"Sin No More"

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Hosh
captain of 100
Posts: 836

Re: "Sin No More"

Post by Hosh »

Okay lets view this from another angle.

Instead of saying "sin no more" lets call it "Always choose good over evil". But first we need to determine WHAT is good and WHAT is evil. For the purposes of this discussion im goong to assign defintions that i have i heard Rob Smith use that i find beneficial in my life. You might not agree but at least youll have a better understanding of where i am coming from. Good is what is BEST in terms of How you currently understand who Jesus is and what He would do in every situation. Evil is anything LESS THAN what is best in terms of your current understanding of who Jesus is and what He would do in every situation. Defining good in this way means what is good can and will change over time as you understand more and more about who God is. Because everything we currently believe to be good and of God is incomplete.

So with that, Lets look at Alma 13.

2 And those priests were ordained after the order of his Son, in a manner that thereby the people might know in what manner to look forward to his Son for redemption.

Okay so some priests are called and these priests at some point chose to become like Jesus and yes at some point were born of Him, but It involved an initial choice to do good. These priests lived in such a way that looking on their character would be similar to what the character of Jesus would look like. Which is why it says that the people would know, by having these priests among them, in what manner they might look forward to Jesus.

3 And this is the manner after which they were ordained—being called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of their exceeding faith and good works; in the first place being left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good, and exercising exceedingly great faith, are called with a holy calling, yea, with that holy calling which was prepared with, and according to, a preparatory redemption for such.

Okay so "in the first place", works played a part in these Priests becoming who they became. I know "works" is a dirty word. I get it I'm triggered by that word as much as anyone else, but hear me out. At some point in time, it takes some amount of heed and diligence to choose good over evil and like I said this is discussed heavily in Moroni 7. Before we become the Children of Christ which is to be born of Him, we must choose good over evil according to what the light of Christ reveals to us as being good. Even in the exceptions of the great born again stories like Alma the younger, he chose Jesus and his heart was committed to a life in Him after he agonized over his awful situation. I brought up the different mortal probabtions by the way because I do think it is relevant to the types of experiences some of these men had like Paul and Alma the younger.

4 And thus they have been called to this holy calling on account of their faith, while others would reject the Spirit of God on account of the hardness of their hearts and blindness of their minds, while, if it had not been for this they might have had as great privilege as their brethren.

5 Or in fine, in the first place they were on the same standing with their brethren...

So again, at some point in eternity wherever someone first starts we are all on the same standing (this makes more sense if you believe there are different mortal probations). Before anyone Is ever Born of God and receieves the Holy Ghost, they are on the same standing as anyone else who has come into existance. So What separates the priests in Alma 13 from anyone else as far as when the first startred out? They chose to act on the good that came to their conscience (light of Christ). And they chose good after good after good as It was revealed to them and moved from grace to grace to grace. Whereas the rest of their brethren reject what is good and choose evil. And THIS according to John 3 is the condemnation of the world, that light comes in to every person who ever lived, and most choose to reject It because it corrects them and teaches them to do good and forsake sin. And that does not always feel good to have the dark parts of you exposed. So more often then not the light I rejected.

All this being said. I think before I started thinking this way I thought, works cannot be good unless someone has the Holy Ghost teaching them directly from God what Is good. While I agree to a certain extent, I also think what Is good is relative and there is a spectrum. Before we receive the Holy Ghost, we are evil, carnal and devilish. But, we have the light of Christ available to teach us what is good and of God as far as out limited understanding will allow. We are evil by nature because all mankind at somepoint chooses evil and they sin and are cut off. But that does not mean they don't have the ability to choose to turn towards Jesus and do good as far as what their perception of good is through their conscience. And as we choose what we sincerely believe is good, God reveals more and more of the reality if what good actually is. In this process of choosing every good thing we naturally forsake what is evil. The resolution gets better and better and we see more and more clearly the difference between good and evil. I believe the full commitment of choosing what is good over what is evil in all things Is what It is to repent. And this leads us to the gate.

Now let me clarify one more thing. When I say a full commitment to what Is good, this Is what I mean: I mean that as a person searches dilligently in the light of Christ and holds fast upon every good thing, It becomes more and more clear that what IS good IS Jesus and everything He is. So when I say fully committ or SUBMIT to what is good according to our concience or the light of Christ, I am really saying fully SUBMIT to Jesus as He is revealed to us through this channel. At some point, our conscience, or the Light of Christ or rather our best estimate of who Jesus is and what he would do in our place, If fully submitted to, leads us to Jesus and we are Born of Him and receieve His Spirit and become His children. At this point we are baptized with fire and the Holy Ghost and receieve an even greater portion of who He is and a new law to live by and obey thus continuing to move grace to grace in becoming becoming like He is.

Again, I understand that the examples provided on this thread (Paul, Alma ect) Dont all happen in this exact way, but at some point in a persons eternal progression, at some point, maybe in a different telestial world, I believe that person has to choose to hold fast to every good thing and progress through the light of Christ before being born of God. Our agency is extremely important in this process of choosing God.

10 And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full.

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John Tavner
captain of 1,000
Posts: 4154

Re: "Sin No More"

Post by John Tavner »

Hosh wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 1:36 pm Okay lets view this from another angle.

Instead of saying "sin no more" lets call it "Always choose good over evil". But first we need to determine WHAT is good and WHAT is evil. For the purposes of this discussion im goong to assign defintions that i have i heard Rob Smith use that i find beneficial in my life. You might not agree but at least youll have a better understanding of where i am coming from. Good is what is BEST in terms of How you currently understand who Jesus is and what He would do in every situation. Evil is anything LESS THAN what is best in terms of your current understanding of who Jesus is and what He would do in every situation. Defining good in this way means what is good can and will change over time as you understand more and more about who God is. Because everything we currently believe to be good and of God is incomplete.

So with that, Lets look at Alma 13.

2 And those priests were ordained after the order of his Son, in a manner that thereby the people might know in what manner to look forward to his Son for redemption.

Okay so some priests are called and these priests at some point chose to become like Jesus and yes at some point were born of Him, but It involved an initial choice to do good. These priests lived in such a way that looking on their character would be similar to what the character of Jesus would look like. Which is why it says that the people would know, by having these priests among them, in what manner they might look forward to Jesus.

3 And this is the manner after which they were ordained—being called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of their exceeding faith and good works; in the first place being left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good, and exercising exceedingly great faith, are called with a holy calling, yea, with that holy calling which was prepared with, and according to, a preparatory redemption for such.

Okay so "in the first place", works played a part in these Priests becoming who they became. I know "works" is a dirty word. I get it I'm triggered by that word as much as anyone else, but hear me out. At some point in time, it takes some amount of heed and diligence to choose good over evil and like I said this is discussed heavily in Moroni 7. Before we become the Children of Christ which is to be born of Him, we must choose good over evil according to what the light of Christ reveals to us as being good. Even in the exceptions of the great born again stories like Alma the younger, he chose Jesus and his heart was committed to a life in Him after he agonized over his awful situation. I brought up the different mortal probabtions by the way because I do think it is relevant to the types of experiences some of these men had like Paul and Alma the younger.

4 And thus they have been called to this holy calling on account of their faith, while others would reject the Spirit of God on account of the hardness of their hearts and blindness of their minds, while, if it had not been for this they might have had as great privilege as their brethren.

5 Or in fine, in the first place they were on the same standing with their brethren;

So again, at some point in eternity wherever someone first starts (this I why I think mmp is important to understand to a certain degree) we are on the same standing. Before anyone Is ever Born of God and receieves the Holy Ghost, they are on the same standing. What separates them from anyone else? They chose to act on the good that came to their conscience. And they chose good after good after good as It was revealed to them. Whereas the rest of the brethren reject what is good and choose evil. And THIS according to John 3 is the condemnation of the world, that light comes in to every person who ever lived, and most choose to reject It because it corrects them and teaches them to do good and forsake sin. And that does not always feel good.

All this being said. I think before I started thinking this way I thought, works cannot be good unless someone has the Holy Ghost teaching them directly from God what Is good. While I agree to a certain extent, I also think what Is good is relative and there is a spectrum. Before we receive the Holy Ghost, we are evil, carnal and devilish. But, we have the light of Christ to teach us both good and evil. We are evil by nature because all mankind at somepoint chooses evil and they sin and are cut off. But that does not mean they don't have the ability to choose to turn towards Jesus and do good as far as what their perception of good is through their conscience. And as we choose what we sincerely believe is good, God reveals more and more of the reality if what good actually is. In this process of choosing every good thing we naturally forsake what is evil. The resolution gets better and better and we see more and more clearly the difference between good and evil. I believe the full commitment of choosing what is good over what is evil in all things Is what It is to repent. And this leads us to the gate.

Now let me clarify one more thing. When I say a full commitment to what Is good this Is what I mean: I mean that as one progresses in the light of Christ, and chooses every good thing, It becomes more and more clear that what IS good IS Jesus and everything He is. So when I say fully committ or SUBMIT to what is good according to our concience or the light of Christ, I am really saying a full submission to Jesus as He is revealed to us. At some point, our conscience, or the Light of Christ, If fully submitted to, leads us to Jesus and we are Born of Him and receieve His Spirit and become His children. At this point we are baptized with fire and the Holy Ghost and receieve an even greater portion of who He is and a new law to live by and obey.

Again, I understand that the examples provided on this thread (Paul, Alma ect) Dont all happen in this exact way, but at some point in a beings eternal progression, at some point, maybe in a different telestial world, I believe that being has to choose to hold fast to every good thing and progress through the light of Christ before being born of God. Our agency is extremely important in this process of choosing God.

