He cant Fran, because it was invented by deceived men during the reformation, and not found anywhere in the text. After 500 years positional-ism has now been magnified to its greatest level of heresy today by apostates like Billy Graham, Erwin Lucer and a plethora of others...However, all the bible implies, presupposes, and declares, is manifest reality, (in other words faith proven by deeds). One is justified and sanctified by God after coming clean with Him in repentance, whereas all the guile and rebellion have been removed from the heart, and is now a vessel made fit for the Masters use. He/she may not know much, but the wilful vile sins of the flesh have ceased in the baptism of repentance..And the cup maybe small in the beginning, l but it is overflowing with the fountains of living water. Then as we grow in the word we add to our faith the virtues of the Spirit through grace with such things as temperance, knowledge, patience, godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 Peter 1:5-8.....Therefore, advancing onward to Christian maturity, "teleos" (perfection). But if one is abiding faithfully in Christ, his cup is always overflowing, no matter the size of the vessel, and the cup becomes larger as the virtues of the Spirit increase for the purpose of containing these godly ways that are dispensed upon him/her through the Spirit of grace..
.The false prophets somehow have it backwards, and perceive that it was God that plucked out his own eye and cant see you as you are. as if He is a clown playing peek-aboo with sinners pretending He cant see them in their sin, and somehow passes over them and declares them righteous while they are sill unrighteous. That might be the stupidest philosophy Ive ever heard of. Only the flesh could invent such folly... whereas we are the ones who are told to pluck out the minds eyes of lust, meaning to take great measures if necessary to depart from iniquity a all cost to the saving of our soul..We do this by repenting coming clean with God and having a single eye focused on Christ, thus following after His ways, not the ways of vain men looking to make your flesh feel good with flatteries...
.The false prophets somehow have it backwards, and perceive that it was God that plucked out his own eye and cant see you as you are. as if He is a clown playing peek-aboo with sinners pretending He cant see them in their sin, and somehow passes over them and declares them righteous while they are sill unrighteous. That might be the stupidest philosophy Ive ever heard of. Only the flesh could invent such folly... whereas we are the ones who are told to pluck out the minds eyes of lust, meaning to take great measures if necessary to depart from iniquity a all cost to the saving of our soul..We do this by repenting coming clean with God and having a single eye focused on Christ, thus following after His ways, not the ways of vain men looking to make your flesh feel good with flatteries...
Yes, I agree with all you've said.
This is what I've come to call cheap grace. A pastor I know calls it easy believism.
Everything is made easy today. All one has to do is believe --- of course Jesus never said this, nor did the Early Church Fathers or Theologians believe this.
It CAN be true if one understands the word believe, as used in the N.T. it means exactly what you've stated above.
it means to trust and follow and learn from and do as that person does. It is NOT a simple believing of the mind or stating that, yes, I believe in Christ --- No, the believing must seep through into the heart and inner being of a person to the point that they want to BE LIKE CHRIST.
When this happens, that person will no longer argue about whether or not works are necessary. An argument that SHOULD NOT be necessary within the Church, the Body of Christ. it's almost blasphemous to be arguing about this.
I have often posted the Didache, but to no avail.
We have minds here that have been so brainwashed by cheap grace that they no longer even read or understand what is being said.
It's a sad state of affairs when we have to BEG the cheap gracers to ADMIT that GOD REQUIRES us to follow His Laws.
Jesus Himself said He did not come to abolish the Law; in fact, He made it more difficult to follow -- He brought it to heart level.
So if our HEART does not change, to the point where we can say that God must be obeyed, then what has changed?
NOTHING.
And Jesus demands internal change.
The state of our soul is not something we should fool around with....