Thank you. Yes, we are free to NOT sin. Correction made.

Amen. :)

Yes, I am better today. Thank you for your kindness.

Mat 5:44, 45 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despite-fully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.

You cannot divorce this verse from the one just before it.
Mt 5:43-48

" You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

The Jews justified hating their enemies by this verse in the OT.

Dt 23:2-6 " No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the LORD; none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the LORD, because they did not meet you with food and water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you. Nevertheless, the LORD your God was not willing to listen to Balaam, but the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the LORD your God loves you. You shall never seek their peace or their prosperity all your days.

Thus Jesus is tightening the requirements of the Mosaic Covenant as compared to the common practice of using another scripture to justify their hatred for their perceived enemies. To love the Romans and other gentile enemies, or even their relatives - the Samaritans, was anathema to the Jews of Jesus day.

Mat 19:19 Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

And Jesus tightened the meaning of who is ones neighbor in the parable of ‘The Good Samaritan'.

Mt 22:34-40:34 But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together. One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."

And this becomes the 1st of the three commandments of the New Covenant that we have in Jesus, The Royal Law of Love. In verse 28, Jesus highlights this LAW: “This is the great and foremost commandment.”

Mat 24:12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

Even Buddha had a realization of these important truths from Matt 22 and 24: “Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.”

And the importance of this ‘Royal law of Love’ is attested to in all the NT scriptures you wrote from Mark, Luke, and John that you have quoted, and all the other NT Scriptures you quoted. It’s even in your pen name on this forum.
Perhaps, (Jesus-is-Love) you can provide the other two Laws of the New Covenant, through whom God transforms us to be the people that He desires us to be. In the OT salvation came from keeping of all 613 Mosaic Laws, which was impossible for humans to keep. In the NT, by the Laws of NT, God keeps us and grants us eternal salvation.

It is all His work in us, and not our work, that no human may boast. And all we Christians will continue to sin as long as we live. But we can take comfort in 1 John 1 1-10, and that Jesus has taken away all our sins, past, present, and future, through His shed blood on the cross, the ultimate perfect covering for all our sins. All He ask of us is to believe the good news and fellowship with Him daily through the indwelling Holy spirit. Thus salvation is indeed a true gift from God to us. And it can not ever be earned by our efforts. God works in us to transform our very nature, so that we naturally do the good he created us to do will be natural for us to do, and it is ours to actuate these wonderful transformations He is making in us. God can not fail to do what He says He will do in us.

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Arthur Biele

Amen Art, this is exactly what scripture says;

The fulfillment of the Word of God, not by men, but by the Christ that is in us.

Colossians 1:18-29 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister; Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church: Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.

In Christ: Phillip

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Phillip

Reply to J-I-G

"A Letter to us, from Corrie Ten Boom ~"

Thanks for sharing. I read her autobiography.

Yes there has been innumerable tribulations against Christian Communities as well as those of non-Christian peoples. Come what may, I will trust in Jesus and the gospel. I truly hope it would not be extended torture, but if some one wants to cut my head off in one swift blow, they are welcome to it.

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Arthur Biele

But Art and Philip, you have both again thrown away all the verses posted on this thread alone that demand an 'action' on our part. Those commanding that we "keep His Words and keep His commandments" - this is what frightens me about your soteriology. You see nothing of the definition of "obedience".

I almost thought Philip did - but now again, it's back to sounding as if "we do nothing" and we cannot choose to do anything. Back to the robots again and very unsettling.
We KNOW that Jesus said that without me you can do nothing - but that will never cancel out our free moral agency.
Even an unsaved human can and does choose to live a moral life. It surely doesn't pay the price for his salvation - but his Hell may be a bit lighter than say a Stalin's is.
Jesus states clearly, even in The Revelation - that He is giving the Church choices to obey.

Art, from the beginning and until the day we die - the commandments to LOVE remain just that - from Deut to Rev - they are commandments - Yes, "the" commandments that fulfill all the law and the prophets, yet - it's still our choice to either go that route with even our enemies or not.

GOD's Word calls for an act of our wills 'for' obedience to His Word and His Spirit of Truth.

Thank you AtG. Your post is excellent and I surely am edified by what you & 777 have contributed.

I truly cannot understand the controversy over this topic.
Every page I open in my N.T. and read - such as - in Matthew chpts 5 & 6 alone, I see Jesus give the longest list of commands and just to KNOW those two chpts by heart and follow them, is a challenge in itself.
The More Scripture we know - the more of His N.T. that we memorize - the more we see just how much we've neglected of the words of our "Master". I've already seen on this thread that most have thrown away Matthew 25, nonetheless all the numerous other Scriptures posted on all of these pages.

I never thought this thread was go on this long.

Savannah rebuked me for answering someone on this thread - but what he doesn't realize is that I started this thread and Never thought that I would be having to disagree with "Brothers" on us 'choosing' to obey GOD. I never thought for a moment that this thread would raise such a controversy when I started it. Never thought it would go this far. But I did post early in the thread that I was just "posting my heart" the things that were burdening me - but every day that I'd come on --- here was someone arguing God's Word against our ability to "choose ye this day".
How could I keep silent - when that was the whole thing that began this burden.
I started this thread for that very reason. I saw people struggling with their walks with Him BECAUSE they were taught that "it's ALL up to God" and "there's NOTHING you can do to draw nigh unto Him".