10 And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full.
I do like the idea of "choose good over evil" it reminds me of the scripture "overcome evil with Good" (Rom 12:21)

Hmm I think I agree to an extent about what good is, though I think it something greater - I think grace covers a lot of what we mess up with until we grow farther up into Christ- then when we see, we stop doing what was messed up. What I think (and I understand where you are coming from because I actually used to think EXACTLY like you are espousing and I used similar words- but perhaps you mean it differently than I am udnerstanding) that if we are always thinking "waht would Jesus do?" which in theory is good, it can bcome extremely religious and rote, without love and can also miss the relational aspect with God. I truly believe that as we come to know Him more, we have less questions as to "what He would do" and we see more how He sees others and He guides us to bless those around us BECAUSE we have learned to trust Him, but it isn't me needing to know exactly what He did, it is because I have spent time with Him and become more like Him, then He gleefully helps me manifest His love to them, because I already love them and not becuase I need to "do a good work" (not saying that is what you are doing in this last part, just that this process is what happened to me). So I would approach every situation and ask God all the time what to do... usually I got caught up ... God taught me it is because I was so focused on "me" that I forgot about the person. But wait, I was asking God what to do! Yep, but my focus was on me, not on the person, it was on MY actions, not on loving the person. So now, I am building trust in just trusting God... believing He wants me to bless people, however it may be and if I get impressions (and htis is something I"m still working on) then I may say "God, I know you love them, I feel impressed to show your love to them, guide me in this endeavor, thank you for being with me and allowing me to bless their lives in your name... and I step out in faith...I am trusting that God will provide. If I miss it then I can say "Lord, allow me to have greater faith to manifest your love with others" As I draw closer to God and know Him more, I believe the answers come faster and I can just love them and God provides in the moment. It's like "if you seek to share my word, store up my word and I will give you the word in the moment you need it" I find it applies to life. Trusting in God and sharing His love, because HE loves them. SOmetimes it is simple- a word, sometimes it is a smile, sometimes you talk about Jesus, but when people feel you really care... it brightens up their day, they need love and we can provide it to them and hten show them how to obtain so their cup never runs dry and then they can share, not because they "need" it but beacuse their cup runneth over. Anyways a few of my thoughts.

Haha I don't think we should be triggered by the word works, and I don't think works is a dirty word, (but I get your humor) I think it just has to have its proper place and perspective which is after faith and BY faith. We do good works because we are saved and because we believe in Christ, not because we need to be saved. In other words Alma 13, in my opinion is saying they had faith (believed) and because they believed (and really did believe) they did good works trusting htey were already saved or would be. The works were good because they loved God more than man and their neighbor as themselves, not because they feared damnation or because they were tryign to earn their place into heaven.

If we do works because we are trying to obtain salvation, then we will miss the mark. We do good works because we believe Christ and that He has made us righteous - so being attached to the good vine, we produce good fruits.

I like the verse you quoted: 10 And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full.
To me it calls back to John 1: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God and the Word was made flesh. So to me it is that if you harden your heart, you will receive less of Christ, believe less, and not transform as much into His image, but if you believe, then you will be receive a greater portion of Christ, until you know God fully. As Eph 3: says 16I ask that out of the riches of His glory He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth 19of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

So in my mind it was never just the works... it was their works done by faith. Or in other words, they had faith and so they acted according to the faith they received. I would say one of the worst things that has happened to us in these latter days is we have destroyed the word faith (and I know I repeat myself here) but faith is trusting in God and expecting His word to come to pass. So if you pray with faith, you are unifying yourself to God expecting your prayers to come to pass and walking forward BECAUSE of that expectation- not to "force" God's hand, but because you believe it will be taken care of. Abraham and Isaac, Abraham KNEW God would provide however he did, whether it would raise Isaac from the dead or a ram in the thicket, because GOd gave a promise and God told Him that hte promise was fulfilled through Isaac. So Abraham took those actions, not in fear of losing Isaac, but knowing God would provide. Often we take steps forward in fear, or in doubt, trying to "convince" God and ourselves that we believe, hoping God will act, but really not believing, so our works are done without faith. "it is impossible to please God without faith" (Heb 11:6).

Anyways, keep up the seeking and asking and knocking. It will settle. For me I had to be willing to give up everything I thought I believed and just trust in Him and that He forgave me and I was righteous in His sight though I had "done" nothing... it was life changing- the burdens are light, the yoke is easy as long as my eye is single on Him. I'm not "burdened" by the what ifs and hte "how to's" I just trust in Him and let Him transform me. It can happen to all men 100%.

Hosh
captain of 100
Posts: 836

Re: "Sin No More"

Post by Hosh »

John Tavner wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 8:06 pm
Hosh wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 1:36 pm Okay lets view this from another angle.

Instead of saying "sin no more" lets call it "Always choose good over evil". But first we need to determine WHAT is good and WHAT is evil. For the purposes of this discussion im goong to assign defintions that i have i heard Rob Smith use that i find beneficial in my life. You might not agree but at least youll have a better understanding of where i am coming from. Good is what is BEST in terms of How you currently understand who Jesus is and what He would do in every situation. Evil is anything LESS THAN what is best in terms of your current understanding of who Jesus is and what He would do in every situation. Defining good in this way means what is good can and will change over time as you understand more and more about who God is. Because everything we currently believe to be good and of God is incomplete.

So with that, Lets look at Alma 13.

2 And those priests were ordained after the order of his Son, in a manner that thereby the people might know in what manner to look forward to his Son for redemption.

Okay so some priests are called and these priests at some point chose to become like Jesus and yes at some point were born of Him, but It involved an initial choice to do good. These priests lived in such a way that looking on their character would be similar to what the character of Jesus would look like. Which is why it says that the people would know, by having these priests among them, in what manner they might look forward to Jesus.

3 And this is the manner after which they were ordained—being called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of their exceeding faith and good works; in the first place being left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good, and exercising exceedingly great faith, are called with a holy calling, yea, with that holy calling which was prepared with, and according to, a preparatory redemption for such.

Okay so "in the first place", works played a part in these Priests becoming who they became. I know "works" is a dirty word. I get it I'm triggered by that word as much as anyone else, but hear me out. At some point in time, it takes some amount of heed and diligence to choose good over evil and like I said this is discussed heavily in Moroni 7. Before we become the Children of Christ which is to be born of Him, we must choose good over evil according to what the light of Christ reveals to us as being good. Even in the exceptions of the great born again stories like Alma the younger, he chose Jesus and his heart was committed to a life in Him after he agonized over his awful situation. I brought up the different mortal probabtions by the way because I do think it is relevant to the types of experiences some of these men had like Paul and Alma the younger.

4 And thus they have been called to this holy calling on account of their faith, while others would reject the Spirit of God on account of the hardness of their hearts and blindness of their minds, while, if it had not been for this they might have had as great privilege as their brethren.

5 Or in fine, in the first place they were on the same standing with their brethren;

So again, at some point in eternity wherever someone first starts (this I why I think mmp is important to understand to a certain degree) we are on the same standing. Before anyone Is ever Born of God and receieves the Holy Ghost, they are on the same standing. What separates them from anyone else? They chose to act on the good that came to their conscience. And they chose good after good after good as It was revealed to them. Whereas the rest of the brethren reject what is good and choose evil. And THIS according to John 3 is the condemnation of the world, that light comes in to every person who ever lived, and most choose to reject It because it corrects them and teaches them to do good and forsake sin. And that does not always feel good.

All this being said. I think before I started thinking this way I thought, works cannot be good unless someone has the Holy Ghost teaching them directly from God what Is good. While I agree to a certain extent, I also think what Is good is relative and there is a spectrum. Before we receive the Holy Ghost, we are evil, carnal and devilish. But, we have the light of Christ to teach us both good and evil. We are evil by nature because all mankind at somepoint chooses evil and they sin and are cut off. But that does not mean they don't have the ability to choose to turn towards Jesus and do good as far as what their perception of good is through their conscience. And as we choose what we sincerely believe is good, God reveals more and more of the reality if what good actually is. In this process of choosing every good thing we naturally forsake what is evil. The resolution gets better and better and we see more and more clearly the difference between good and evil. I believe the full commitment of choosing what is good over what is evil in all things Is what It is to repent. And this leads us to the gate.

Now let me clarify one more thing. When I say a full commitment to what Is good this Is what I mean: I mean that as one progresses in the light of Christ, and chooses every good thing, It becomes more and more clear that what IS good IS Jesus and everything He is. So when I say fully committ or SUBMIT to what is good according to our concience or the light of Christ, I am really saying a full submission to Jesus as He is revealed to us. At some point, our conscience, or the Light of Christ, If fully submitted to, leads us to Jesus and we are Born of Him and receieve His Spirit and become His children. At this point we are baptized with fire and the Holy Ghost and receieve an even greater portion of who He is and a new law to live by and obey.

Again, I understand that the examples provided on this thread (Paul, Alma ect) Dont all happen in this exact way, but at some point in a beings eternal progression, at some point, maybe in a different telestial world, I believe that being has to choose to hold fast to every good thing and progress through the light of Christ before being born of God. Our agency is extremely important in this process of choosing God.

