and saved. The two go hand in hand. Should you sin knowingly post receiving Christ, you still need to repent of that sin to be forgiven. God’s forgiveness and man’s are two totally different things. Should you sin against another, you must seek theirs and God’s forgiveness. When someone is saved, they will want to serve the Lord unless they have wandered or are insincere to begin with.
One of the most beautiful of Jesus' parables on forgiveness - the prodigal son:
"17 But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’
20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.
21 Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’[c] 22 But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.' "
Also when Jesus prevented the woman from being stoned for adultery:
"4 “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. 7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
11 “No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” "
And of course, while Jesus was being nailed to the cross in one of the most excruciating tortures ever devised:
"Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
Do you have evidence for your claims of not being real and a book is fictional?
That's not how the burden of proof works, and you'd know that if you had an IQ above 80. Having said that, I sure do. Snakes cannot communicate with humans through language. Humans cannot raise from the dead. Humans cannot walk on liquid water. You cannot conjure bread or wine out of thin air. Humans could not then nor now live for several hundred years. The list goes on, this is the tip of the iceberg.
Also, do you have a source for JK Rowling "explicitly stating" that her books are fictional? Obviously, they are, I just find it hilarious that somebody like you actually forced her to clarify that 😂 I was around 8 when I first watched Harry Potter and there wasn't a question in my mind about whether or not it's made up. You were so unsure that you literally looked up a quote of Rowling having to EXPLICITLY STATE that it's fictional. That's both funny & sad.
Yes it was on the first pages of the book where it stated: :
1. Fantasy — Fiction. 2. Witches — Fiction. 3. Wizards — Fiction.
4. Schools — Fiction. 5. England — Fiction.
Now back to the point, you made a claim someone is not real and a book is fictional, without any evidence for that, and when asked refused to support the burden of proof requested. You have further made a claim of what happened a long time ago, asserted in fact, but no one can verify. While you have made further specific claims, nothing you have said yet has proven your initial claim that someone is not real and a book is fiction. Unfortunately i have to say it looks like you have no satisfactory evidence to support your initial claim, and so it can therefore be dismissed.
Insulting at this point cements that you have no evidence to support your initial claims, demonstrates bad form on your part, and signals anything further will be a waste of time (possibly tantrum-like). Best to leave it here, i've been at all levels of debate below this one, and nothing positive comes from it. But if you can get satisfactory evidence to support your initial claims i'll revisit.
As noted the waste of time has begun, and the tantrum has begun with the assertion an insult isn't an insult.
You can continue being incivil but it will result in a ban. Or present clear satisfactory evidence to support your initial claim (this is a research board). Or leave it here, and let your silence signal agreement that your unsupported claim can be dismissed.
I like this post.
...faith in Jesus + 0 = Salvation.....
This made me cry. It’s true.
Joy often makes my cry
TRUTH and joy make me cry.
The Way, The TRUTH, the Life.
An act so wonderful, so loving, so incredibly generous and merciful; it can only be considered divine. Jesus is Lord.
Yes, forgiveness is healing and life changing. I like this gentle meme.
The problem is that people confuse forgiveness with permission.
*only if you repent
**and mean it
True. Forgiveness is nothing without change.
Nothing depends on you, except your acceptance of God's gracious gift. Jesus did everything because you can do nothing to earn your salvation. And even faith is a gift from God. Ephesians 2:8-9.
Amen
Ephesians 4:32 “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.”
Yes
Precisely. Read about the thief on the cross. He was taken up to paradise with Christ because he trusted and believed. It's as simple as that.
That's a good point. However, I think the thief on the cross really did commit a crime. Whether he deserved to be shamefully and agonizingly crucified or not, I have no clue.
Jesus was a public enemy for the Jewish religious higher-ups, and he also threatened Rome on a smaller scale, and his entire ministry he garnered attention and derision from those people, so their midnight trial and illegal crucifixion of Him happened. However, with the thief, he was just a nobody, just some guy, which leads me to believe he really did get caught red handed, perhaps stealing from government officials or someone wealthy, thus earning himself a spot next to the Son of Man.