But I never thought I'd be having to "debate" men on this issue and especially not for this many pages and truth be told, Philip can keep this thread going as long as he continues - I'm just appreciative that at least three others see the Other Half of His Word that involves our involvement with our Master and Thank them for their help - as this has had a confounding-depressive affect.
Bless yas.

To ArtB,

In O J Smith's sermon 'The Spirit-filled Life', he distinguishes people into two categories with regard to how they name themselves in respect to sin, and what they do to become right with God in each case.

https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?lid=6612&commentView=itemComments


My comments are prompted by your line:

Jesus-Is-Love wrote:

"Calvin even taught that it was GOD's will for Adam to fall. Most Calvinists don't believe that anymore - though there may still be a few who do. (Supralapsarianism vs. Sublapsarianism)

It was Calvin that made it "the law" to Kill "heretics", and many thousands were sentenced to death because of his declaration or ruling on this.


Was his teachings innerant? Or did he turn The Early Church's doctrine on it's head?"

I am no expert on Calvin, but I do know that the Holy Roman Catholic Church has a history of of killing so-called heretics going as far back as the forth Century after Constantine legalized Christianity as the official church of the Roman Empire and banned all the Pagan Churches, taking over the wealth of the pagans, and their temples. This caused many pagans to enter this new Roman Catholic Church en mass because that is where the money and power was now to be found. This is when self described Christians started praying to saints and revering Our Lady of this and Our Lady of that, and the practice of self-abuse entered into what was still called Christianity.

It is as if Satan could not beat the 'pristine' Christian Church of the 1st through 3rd Centuries (Pristine because there was no monetary or worldly reason to be a Christian, becoming a Christian usually brought persecution and loss of property and freedoms) so his next move was to have his people (pagans) to join the Church in an effort to destroy it from within.

On the other hand, Calvin can not be a member of the early church, He lived 1200 years after Constantine legalized Christianity, 1500 years after Jesus was born.

What happened to change Christianity in the 15th Century? The Printing Press was invented, and the first book published was the Bible. As more Bibles were printed, more and more people became literate and many could read the Bible what they read did not match at all what the Catholic Church was teaching (Indulgences, worshiping relics, praying to dead saints, purgatory and buying your way out of, earning ones way into heaven, reinstatement of keeping many of the Mosaic Laws as the means to get into Heaven, etc.

Now I do not know much about Calvin's actual life and teachings, But they can not be any worse than the deterioration of the Gospel under The Roman Catholic Church. The only teaching I may have in common with Calvin is that the saved were predestined by God to be saved prior to the Creation of the Cosmos and the Kingdom. And I only believe this because the Bible plainly says so.

What evidence do you have that Calvin's teachings cost the lives of thousands of people? Which BTW would be minimal in comparison to the Millions that were slaughtered by and/or enslaved by the Catholic Spanish, Portuguese, and the Dutch (then a colony of Spain) in the 15th through 19th centuries in Africa, South and Central America and the Caribbean Isles, as well as their other colonies around the world.

The man I admire is Martin Luther, his heart was in the right place, and he went about it through proper channels as best as he could. And the RCC almost agreed with him. It appears that there was a cabal in the Vatican that leaned toward Luther's views, including Michelangelo and a Pope, but they lost out to a second Vatican Cabal that won out using deadly force and threats.

see URL:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/episodes/michelangelo-revealed/226/

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Arthur Biele

""Jesus states clearly, even in The Revelation - that He is giving the Church choices to obey.""

Which they can now obey by their new nature, our father the devil out, The Spirit of Christ in. Nature depends in whom we are birthed. Now by the Spirit of Chrsit we can do the by our new nature the things that please God, which no man can do without God the Fathers intervention in our New Birth. Jesus said to the highest there was in Israel, "You (((Must))) be born again" or you cannot even see the things of the Kingdom of God. "I was blind but now I see.

""I almost thought Philip did - but now again, it's back to sounding as if "we do nothing" and we cannot choose to do anything. Back to the robots again and very unsettling.""

Being a new creature is very unsettling. Now with the mind of Christ to change the old man mind to His own nature by the Holy Spirit in us, we can make decissions to do the things that Please the Father, but Only in Christ. It does not matter what I do, Our Father is not looking to me to change me to the Image of His Son, but He has provided all that is necessary to confirm that I am a son and heir to the Family of God. It is Christ in me that gives me the right to do the things before our Father that please Him, Only in His Son. Without the new birth, nothing I did or could do allowed for provision of the Salvation of God in Christ Jesus. Has God delivered, is God delivering, "Doth deliver", will God deliver? Yes, Yes, For He that is born from above does not sin, because of the sinless Christ that is in me.

Robot, never, now I can love God the way He needs to be loved, which is not My nature by birth. The desire of my Heart has been changed by the Spirit of Christ in me and given power to my mind by the Holy Spirit Parakleet Teacher of my soul/mind, which now has the mind of Christ.

In Christ: Phillip

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Phillip

by Jesus-is-GOD on 2011/4/12 9:39:16

"But Art and Philip, you have both again thrown away all the verses posted on this thread alone that demand an 'action' on our part. Those commanding that we "keep His Words and keep His commandments" - this is what frightens me about your soteriology. You see nothing of the definition of "obedience".

You really do avoid actual scripture and choose to beat around the bush.

Again, what commandments are you keeping. You already agreed it was not the Mosaic Laws that you follow. So What Laws are you thinking that YOU MUST keep to save yourself?

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Arthur Biele