10 And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full.
I do like the idea of "choose good over evil" it reminds me of the scripture "overcome evil with Good" (Rom 12:21)

Hmm I think I agree to an extent about what good is, though I think it something greater - I think grace covers a lot of what we mess up with until we grow farther up into Christ- then when we see, we stop doing what was messed up. What I think (and I understand where you are coming from because I actually used to think EXACTLY like you are espousing and I used similar words- but perhaps you mean it differently than I am udnerstanding) that if we are always thinking "waht would Jesus do?" which in theory is good, it can bcome extremely religious and rote, without love and can also miss the relational aspect with God. I truly believe that as we come to know Him more, we have less questions as to "what He would do" and we see more how He sees others and He guides us to bless those around us BECAUSE we have learned to trust Him, but it isn't me needing to know exactly what He did, it is because I have spent time with Him and become more like Him, then He gleefully helps me manifest His love to them, because I already love them and not becuase I need to "do a good work" (not saying that is what you are doing in this last part, just that this process is what happened to me). So I would approach every situation and ask God all the time what to do... usually I got caught up ... God taught me it is because I was so focused on "me" that I forgot about the person. But wait, I was asking God what to do! Yep, but my focus was on me, not on the person, it was on MY actions, not on loving the person. So now, I am building trust in just trusting God... believing He wants me to bless people, however it may be and if I get impressions (and htis is something I"m still working on) then I may say "God, I know you love them, I feel impressed to show your love to them, guide me in this endeavor, thank you for being with me and allowing me to bless their lives in your name... and I step out in faith...I am trusting that God will provide. If I miss it then I can say "Lord, allow me to have greater faith to manifest your love with others" As I draw closer to God and know Him more, I believe the answers come faster and I can just love them and God provides in the moment. It's like "if you seek to share my word, store up my word and I will give you the word in the moment you need it" I find it applies to life. Trusting in God and sharing His love, because HE loves them. SOmetimes it is simple- a word, sometimes it is a smile, sometimes you talk about Jesus, but when people feel you really care... it brightens up their day, they need love and we can provide it to them and hten show them how to obtain so their cup never runs dry and then they can share, not because they "need" it but beacuse their cup runneth over. Anyways a few of my thoughts.

Haha I don't think we should be triggered by the word works, and I don't think works is a dirty word, (but I get your humor) I think it just has to have its proper place and perspective which is after faith and BY faith. We do good works because we are saved and because we believe in Christ, not because we need to be saved. In other words Alma 13, in my opinion is saying they had faith (believed) and because they believed (and really did believe) they did good works trusting htey were already saved or would be. The works were good because they loved God more than man and their neighbor as themselves, not because they feared damnation or because they were tryign to earn their place into heaven.

If we do works because we are trying to obtain salvation, then we will miss the mark. We do good works because we believe Christ and that He has made us righteous - so being attached to the good vine, we produce good fruits.

I like the verse you quoted: 10 And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full.
To me it calls back to John 1: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God and the Word was made flesh. So to me it is that if you harden your heart, you will receive less of Christ, believe less, and not transform as much into His image, but if you believe, then you will be receive a greater portion of Christ, until you know God fully. As Eph 3: says 16I ask that out of the riches of His glory He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth 19of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

So in my mind it was never just the works... it was their works done by faith. Or in other words, they had faith and so they acted according to the faith they received. I would say one of the worst things that has happened to us in these latter days is we have destroyed the word faith (and I know I repeat myself here) but faith is trusting in God and expecting His word to come to pass. So if you pray with faith, you are unifying yourself to God expecting your prayers to come to pass and walking forward BECAUSE of that expectation- not to "force" God's hand, but because you believe it will be taken care of. Abraham and Isaac, Abraham KNEW God would provide however he did, whether it would raise Isaac from the dead or a ram in the thicket, because GOd gave a promise and God told Him that hte promise was fulfilled through Isaac. So Abraham took those actions, not in fear of losing Isaac, but knowing God would provide. Often we take steps forward in fear, or in doubt, trying to "convince" God and ourselves that we believe, hoping God will act, but really not believing, so our works are done without faith. "it is impossible to please God without faith" (Heb 11:6).

Anyways, keep up the seeking and asking and knocking. It will settle. For me I had to be willing to give up everything I thought I believed and just trust in Him and that He forgave me and I was righteous in His sight though I had "done" nothing... it was life changing- the burdens are light, the yoke is easy as long as my eye is single on Him. I'm not "burdened" by the what ifs and hte "how to's" I just trust in Him and let Him transform me. It can happen to all men 100%.
I love this, thank you. A Pastor my parents told me about said, "Faith + Salvation yields good works, its not Faith + Works yields Salvation." Kind of reminded me of a the shorthand version of what you are saying.

But seriously I undertand what your saying. I just go back and forth often between the two ways of thinking about salvation and how we approach Jesus. As ive said before, the experience i had where i awoke to the things of God and my false traditions was a blast of light and intelligence that overwhelmed me for nine straight hours. It was a born again-type of experience that changed my whole world view and completely changed my life. Addictions and sins i had struggled with for years disappeared immediately and i had no more disposition to do evil but to do good continually. And what you are describing was what i believed for the following couple years. But life happened and my heed and dilligence in searching dilligenetly in the light of Jesus wained. So here i am again, studying, praying searching, waiting. Funny thing is, like you said, the first time around I wasnt even trying to find Jesus, he just hit me over the head!

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John Tavner
captain of 1,000
Posts: 4154

Re: "Sin No More"

Post by John Tavner »

Hosh wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 8:15 pm
John Tavner wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 8:06 pm
Hosh wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 1:36 pm Okay lets view this from another angle.

Instead of saying "sin no more" lets call it "Always choose good over evil". But first we need to determine WHAT is good and WHAT is evil. For the purposes of this discussion im goong to assign defintions that i have i heard Rob Smith use that i find beneficial in my life. You might not agree but at least youll have a better understanding of where i am coming from. Good is what is BEST in terms of How you currently understand who Jesus is and what He would do in every situation. Evil is anything LESS THAN what is best in terms of your current understanding of who Jesus is and what He would do in every situation. Defining good in this way means what is good can and will change over time as you understand more and more about who God is. Because everything we currently believe to be good and of God is incomplete.

So with that, Lets look at Alma 13.

2 And those priests were ordained after the order of his Son, in a manner that thereby the people might know in what manner to look forward to his Son for redemption.

Okay so some priests are called and these priests at some point chose to become like Jesus and yes at some point were born of Him, but It involved an initial choice to do good. These priests lived in such a way that looking on their character would be similar to what the character of Jesus would look like. Which is why it says that the people would know, by having these priests among them, in what manner they might look forward to Jesus.

3 And this is the manner after which they were ordained—being called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of their exceeding faith and good works; in the first place being left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good, and exercising exceedingly great faith, are called with a holy calling, yea, with that holy calling which was prepared with, and according to, a preparatory redemption for such.

Okay so "in the first place", works played a part in these Priests becoming who they became. I know "works" is a dirty word. I get it I'm triggered by that word as much as anyone else, but hear me out. At some point in time, it takes some amount of heed and diligence to choose good over evil and like I said this is discussed heavily in Moroni 7. Before we become the Children of Christ which is to be born of Him, we must choose good over evil according to what the light of Christ reveals to us as being good. Even in the exceptions of the great born again stories like Alma the younger, he chose Jesus and his heart was committed to a life in Him after he agonized over his awful situation. I brought up the different mortal probabtions by the way because I do think it is relevant to the types of experiences some of these men had like Paul and Alma the younger.

4 And thus they have been called to this holy calling on account of their faith, while others would reject the Spirit of God on account of the hardness of their hearts and blindness of their minds, while, if it had not been for this they might have had as great privilege as their brethren.

5 Or in fine, in the first place they were on the same standing with their brethren;

So again, at some point in eternity wherever someone first starts (this I why I think mmp is important to understand to a certain degree) we are on the same standing. Before anyone Is ever Born of God and receieves the Holy Ghost, they are on the same standing. What separates them from anyone else? They chose to act on the good that came to their conscience. And they chose good after good after good as It was revealed to them. Whereas the rest of the brethren reject what is good and choose evil. And THIS according to John 3 is the condemnation of the world, that light comes in to every person who ever lived, and most choose to reject It because it corrects them and teaches them to do good and forsake sin. And that does not always feel good.

All this being said. I think before I started thinking this way I thought, works cannot be good unless someone has the Holy Ghost teaching them directly from God what Is good. While I agree to a certain extent, I also think what Is good is relative and there is a spectrum. Before we receive the Holy Ghost, we are evil, carnal and devilish. But, we have the light of Christ to teach us both good and evil. We are evil by nature because all mankind at somepoint chooses evil and they sin and are cut off. But that does not mean they don't have the ability to choose to turn towards Jesus and do good as far as what their perception of good is through their conscience. And as we choose what we sincerely believe is good, God reveals more and more of the reality if what good actually is. In this process of choosing every good thing we naturally forsake what is evil. The resolution gets better and better and we see more and more clearly the difference between good and evil. I believe the full commitment of choosing what is good over what is evil in all things Is what It is to repent. And this leads us to the gate.

Now let me clarify one more thing. When I say a full commitment to what Is good this Is what I mean: I mean that as one progresses in the light of Christ, and chooses every good thing, It becomes more and more clear that what IS good IS Jesus and everything He is. So when I say fully committ or SUBMIT to what is good according to our concience or the light of Christ, I am really saying a full submission to Jesus as He is revealed to us. At some point, our conscience, or the Light of Christ, If fully submitted to, leads us to Jesus and we are Born of Him and receieve His Spirit and become His children. At this point we are baptized with fire and the Holy Ghost and receieve an even greater portion of who He is and a new law to live by and obey.

Again, I understand that the examples provided on this thread (Paul, Alma ect) Dont all happen in this exact way, but at some point in a beings eternal progression, at some point, maybe in a different telestial world, I believe that being has to choose to hold fast to every good thing and progress through the light of Christ before being born of God. Our agency is extremely important in this process of choosing God.