I have a sense that the writers of the Gospel who mention the thief would have included info about the man had there been anything else to say, as there were only two other convicts there at the hill of Calvary that morning.
Either way, whether he did steal or not, he was still a sinner, like you and me. And so Jesus pardoning him due to his faith still stands, and still has vast meaning for us.
You do have to change, you can't carry on as usual.
You are correct. Repentance is necessary.
If another believer sins, rebuke that person; then if there is repentance, forgive. Even if that person wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asks forgiveness, you must forgive. (Luke 17:3-4)
Without going into anything in much detail I would point out that you cannot have forgiveness in the first place without the act that is to be forgiven. You cannot even have the concept of there being something "good" without there also being something you can point to and say "bad". Also, what is good and what is bad is obviously always going to be relative, what is good for one person may quite literally kill another person.
What gets confusing is trying to actually make sense and assign words to everything, words are relative and there isn't any escaping this. How do you define words? With other words. Whether you believe in the absolute or the relative these are just words and you can confuse yourself infinitely with words due to their relative nature. What I'm trying to say is quit getting so attached to words! You clearly believe that what the church says is a lie, and I am not even telling you that you are wrong, just to stop being so attached to words.
Doing things for the greater good is absolutely silly, the greater good is a concept we have created that has no actual basis in reality, once again we are getting confused from taking words a little too seriously.
The intention of my post was not to convert you into a Bible worshipping Christian, because quite simply I do not identify with the typical Christian beliefs, honestly I can't tell you what I believe in words and why would either of us even want that? I was to try to get you to see the unreality of these things we call "words".
Alright I will humor you. Take any word, alone does this word have any meaning other than being a sound? No, the word only gains meaning in relation to the other words around it, as well as the whole system of reality we live in. Can you even conceive of the idea of nothing without also having the idea of something? Try. Give it a real shot, try to type any word you want to me to understand and somehow let me into the true sense of what you mean without any other words for context, or for that matter absolutely anything else in existence for context.
My entire point is that words are a tool! They are a symbol that we use to represent reality, not an actual reality in and of themselves other than being a sound, and a sound is only even a sound if there is something to hear a sound, as sound isn't just something that appears out of nowhere it is the relationship between things we call vibrations in the air, your ear, and your brain, without these other things sound cannot even begin to be called "sound".
So we see this world around us, and the way we've been brought up we find words to be an incredibly useful tool to make sense of the world. But what happens when the words don't make sense, or we simply can't find words to describe what we are feeling. Well, we can continue on coming up with words and using other words to define them to make some desperate attempt of explaining or making sense of a feeling. But does this really get us anywhere? At the end of the day the feeling we have isn't a jumble of words, it's something far different than that. So here we approach something to which we find words are no longer helping us to make sense of things, God, Reality, Religion, the nature of existence, all these things we find words are just too clumsy to describe tend to bother us because we want things to fit into our preconceived notions of how the world is supposed to be. My point is if you keep chasing after words for an answer you are chasing after the tool rather than the result produced by said tool. Don't get bogged down in words, and equally don't get bogged down by desiring certain outcomes over another, it's the same problem all over again.
Forgiving one another is entirely separate from being absolved of sin. Further...
If another believer sins, rebuke that person; then if there is repentance, forgive. Even if that person wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asks forgiveness, you must forgive. (Luke 17:3-4)
Being forgiving only means forgiving someone who ASKS for forgiveness, after ADMITTING what they did wrong AND repenting for it.
Don't take words too seriously, ultimately words are sounds we use to communicate and no matter how much we identify and feel that certain words spoken in a certain way make sense, they are still just words. You will never truly feel a relationship with God, Christ, Earth, Reality, The Universe, whatever you call it, so long as you get caught up in caring about words which are a completely different thing than the reality they are used to represent. In other words when it comes to matters of God quit trying to make sense of everything with words, you'll never be able to, it's a circular and never ending task as to define a word it takes other words and you cannot escape this simple fact. Words only have as much meaning as we give to them, as if you can't understand the words being spoken they may as well just be any other noise. Focus on what is real and don't get distracted by what is not.