10 And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full.
I do like the idea of "choose good over evil" it reminds me of the scripture "overcome evil with Good" (Rom 12:21)

Hmm I think I agree to an extent about what good is, though I think it something greater - I think grace covers a lot of what we mess up with until we grow farther up into Christ- then when we see, we stop doing what was messed up. What I think (and I understand where you are coming from because I actually used to think EXACTLY like you are espousing and I used similar words- but perhaps you mean it differently than I am udnerstanding) that if we are always thinking "waht would Jesus do?" which in theory is good, it can bcome extremely religious and rote, without love and can also miss the relational aspect with God. I truly believe that as we come to know Him more, we have less questions as to "what He would do" and we see more how He sees others and He guides us to bless those around us BECAUSE we have learned to trust Him, but it isn't me needing to know exactly what He did, it is because I have spent time with Him and become more like Him, then He gleefully helps me manifest His love to them, because I already love them and not becuase I need to "do a good work" (not saying that is what you are doing in this last part, just that this process is what happened to me). So I would approach every situation and ask God all the time what to do... usually I got caught up ... God taught me it is because I was so focused on "me" that I forgot about the person. But wait, I was asking God what to do! Yep, but my focus was on me, not on the person, it was on MY actions, not on loving the person. So now, I am building trust in just trusting God... believing He wants me to bless people, however it may be and if I get impressions (and htis is something I"m still working on) then I may say "God, I know you love them, I feel impressed to show your love to them, guide me in this endeavor, thank you for being with me and allowing me to bless their lives in your name... and I step out in faith...I am trusting that God will provide. If I miss it then I can say "Lord, allow me to have greater faith to manifest your love with others" As I draw closer to God and know Him more, I believe the answers come faster and I can just love them and God provides in the moment. It's like "if you seek to share my word, store up my word and I will give you the word in the moment you need it" I find it applies to life. Trusting in God and sharing His love, because HE loves them. SOmetimes it is simple- a word, sometimes it is a smile, sometimes you talk about Jesus, but when people feel you really care... it brightens up their day, they need love and we can provide it to them and hten show them how to obtain so their cup never runs dry and then they can share, not because they "need" it but beacuse their cup runneth over. Anyways a few of my thoughts.

Haha I don't think we should be triggered by the word works, and I don't think works is a dirty word, (but I get your humor) I think it just has to have its proper place and perspective which is after faith and BY faith. We do good works because we are saved and because we believe in Christ, not because we need to be saved. In other words Alma 13, in my opinion is saying they had faith (believed) and because they believed (and really did believe) they did good works trusting htey were already saved or would be. The works were good because they loved God more than man and their neighbor as themselves, not because they feared damnation or because they were tryign to earn their place into heaven.

If we do works because we are trying to obtain salvation, then we will miss the mark. We do good works because we believe Christ and that He has made us righteous - so being attached to the good vine, we produce good fruits.

I like the verse you quoted: 10 And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full.
To me it calls back to John 1: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God and the Word was made flesh. So to me it is that if you harden your heart, you will receive less of Christ, believe less, and not transform as much into His image, but if you believe, then you will be receive a greater portion of Christ, until you know God fully. As Eph 3: says 16I ask that out of the riches of His glory He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth 19of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

So in my mind it was never just the works... it was their works done by faith. Or in other words, they had faith and so they acted according to the faith they received. I would say one of the worst things that has happened to us in these latter days is we have destroyed the word faith (and I know I repeat myself here) but faith is trusting in God and expecting His word to come to pass. So if you pray with faith, you are unifying yourself to God expecting your prayers to come to pass and walking forward BECAUSE of that expectation- not to "force" God's hand, but because you believe it will be taken care of. Abraham and Isaac, Abraham KNEW God would provide however he did, whether it would raise Isaac from the dead or a ram in the thicket, because GOd gave a promise and God told Him that hte promise was fulfilled through Isaac. So Abraham took those actions, not in fear of losing Isaac, but knowing God would provide. Often we take steps forward in fear, or in doubt, trying to "convince" God and ourselves that we believe, hoping God will act, but really not believing, so our works are done without faith. "it is impossible to please God without faith" (Heb 11:6).

Anyways, keep up the seeking and asking and knocking. It will settle. For me I had to be willing to give up everything I thought I believed and just trust in Him and that He forgave me and I was righteous in His sight though I had "done" nothing... it was life changing- the burdens are light, the yoke is easy as long as my eye is single on Him. I'm not "burdened" by the what ifs and hte "how to's" I just trust in Him and let Him transform me. It can happen to all men 100%.
I love this, thank you. A Pastor my parents told me about said, "Faith + Salvation yields good works, its not Faith + Works yields Salvation." Kind of reminded me of a the shorthand version of what you are saying.

But seriously I undertand what your saying. I just go back and forth often between the two ways of thinking about salvation and how we approach Jesus. As ive said before, the experience i had where i awoke to the things of God and my false traditions was a blast of light and intelligence that overwhelmed me for nine straight hours. It was a born again-type of experience that changed my whole world view and completely changed my life. Addictions and sins i had struggled with for years disappeared immediately and i had no more disposition to do evil but to do good continually. And what you are describing was what i believed for the following couple years. But life happened and my heed and dilligence in searching dilligenetly in the light of Jesus wained. So here i am again, studying, praying searching, waiting. Funny thing is, like you said, the first time around I wasnt even trying to find Jesus, he just hit me over the head!
Haha, yeah, I like that... and yeah I"m a bit long-winded haha!

Awesome, I'm really happy you do understand what I'm saying :) Keep the faith. Your experience with the Lord is the "testimony" of who He is and how He sees you. As the scriptures say if anyone else teach a gospel (the good news), contrary to what you received, let them be under a curse.

Perhaps I presume here, and this is more to encourage you if you already do this or even if you don't - the goal is to encourage one another (that is why we are the church, to stir one another up in faith and good works!) but I don't know if I would say it was your life that happened and you lost what you had. I suspect your old ways of thinking crept back in. the "old man" reared its ugly head. Sometimes I get trapped by my old thinking. God reminds me... "Hey buddy, you're thinking wrong again" I respond "oh yeah!" Paul talks about that with the Galations- because they shifted back to their old way of thinking and to the way of thinking of the Jews(saved by works rather than faith) . So, I would suggest (hopefully you read this the right way) that you tell God that you want that heart again, and then thank Him that He gave it to you and is giving it to you and trust that He will. Then start living as if you've received it. Proverbs tells us "as a man thinketh in His heart so is he" If you are always thinking you are messing up, you will. Thank Him for providing you with the light of Christ, with His love- see yourself in your mind being transformed into His image, even if you don't "feel" it. Don't ever get caught in feelings as your basis of "living in the light."

I once felt for weeks like I was failing, I couldn't figure out what I was doing, I was praying to God etc begging for guidance, feeling like I had lost something or I wasn't doing enough etc... I kept begging and somewhere along the way the tender mercy thought crept in louder than my doubts and basically said "believe I'm speaking with you and you will hear my voice." So I let go and believed - the Lord Spoke to me immediately and said "Do you think I would make you feel guilt or like you were doing something wrong and not let you know what it is for such a long period of time? And I realized... oh my goodness I had been deceived. I was focusing so much on my own "feelings" i wasn't just trusting God.. IMMEDIATELY upon that thought, the despair and weight was gone. It has tried to creep up a few times, but I remember the Lord and what He spoke. I believe it is the same for you... Believe you are back to where you were right when you were "born again" trust the Lord sees you that way and start living as if you were there. when/if A temptation to be bad creeps up, "Capture it with Christ" saying ""Lord that is not what you called me to be, and I thank you for delivering me into the Kingdom of your Son, thank you for loving me, this temptation is not who I am, You love me and have set me apart, thank you for doing so etc... Thank you that instead of anger, you ahve given me peace through your Son, I am clean and you see me as Holy and Blameless in your eyes, thanks for loving me!

You are a Son of God, Sin is not who you are. Train your mind to believe the Lord over your experience that one time (which was important) but the experience is not your life, Christ is your life. I believe, The key to living a Christ-like life is receiving and knowing the Love He has for you (Faith)... if you don't receive it, it just becomes theological and it won't transform you...you'll say the words, but you won't live them and see them in others- all we can do is ask to receive it, to believe it and as you see and receive it, you will find you change, and you love God more. You will just talk with God in everything you do. "Wow God such beautiful flowers, you are amazing, with their smells, thank you for making a beautfiul world" Wow, God, these anamials are amazing thank you for letting me be a steward of them and I ask for grace to be a better steward" Wow God, I know sometimes I feel like my job is drudgery, but I thank you that I have to provide for the Family I have to be a good steward of them for you. You love them, thank you for being with me even in work so I might glorify you as I do these things" etc.. "God my co-worker is struggling, grant me the grace ot bless them with your love, to show your love to glorify you." Lord I thank you for the grace to help others in my job, I ask Lord that these wounds heal faster for this person that they make a full recovery because you love them- allow me to share your love with them thorugh out the day, not to puff up myself, but to glorify you" etc.... Your purpose and my purpose is to bear witness of God's image, to become love and manifest the love of God to others here on earth- to look like CHrist. We make that our goal, to glorify Him (remember Satan, wanted glory for himself) and God will give us the grace and all things will fall into place- at least that is my belief... and it is getting stronger as time goes on. If we keep that as the forefront and continually yield... All else will fall into place because love is in you already, in the Holy Ghost.

I love that HE did that for you! He is so awesome, it's So God and Jesus to me!

Anyways those are a few thoughts- I apologize if I am being too presumptuous. And perhaps this isn't even for you, but for others who are reading. I am grateful as Cruiserdude said for you asking and seeking, I think this is something many people go back and forth on in their own lives and we need to be strenghtened one with another from time to time, to build our faith in Christ. I appreciate you and the Lord does love you I feel it through Him towards you. He knows you and hears you. Like Daniel, : "He heard your prayer the first time" just believe :) ANyways, God bless brother, reach out if you need anything! You got this, cause Jesus is on your side!

With love,
JR

Hosh
captain of 100
Posts: 836

Re: "Sin No More"

Post by Hosh »

John Tavner wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 10:47 pm
Hosh wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 8:15 pm
John Tavner wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 8:06 pm
I do like the idea of "choose good over evil" it reminds me of the scripture "overcome evil with Good" (Rom 12:21)

Hmm I think I agree to an extent about what good is, though I think it something greater - I think grace covers a lot of what we mess up with until we grow farther up into Christ- then when we see, we stop doing what was messed up. What I think (and I understand where you are coming from because I actually used to think EXACTLY like you are espousing and I used similar words- but perhaps you mean it differently than I am udnerstanding) that if we are always thinking "waht would Jesus do?" which in theory is good, it can bcome extremely religious and rote, without love and can also miss the relational aspect with God. I truly believe that as we come to know Him more, we have less questions as to "what He would do" and we see more how He sees others and He guides us to bless those around us BECAUSE we have learned to trust Him, but it isn't me needing to know exactly what He did, it is because I have spent time with Him and become more like Him, then He gleefully helps me manifest His love to them, because I already love them and not becuase I need to "do a good work" (not saying that is what you are doing in this last part, just that this process is what happened to me). So I would approach every situation and ask God all the time what to do... usually I got caught up ... God taught me it is because I was so focused on "me" that I forgot about the person. But wait, I was asking God what to do! Yep, but my focus was on me, not on the person, it was on MY actions, not on loving the person. So now, I am building trust in just trusting God... believing He wants me to bless people, however it may be and if I get impressions (and htis is something I"m still working on) then I may say "God, I know you love them, I feel impressed to show your love to them, guide me in this endeavor, thank you for being with me and allowing me to bless their lives in your name... and I step out in faith...I am trusting that God will provide. If I miss it then I can say "Lord, allow me to have greater faith to manifest your love with others" As I draw closer to God and know Him more, I believe the answers come faster and I can just love them and God provides in the moment. It's like "if you seek to share my word, store up my word and I will give you the word in the moment you need it" I find it applies to life. Trusting in God and sharing His love, because HE loves them. SOmetimes it is simple- a word, sometimes it is a smile, sometimes you talk about Jesus, but when people feel you really care... it brightens up their day, they need love and we can provide it to them and hten show them how to obtain so their cup never runs dry and then they can share, not because they "need" it but beacuse their cup runneth over. Anyways a few of my thoughts.

Haha I don't think we should be triggered by the word works, and I don't think works is a dirty word, (but I get your humor) I think it just has to have its proper place and perspective which is after faith and BY faith. We do good works because we are saved and because we believe in Christ, not because we need to be saved. In other words Alma 13, in my opinion is saying they had faith (believed) and because they believed (and really did believe) they did good works trusting htey were already saved or would be. The works were good because they loved God more than man and their neighbor as themselves, not because they feared damnation or because they were tryign to earn their place into heaven.

If we do works because we are trying to obtain salvation, then we will miss the mark. We do good works because we believe Christ and that He has made us righteous - so being attached to the good vine, we produce good fruits.

I like the verse you quoted: 10 And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full.
To me it calls back to John 1: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God and the Word was made flesh. So to me it is that if you harden your heart, you will receive less of Christ, believe less, and not transform as much into His image, but if you believe, then you will be receive a greater portion of Christ, until you know God fully. As Eph 3: says 16I ask that out of the riches of His glory He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth 19of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

So in my mind it was never just the works... it was their works done by faith. Or in other words, they had faith and so they acted according to the faith they received. I would say one of the worst things that has happened to us in these latter days is we have destroyed the word faith (and I know I repeat myself here) but faith is trusting in God and expecting His word to come to pass. So if you pray with faith, you are unifying yourself to God expecting your prayers to come to pass and walking forward BECAUSE of that expectation- not to "force" God's hand, but because you believe it will be taken care of. Abraham and Isaac, Abraham KNEW God would provide however he did, whether it would raise Isaac from the dead or a ram in the thicket, because GOd gave a promise and God told Him that hte promise was fulfilled through Isaac. So Abraham took those actions, not in fear of losing Isaac, but knowing God would provide. Often we take steps forward in fear, or in doubt, trying to "convince" God and ourselves that we believe, hoping God will act, but really not believing, so our works are done without faith. "it is impossible to please God without faith" (Heb 11:6).

Anyways, keep up the seeking and asking and knocking. It will settle. For me I had to be willing to give up everything I thought I believed and just trust in Him and that He forgave me and I was righteous in His sight though I had "done" nothing... it was life changing- the burdens are light, the yoke is easy as long as my eye is single on Him. I'm not "burdened" by the what ifs and hte "how to's" I just trust in Him and let Him transform me. It can happen to all men 100%.
I love this, thank you. A Pastor my parents told me about said, "Faith + Salvation yields good works, its not Faith + Works yields Salvation." Kind of reminded me of a the shorthand version of what you are saying.

But seriously I undertand what your saying. I just go back and forth often between the two ways of thinking about salvation and how we approach Jesus. As ive said before, the experience i had where i awoke to the things of God and my false traditions was a blast of light and intelligence that overwhelmed me for nine straight hours. It was a born again-type of experience that changed my whole world view and completely changed my life. Addictions and sins i had struggled with for years disappeared immediately and i had no more disposition to do evil but to do good continually. And what you are describing was what i believed for the following couple years. But life happened and my heed and dilligence in searching dilligenetly in the light of Jesus wained. So here i am again, studying, praying searching, waiting. Funny thing is, like you said, the first time around I wasnt even trying to find Jesus, he just hit me over the head!
Haha, yeah, I like that... and yeah I"m a bit long-winded haha!

Awesome, I'm really happy you do understand what I'm saying :) Keep the faith. Your experience with the Lord is the "testimony" of who He is and how He sees you. As the scriptures say if anyone else teach a gospel (the good news), contrary to what you received, let them be under a curse.

Perhaps I presume here, and this is more to encourage you if you already do this or even if you don't - the goal is to encourage one another (that is why we are the church, to stir one another up in faith and good works!) but I don't know if I would say it was your life that happened and you lost what you had. I suspect your old ways of thinking crept back in. the "old man" reared its ugly head. Sometimes I get trapped by my old thinking. God reminds me... "Hey buddy, you're thinking wrong again" I respond "oh yeah!" Paul talks about that with the Galations- because they shifted back to their old way of thinking and to the way of thinking of the Jews(saved by works rather than faith) . So, I would suggest (hopefully you read this the right way) that you tell God that you want that heart again, and then thank Him that He gave it to you and is giving it to you and trust that He will. Then start living as if you've received it. Proverbs tells us "as a man thinketh in His heart so is he" If you are always thinking you are messing up, you will. Thank Him for providing you with the light of Christ, with His love- see yourself in your mind being transformed into His image, even if you don't "feel" it. Don't ever get caught in feelings as your basis of "living in the light."

I once felt for weeks like I was failing, I couldn't figure out what I was doing, I was praying to God etc begging for guidance, feeling like I had lost something or I wasn't doing enough etc... I kept begging and somewhere along the way the tender mercy thought crept in louder than my doubts and basically said "believe I'm speaking with you and you will hear my voice." So I let go and believed - the Lord Spoke to me immediately and said "Do you think I would make you feel guilt or like you were doing something wrong and not let you know what it is for such a long period of time? And I realized... oh my goodness I had been deceived. I was focusing so much on my own "feelings" i wasn't just trusting God.. IMMEDIATELY upon that thought, the despair and weight was gone. It has tried to creep up a few times, but I remember the Lord and what He spoke. I believe it is the same for you... Believe you are back to where you were right when you were "born again" trust the Lord sees you that way and start living as if you were there. when/if A temptation to be bad creeps up, "Capture it with Christ" saying ""Lord that is not what you called me to be, and I thank you for delivering me into the Kingdom of your Son, thank you for loving me, this temptation is not who I am, You love me and have set me apart, thank you for doing so etc... Thank you that instead of anger, you ahve given me peace through your Son, I am clean and you see me as Holy and Blameless in your eyes, thanks for loving me!

You are a Son of God, Sin is not who you are. Train your mind to believe the Lord over your experience that one time (which was important) but the experience is not your life, Christ is your life. I believe, The key to living a Christ-like life is receiving and knowing the Love He has for you (Faith)... if you don't receive it, it just becomes theological and it won't transform you...you'll say the words, but you won't live them and see them in others- all we can do is ask to receive it, to believe it and as you see and receive it, you will find you change, and you love God more. You will just talk with God in everything you do. "Wow God such beautiful flowers, you are amazing, with their smells, thank you for making a beautfiul world" Wow, God, these anamials are amazing thank you for letting me be a steward of them and I ask for grace to be a better steward" Wow God, I know sometimes I feel like my job is drudgery, but I thank you that I have to provide for the Family I have to be a good steward of them for you. You love them, thank you for being with me even in work so I might glorify you as I do these things" etc.. "God my co-worker is struggling, grant me the grace ot bless them with your love, to show your love to glorify you." Lord I thank you for the grace to help others in my job, I ask Lord that these wounds heal faster for this person that they make a full recovery because you love them- allow me to share your love with them thorugh out the day, not to puff up myself, but to glorify you" etc.... Your purpose and my purpose is to bear witness of God's image, to become love and manifest the love of God to others here on earth- to look like CHrist. We make that our goal, to glorify Him (remember Satan, wanted glory for himself) and God will give us the grace and all things will fall into place- at least that is my belief... and it is getting stronger as time goes on. If we keep that as the forefront and continually yield... All else will fall into place because love is in you already, in the Holy Ghost.