Tl;dr Words are meant to guide you in a certain direction, not be the final destination themselves.
No. When you truly repent, you are forgiven, when you give your heart to Jesus Christ, you are born again and saved. The two go hand in hand. Should you sin knowingly post receiving Christ, you still need to repent of that sin to be forgiven. God’s forgiveness and man’s are two totally different things. Should you sin against another, you must seek theirs and God’s forgiveness. When someone is saved, they will want to serve the Lord unless they have wandered or are insincere to begin with.
Amazing Grace.
One of the most beautiful of Jesus' parables on forgiveness - the prodigal son:
"17 But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’
20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.
21 Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’[c] 22 But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.' "
Also when Jesus prevented the woman from being stoned for adultery:
"4 “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. 7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
11 “No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” "
And of course, while Jesus was being nailed to the cross in one of the most excruciating tortures ever devised:
"Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
That old classic hymn which states " the vilest offender that truly believes that moment from Jesus a pardon receives."
Apostle Paul in the Bible is a great example.
Indeed
First you must believe Jesus. Then you get the salvation.
Y'all realize he's not real, right? It's a fictional book lol.
Do you also think Harry Potter is real? If you run through the correct brick wall at some train station in the UK, you'll go to hogwarts? 😂
I wonder what the average IQ of people in this thread is. I'm gonna guess ~80-85.
Ah yes, comparing Harry Potter to the Bible. We have a genius here, folks!
Compared to you, anybody's a genius.
You’re really not very good at this. I’ll assume you’ve met any daily engagement requirements, paid or otherwise, and leave you here. Have fun!
He calling you a shill...paid by the click or exchange etc.
A shill who's paid to do what exactly? What would be the motive?
We have a "fool" here, not a genius.
Neither is Jesus.
"wait, not like that!"
Do you have evidence for your claims of not being real and a book is fictional?
I looked at Harry Potter, and the author of it explicitly stated it's fictional.
That's not how the burden of proof works, and you'd know that if you had an IQ above 80. Having said that, I sure do. Snakes cannot communicate with humans through language. Humans cannot raise from the dead. Humans cannot walk on liquid water. You cannot conjure bread or wine out of thin air. Humans could not then nor now live for several hundred years. The list goes on, this is the tip of the iceberg.
Also, do you have a source for JK Rowling "explicitly stating" that her books are fictional? Obviously, they are, I just find it hilarious that somebody like you actually forced her to clarify that 😂 I was around 8 when I first watched Harry Potter and there wasn't a question in my mind about whether or not it's made up. You were so unsure that you literally looked up a quote of Rowling having to EXPLICITLY STATE that it's fictional. That's both funny & sad.
Yes it was on the first pages of the book where it stated: : 1. Fantasy — Fiction. 2. Witches — Fiction. 3. Wizards — Fiction. 4. Schools — Fiction. 5. England — Fiction.
Now back to the point, you made a claim someone is not real and a book is fictional, without any evidence for that, and when asked refused to support the burden of proof requested. You have further made a claim of what happened a long time ago, asserted in fact, but no one can verify. While you have made further specific claims, nothing you have said yet has proven your initial claim that someone is not real and a book is fiction. Unfortunately i have to say it looks like you have no satisfactory evidence to support your initial claim, and so it can therefore be dismissed.
I'm afraid you're retarded
Insulting at this point cements that you have no evidence to support your initial claims, demonstrates bad form on your part, and signals anything further will be a waste of time (possibly tantrum-like). Best to leave it here, i've been at all levels of debate below this one, and nothing positive comes from it. But if you can get satisfactory evidence to support your initial claims i'll revisit.
I've already proved ya wrong retard 😉
Also, it's not an insult, it's objectively true. I'm sorry you're easily offended!
As noted the waste of time has begun, and the tantrum has begun with the assertion an insult isn't an insult.
You can continue being incivil but it will result in a ban. Or present clear satisfactory evidence to support your initial claim (this is a research board). Or leave it here, and let your silence signal agreement that your unsupported claim can be dismissed.