I love that HE did that for you! He is so awesome, it's So God and Jesus to me!

Anyways those are a few thoughts- I apologize if I am being too presumptuous. And perhaps this isn't even for you, but for others who are reading. I am grateful as Cruiserdude said for you asking and seeking, I think this is something many people go back and forth on in their own lives and we need to be strenghtened one with another from time to time, to build our faith in Christ. I appreciate you and the Lord does love you I feel it through Him towards you. He knows you and hears you. Like Daniel, : "He heard your prayer the first time" just believe :) ANyways, God bless brother, reach out if you need anything! You got this, cause Jesus is on your side!

With love,
JR
I wouldnt quite say ive gone back to an old way of thinking. Its more of a hybrid now for me. A couple years ago I was all "event" and then the path after the event. Now I put a little more value in the process AND the event the comes after. Sometimes we forget that the most important part of the miracle of Birth (event) Is all of the little miracles that occur during the pregnancy when the child Is developing (process). For most people, there is a beautiful process that unfolds before they are born of God where he shapes and molds them and prepares them for something greater. And that's what I'm learning right now in my own life.

Hosh
captain of 100
Posts: 836

Re: "Sin No More"

Post by Hosh »

John Tavner wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 10:47 pm
Hosh wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 8:15 pm
John Tavner wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 8:06 pm
I do like the idea of "choose good over evil" it reminds me of the scripture "overcome evil with Good" (Rom 12:21)

Hmm I think I agree to an extent about what good is, though I think it something greater - I think grace covers a lot of what we mess up with until we grow farther up into Christ- then when we see, we stop doing what was messed up. What I think (and I understand where you are coming from because I actually used to think EXACTLY like you are espousing and I used similar words- but perhaps you mean it differently than I am udnerstanding) that if we are always thinking "waht would Jesus do?" which in theory is good, it can bcome extremely religious and rote, without love and can also miss the relational aspect with God. I truly believe that as we come to know Him more, we have less questions as to "what He would do" and we see more how He sees others and He guides us to bless those around us BECAUSE we have learned to trust Him, but it isn't me needing to know exactly what He did, it is because I have spent time with Him and become more like Him, then He gleefully helps me manifest His love to them, because I already love them and not becuase I need to "do a good work" (not saying that is what you are doing in this last part, just that this process is what happened to me). So I would approach every situation and ask God all the time what to do... usually I got caught up ... God taught me it is because I was so focused on "me" that I forgot about the person. But wait, I was asking God what to do! Yep, but my focus was on me, not on the person, it was on MY actions, not on loving the person. So now, I am building trust in just trusting God... believing He wants me to bless people, however it may be and if I get impressions (and htis is something I"m still working on) then I may say "God, I know you love them, I feel impressed to show your love to them, guide me in this endeavor, thank you for being with me and allowing me to bless their lives in your name... and I step out in faith...I am trusting that God will provide. If I miss it then I can say "Lord, allow me to have greater faith to manifest your love with others" As I draw closer to God and know Him more, I believe the answers come faster and I can just love them and God provides in the moment. It's like "if you seek to share my word, store up my word and I will give you the word in the moment you need it" I find it applies to life. Trusting in God and sharing His love, because HE loves them. SOmetimes it is simple- a word, sometimes it is a smile, sometimes you talk about Jesus, but when people feel you really care... it brightens up their day, they need love and we can provide it to them and hten show them how to obtain so their cup never runs dry and then they can share, not because they "need" it but beacuse their cup runneth over. Anyways a few of my thoughts.

Haha I don't think we should be triggered by the word works, and I don't think works is a dirty word, (but I get your humor) I think it just has to have its proper place and perspective which is after faith and BY faith. We do good works because we are saved and because we believe in Christ, not because we need to be saved. In other words Alma 13, in my opinion is saying they had faith (believed) and because they believed (and really did believe) they did good works trusting htey were already saved or would be. The works were good because they loved God more than man and their neighbor as themselves, not because they feared damnation or because they were tryign to earn their place into heaven.

If we do works because we are trying to obtain salvation, then we will miss the mark. We do good works because we believe Christ and that He has made us righteous - so being attached to the good vine, we produce good fruits.

I like the verse you quoted: 10 And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full.
To me it calls back to John 1: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God and the Word was made flesh. So to me it is that if you harden your heart, you will receive less of Christ, believe less, and not transform as much into His image, but if you believe, then you will be receive a greater portion of Christ, until you know God fully. As Eph 3: says 16I ask that out of the riches of His glory He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth 19of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

So in my mind it was never just the works... it was their works done by faith. Or in other words, they had faith and so they acted according to the faith they received. I would say one of the worst things that has happened to us in these latter days is we have destroyed the word faith (and I know I repeat myself here) but faith is trusting in God and expecting His word to come to pass. So if you pray with faith, you are unifying yourself to God expecting your prayers to come to pass and walking forward BECAUSE of that expectation- not to "force" God's hand, but because you believe it will be taken care of. Abraham and Isaac, Abraham KNEW God would provide however he did, whether it would raise Isaac from the dead or a ram in the thicket, because GOd gave a promise and God told Him that hte promise was fulfilled through Isaac. So Abraham took those actions, not in fear of losing Isaac, but knowing God would provide. Often we take steps forward in fear, or in doubt, trying to "convince" God and ourselves that we believe, hoping God will act, but really not believing, so our works are done without faith. "it is impossible to please God without faith" (Heb 11:6).

Anyways, keep up the seeking and asking and knocking. It will settle. For me I had to be willing to give up everything I thought I believed and just trust in Him and that He forgave me and I was righteous in His sight though I had "done" nothing... it was life changing- the burdens are light, the yoke is easy as long as my eye is single on Him. I'm not "burdened" by the what ifs and hte "how to's" I just trust in Him and let Him transform me. It can happen to all men 100%.
I love this, thank you. A Pastor my parents told me about said, "Faith + Salvation yields good works, its not Faith + Works yields Salvation." Kind of reminded me of a the shorthand version of what you are saying.

But seriously I undertand what your saying. I just go back and forth often between the two ways of thinking about salvation and how we approach Jesus. As ive said before, the experience i had where i awoke to the things of God and my false traditions was a blast of light and intelligence that overwhelmed me for nine straight hours. It was a born again-type of experience that changed my whole world view and completely changed my life. Addictions and sins i had struggled with for years disappeared immediately and i had no more disposition to do evil but to do good continually. And what you are describing was what i believed for the following couple years. But life happened and my heed and dilligence in searching dilligenetly in the light of Jesus wained. So here i am again, studying, praying searching, waiting. Funny thing is, like you said, the first time around I wasnt even trying to find Jesus, he just hit me over the head!
Haha, yeah, I like that... and yeah I"m a bit long-winded haha!

Awesome, I'm really happy you do understand what I'm saying :) Keep the faith. Your experience with the Lord is the "testimony" of who He is and how He sees you. As the scriptures say if anyone else teach a gospel (the good news), contrary to what you received, let them be under a curse.

Perhaps I presume here, and this is more to encourage you if you already do this or even if you don't - the goal is to encourage one another (that is why we are the church, to stir one another up in faith and good works!) but I don't know if I would say it was your life that happened and you lost what you had. I suspect your old ways of thinking crept back in. the "old man" reared its ugly head. Sometimes I get trapped by my old thinking. God reminds me... "Hey buddy, you're thinking wrong again" I respond "oh yeah!" Paul talks about that with the Galations- because they shifted back to their old way of thinking and to the way of thinking of the Jews(saved by works rather than faith) . So, I would suggest (hopefully you read this the right way) that you tell God that you want that heart again, and then thank Him that He gave it to you and is giving it to you and trust that He will. Then start living as if you've received it. Proverbs tells us "as a man thinketh in His heart so is he" If you are always thinking you are messing up, you will. Thank Him for providing you with the light of Christ, with His love- see yourself in your mind being transformed into His image, even if you don't "feel" it. Don't ever get caught in feelings as your basis of "living in the light."

I once felt for weeks like I was failing, I couldn't figure out what I was doing, I was praying to God etc begging for guidance, feeling like I had lost something or I wasn't doing enough etc... I kept begging and somewhere along the way the tender mercy thought crept in louder than my doubts and basically said "believe I'm speaking with you and you will hear my voice." So I let go and believed - the Lord Spoke to me immediately and said "Do you think I would make you feel guilt or like you were doing something wrong and not let you know what it is for such a long period of time? And I realized... oh my goodness I had been deceived. I was focusing so much on my own "feelings" i wasn't just trusting God.. IMMEDIATELY upon that thought, the despair and weight was gone. It has tried to creep up a few times, but I remember the Lord and what He spoke. I believe it is the same for you... Believe you are back to where you were right when you were "born again" trust the Lord sees you that way and start living as if you were there. when/if A temptation to be bad creeps up, "Capture it with Christ" saying ""Lord that is not what you called me to be, and I thank you for delivering me into the Kingdom of your Son, thank you for loving me, this temptation is not who I am, You love me and have set me apart, thank you for doing so etc... Thank you that instead of anger, you ahve given me peace through your Son, I am clean and you see me as Holy and Blameless in your eyes, thanks for loving me!

You are a Son of God, Sin is not who you are. Train your mind to believe the Lord over your experience that one time (which was important) but the experience is not your life, Christ is your life. I believe, The key to living a Christ-like life is receiving and knowing the Love He has for you (Faith)... if you don't receive it, it just becomes theological and it won't transform you...you'll say the words, but you won't live them and see them in others- all we can do is ask to receive it, to believe it and as you see and receive it, you will find you change, and you love God more. You will just talk with God in everything you do. "Wow God such beautiful flowers, you are amazing, with their smells, thank you for making a beautfiul world" Wow, God, these anamials are amazing thank you for letting me be a steward of them and I ask for grace to be a better steward" Wow God, I know sometimes I feel like my job is drudgery, but I thank you that I have to provide for the Family I have to be a good steward of them for you. You love them, thank you for being with me even in work so I might glorify you as I do these things" etc.. "God my co-worker is struggling, grant me the grace ot bless them with your love, to show your love to glorify you." Lord I thank you for the grace to help others in my job, I ask Lord that these wounds heal faster for this person that they make a full recovery because you love them- allow me to share your love with them thorugh out the day, not to puff up myself, but to glorify you" etc.... Your purpose and my purpose is to bear witness of God's image, to become love and manifest the love of God to others here on earth- to look like CHrist. We make that our goal, to glorify Him (remember Satan, wanted glory for himself) and God will give us the grace and all things will fall into place- at least that is my belief... and it is getting stronger as time goes on. If we keep that as the forefront and continually yield... All else will fall into place because love is in you already, in the Holy Ghost.

I love that HE did that for you! He is so awesome, it's So God and Jesus to me!

Anyways those are a few thoughts- I apologize if I am being too presumptuous. And perhaps this isn't even for you, but for others who are reading. I am grateful as Cruiserdude said for you asking and seeking, I think this is something many people go back and forth on in their own lives and we need to be strenghtened one with another from time to time, to build our faith in Christ. I appreciate you and the Lord does love you I feel it through Him towards you. He knows you and hears you. Like Daniel, : "He heard your prayer the first time" just believe :) ANyways, God bless brother, reach out if you need anything! You got this, cause Jesus is on your side!

With love,
JR
I wouldnt quite say ive gone back to an old way of thinking. Its more of a hybrid now for me. A couple years ago I was all "event" and then the path after the event. Now I put a little more value in the process AND the event that comes after. Sometimes we forget that one of the most important parts of the miracle of Birth (event) Is all of the little miracles that occur during the pregnancy when the child Is developing (process). For most people, there is a beautiful process that unfolds before they are born of God where he shapes and molds them and prepares them for something greater. And that's what I'm learning right now in my own life.

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John Tavner
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Posts: 4154

Re: "Sin No More"

Post by John Tavner »

Hosh wrote: March 24th, 2023, 6:53 am
John Tavner wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 10:47 pm
Hosh wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 8:15 pm

I love this, thank you. A Pastor my parents told me about said, "Faith + Salvation yields good works, its not Faith + Works yields Salvation." Kind of reminded me of a the shorthand version of what you are saying.

But seriously I undertand what your saying. I just go back and forth often between the two ways of thinking about salvation and how we approach Jesus. As ive said before, the experience i had where i awoke to the things of God and my false traditions was a blast of light and intelligence that overwhelmed me for nine straight hours. It was a born again-type of experience that changed my whole world view and completely changed my life. Addictions and sins i had struggled with for years disappeared immediately and i had no more disposition to do evil but to do good continually. And what you are describing was what i believed for the following couple years. But life happened and my heed and dilligence in searching dilligenetly in the light of Jesus wained. So here i am again, studying, praying searching, waiting. Funny thing is, like you said, the first time around I wasnt even trying to find Jesus, he just hit me over the head!
Haha, yeah, I like that... and yeah I"m a bit long-winded haha!

Awesome, I'm really happy you do understand what I'm saying :) Keep the faith. Your experience with the Lord is the "testimony" of who He is and how He sees you. As the scriptures say if anyone else teach a gospel (the good news), contrary to what you received, let them be under a curse.

Perhaps I presume here, and this is more to encourage you if you already do this or even if you don't - the goal is to encourage one another (that is why we are the church, to stir one another up in faith and good works!) but I don't know if I would say it was your life that happened and you lost what you had. I suspect your old ways of thinking crept back in. the "old man" reared its ugly head. Sometimes I get trapped by my old thinking. God reminds me... "Hey buddy, you're thinking wrong again" I respond "oh yeah!" Paul talks about that with the Galations- because they shifted back to their old way of thinking and to the way of thinking of the Jews(saved by works rather than faith) . So, I would suggest (hopefully you read this the right way) that you tell God that you want that heart again, and then thank Him that He gave it to you and is giving it to you and trust that He will. Then start living as if you've received it. Proverbs tells us "as a man thinketh in His heart so is he" If you are always thinking you are messing up, you will. Thank Him for providing you with the light of Christ, with His love- see yourself in your mind being transformed into His image, even if you don't "feel" it. Don't ever get caught in feelings as your basis of "living in the light."

I once felt for weeks like I was failing, I couldn't figure out what I was doing, I was praying to God etc begging for guidance, feeling like I had lost something or I wasn't doing enough etc... I kept begging and somewhere along the way the tender mercy thought crept in louder than my doubts and basically said "believe I'm speaking with you and you will hear my voice." So I let go and believed - the Lord Spoke to me immediately and said "Do you think I would make you feel guilt or like you were doing something wrong and not let you know what it is for such a long period of time? And I realized... oh my goodness I had been deceived. I was focusing so much on my own "feelings" i wasn't just trusting God.. IMMEDIATELY upon that thought, the despair and weight was gone. It has tried to creep up a few times, but I remember the Lord and what He spoke. I believe it is the same for you... Believe you are back to where you were right when you were "born again" trust the Lord sees you that way and start living as if you were there. when/if A temptation to be bad creeps up, "Capture it with Christ" saying ""Lord that is not what you called me to be, and I thank you for delivering me into the Kingdom of your Son, thank you for loving me, this temptation is not who I am, You love me and have set me apart, thank you for doing so etc... Thank you that instead of anger, you ahve given me peace through your Son, I am clean and you see me as Holy and Blameless in your eyes, thanks for loving me!

You are a Son of God, Sin is not who you are. Train your mind to believe the Lord over your experience that one time (which was important) but the experience is not your life, Christ is your life. I believe, The key to living a Christ-like life is receiving and knowing the Love He has for you (Faith)... if you don't receive it, it just becomes theological and it won't transform you...you'll say the words, but you won't live them and see them in others- all we can do is ask to receive it, to believe it and as you see and receive it, you will find you change, and you love God more. You will just talk with God in everything you do. "Wow God such beautiful flowers, you are amazing, with their smells, thank you for making a beautfiul world" Wow, God, these anamials are amazing thank you for letting me be a steward of them and I ask for grace to be a better steward" Wow God, I know sometimes I feel like my job is drudgery, but I thank you that I have to provide for the Family I have to be a good steward of them for you. You love them, thank you for being with me even in work so I might glorify you as I do these things" etc.. "God my co-worker is struggling, grant me the grace ot bless them with your love, to show your love to glorify you." Lord I thank you for the grace to help others in my job, I ask Lord that these wounds heal faster for this person that they make a full recovery because you love them- allow me to share your love with them thorugh out the day, not to puff up myself, but to glorify you" etc.... Your purpose and my purpose is to bear witness of God's image, to become love and manifest the love of God to others here on earth- to look like CHrist. We make that our goal, to glorify Him (remember Satan, wanted glory for himself) and God will give us the grace and all things will fall into place- at least that is my belief... and it is getting stronger as time goes on. If we keep that as the forefront and continually yield... All else will fall into place because love is in you already, in the Holy Ghost.

I love that HE did that for you! He is so awesome, it's So God and Jesus to me!

Anyways those are a few thoughts- I apologize if I am being too presumptuous. And perhaps this isn't even for you, but for others who are reading. I am grateful as Cruiserdude said for you asking and seeking, I think this is something many people go back and forth on in their own lives and we need to be strenghtened one with another from time to time, to build our faith in Christ. I appreciate you and the Lord does love you I feel it through Him towards you. He knows you and hears you. Like Daniel, : "He heard your prayer the first time" just believe :) ANyways, God bless brother, reach out if you need anything! You got this, cause Jesus is on your side!

With love,
JR
I wouldnt quite say ive gone back to an old way of thinking. Its more of a hybrid now for me. A couple years ago I was all "event" and then the path after the event. Now I put a little more value in the process AND the event that comes after. Sometimes we forget that one of the most important parts of the miracle of Birth (event) Is all of the little miracles that occur during the pregnancy when the child Is developing (process). For most people, there is a beautiful process that unfolds before they are born of God where he shapes and molds them and prepares them for something greater. And that's what I'm learning right now in my own life.
Yeah, sorry, that was a bad way of putting it :). I'm having a hard way describing/ explaining it over word.

I think that point of view is healthy as long as grace and faith are attached to it. I believe you are growing after your birth in Jesus, now. I really believe you've been born again, you are now just "growing" up into Him- that is a process. I don't think you are in a pregnancy, I think you're a child growing - as I am. The "pregnancy" so to say is the realization that we can't do it without God- or God shows us how messed up we were and we receive His mercy and love, and He changes our attitudes. Often times because of hte prayers of those around us. I beleive our faith aind prayer for others can have a great impact on their receiving God. I suspect this event caused you to seek after God more, that there were things that you perceived differently afterwards, that you knew His love more. You were born again. If you didn't care now, it would show that you weren't.

Scripturally, Sin is described as this in James: 4: 17Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do, yet fails to do it, is guilty of sin. (James 4:17 If you don't want to "do" evil, and do what is good, you no longer have a disposition towards evil. Yes, we all have temptations and sometimes we may mess up and we even knew what we were doing is wrong, but we are convicted of it... you understand it was and don't want to do it again until you get caught up in the heat of hte moment or whatever... your disposition is still to not do evil, it is good. What happens is we get deceived along the way by our thoughts and by not taking them captive in Christ and think we are evil because old thoughts or ways of htinking creep back in. For instance if you've had thoughts that creep up when your in the midst of worshiping God or doing good and then you get caught in them and feel guilty, but it wasn't even on your mind- it is, Satan, I bleieve trying to convince us we areally aren't changed. In those moments we can praise God that we have been, that we have been redeemed, that those ways of life are no longer us anymore.

Anyways, I really appreciate the conversation and you. Sorry for any miscommunication on my part or for presuming wrongly in anything! You know your heart more than I do!

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Cruiserdude
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Re: "Sin No More"

Post by Cruiserdude »

Hosh wrote: March 24th, 2023, 6:53 am
John Tavner wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 10:47 pm
Hosh wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 8:15 pm

I love this, thank you. A Pastor my parents told me about said, "Faith + Salvation yields good works, its not Faith + Works yields Salvation." Kind of reminded me of a the shorthand version of what you are saying.

But seriously I undertand what your saying. I just go back and forth often between the two ways of thinking about salvation and how we approach Jesus. As ive said before, the experience i had where i awoke to the things of God and my false traditions was a blast of light and intelligence that overwhelmed me for nine straight hours. It was a born again-type of experience that changed my whole world view and completely changed my life. Addictions and sins i had struggled with for years disappeared immediately and i had no more disposition to do evil but to do good continually. And what you are describing was what i believed for the following couple years. But life happened and my heed and dilligence in searching dilligenetly in the light of Jesus wained. So here i am again, studying, praying searching, waiting. Funny thing is, like you said, the first time around I wasnt even trying to find Jesus, he just hit me over the head!
Haha, yeah, I like that... and yeah I"m a bit long-winded haha!

Awesome, I'm really happy you do understand what I'm saying :) Keep the faith. Your experience with the Lord is the "testimony" of who He is and how He sees you. As the scriptures say if anyone else teach a gospel (the good news), contrary to what you received, let them be under a curse.

Perhaps I presume here, and this is more to encourage you if you already do this or even if you don't - the goal is to encourage one another (that is why we are the church, to stir one another up in faith and good works!) but I don't know if I would say it was your life that happened and you lost what you had. I suspect your old ways of thinking crept back in. the "old man" reared its ugly head. Sometimes I get trapped by my old thinking. God reminds me... "Hey buddy, you're thinking wrong again" I respond "oh yeah!" Paul talks about that with the Galations- because they shifted back to their old way of thinking and to the way of thinking of the Jews(saved by works rather than faith) . So, I would suggest (hopefully you read this the right way) that you tell God that you want that heart again, and then thank Him that He gave it to you and is giving it to you and trust that He will. Then start living as if you've received it. Proverbs tells us "as a man thinketh in His heart so is he" If you are always thinking you are messing up, you will. Thank Him for providing you with the light of Christ, with His love- see yourself in your mind being transformed into His image, even if you don't "feel" it. Don't ever get caught in feelings as your basis of "living in the light."

I once felt for weeks like I was failing, I couldn't figure out what I was doing, I was praying to God etc begging for guidance, feeling like I had lost something or I wasn't doing enough etc... I kept begging and somewhere along the way the tender mercy thought crept in louder than my doubts and basically said "believe I'm speaking with you and you will hear my voice." So I let go and believed - the Lord Spoke to me immediately and said "Do you think I would make you feel guilt or like you were doing something wrong and not let you know what it is for such a long period of time? And I realized... oh my goodness I had been deceived. I was focusing so much on my own "feelings" i wasn't just trusting God.. IMMEDIATELY upon that thought, the despair and weight was gone. It has tried to creep up a few times, but I remember the Lord and what He spoke. I believe it is the same for you... Believe you are back to where you were right when you were "born again" trust the Lord sees you that way and start living as if you were there. when/if A temptation to be bad creeps up, "Capture it with Christ" saying ""Lord that is not what you called me to be, and I thank you for delivering me into the Kingdom of your Son, thank you for loving me, this temptation is not who I am, You love me and have set me apart, thank you for doing so etc... Thank you that instead of anger, you ahve given me peace through your Son, I am clean and you see me as Holy and Blameless in your eyes, thanks for loving me!

You are a Son of God, Sin is not who you are. Train your mind to believe the Lord over your experience that one time (which was important) but the experience is not your life, Christ is your life. I believe, The key to living a Christ-like life is receiving and knowing the Love He has for you (Faith)... if you don't receive it, it just becomes theological and it won't transform you...you'll say the words, but you won't live them and see them in others- all we can do is ask to receive it, to believe it and as you see and receive it, you will find you change, and you love God more. You will just talk with God in everything you do. "Wow God such beautiful flowers, you are amazing, with their smells, thank you for making a beautfiul world" Wow, God, these anamials are amazing thank you for letting me be a steward of them and I ask for grace to be a better steward" Wow God, I know sometimes I feel like my job is drudgery, but I thank you that I have to provide for the Family I have to be a good steward of them for you. You love them, thank you for being with me even in work so I might glorify you as I do these things" etc.. "God my co-worker is struggling, grant me the grace ot bless them with your love, to show your love to glorify you." Lord I thank you for the grace to help others in my job, I ask Lord that these wounds heal faster for this person that they make a full recovery because you love them- allow me to share your love with them thorugh out the day, not to puff up myself, but to glorify you" etc.... Your purpose and my purpose is to bear witness of God's image, to become love and manifest the love of God to others here on earth- to look like CHrist. We make that our goal, to glorify Him (remember Satan, wanted glory for himself) and God will give us the grace and all things will fall into place- at least that is my belief... and it is getting stronger as time goes on. If we keep that as the forefront and continually yield... All else will fall into place because love is in you already, in the Holy Ghost.

I love that HE did that for you! He is so awesome, it's So God and Jesus to me!

Anyways those are a few thoughts- I apologize if I am being too presumptuous. And perhaps this isn't even for you, but for others who are reading. I am grateful as Cruiserdude said for you asking and seeking, I think this is something many people go back and forth on in their own lives and we need to be strenghtened one with another from time to time, to build our faith in Christ. I appreciate you and the Lord does love you I feel it through Him towards you. He knows you and hears you. Like Daniel, : "He heard your prayer the first time" just believe :) ANyways, God bless brother, reach out if you need anything! You got this, cause Jesus is on your side!

With love,
JR
I wouldnt quite say ive gone back to an old way of thinking. Its more of a hybrid now for me. A couple years ago I was all "event" and then the path after the event. Now I put a little more value in the process AND the event the comes after. Sometimes we forget that the most important part of the miracle of Birth (event) Is all of the little miracles that occur during the pregnancy when the child Is developing (process). For most people, there is a beautiful process that unfolds before they are born of God where he shapes and molds them and prepares them for something greater. And that's what I'm learning right now in my own life.
I really sincerely believe we/you and John are describing the same path, just through different lenses at different times. But it's clear to me now that we see 'the path' similarly.

Hosh
captain of 100
Posts: 836

Re: "Sin No More"

Post by Hosh »

Cruiserdude wrote: March 24th, 2023, 9:22 am
Hosh wrote: March 24th, 2023, 6:53 am
John Tavner wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 10:47 pm

Haha, yeah, I like that... and yeah I"m a bit long-winded haha!

Awesome, I'm really happy you do understand what I'm saying :) Keep the faith. Your experience with the Lord is the "testimony" of who He is and how He sees you. As the scriptures say if anyone else teach a gospel (the good news), contrary to what you received, let them be under a curse.

Perhaps I presume here, and this is more to encourage you if you already do this or even if you don't - the goal is to encourage one another (that is why we are the church, to stir one another up in faith and good works!) but I don't know if I would say it was your life that happened and you lost what you had. I suspect your old ways of thinking crept back in. the "old man" reared its ugly head. Sometimes I get trapped by my old thinking. God reminds me... "Hey buddy, you're thinking wrong again" I respond "oh yeah!" Paul talks about that with the Galations- because they shifted back to their old way of thinking and to the way of thinking of the Jews(saved by works rather than faith) . So, I would suggest (hopefully you read this the right way) that you tell God that you want that heart again, and then thank Him that He gave it to you and is giving it to you and trust that He will. Then start living as if you've received it. Proverbs tells us "as a man thinketh in His heart so is he" If you are always thinking you are messing up, you will. Thank Him for providing you with the light of Christ, with His love- see yourself in your mind being transformed into His image, even if you don't "feel" it. Don't ever get caught in feelings as your basis of "living in the light."

I once felt for weeks like I was failing, I couldn't figure out what I was doing, I was praying to God etc begging for guidance, feeling like I had lost something or I wasn't doing enough etc... I kept begging and somewhere along the way the tender mercy thought crept in louder than my doubts and basically said "believe I'm speaking with you and you will hear my voice." So I let go and believed - the Lord Spoke to me immediately and said "Do you think I would make you feel guilt or like you were doing something wrong and not let you know what it is for such a long period of time? And I realized... oh my goodness I had been deceived. I was focusing so much on my own "feelings" i wasn't just trusting God.. IMMEDIATELY upon that thought, the despair and weight was gone. It has tried to creep up a few times, but I remember the Lord and what He spoke. I believe it is the same for you... Believe you are back to where you were right when you were "born again" trust the Lord sees you that way and start living as if you were there. when/if A temptation to be bad creeps up, "Capture it with Christ" saying ""Lord that is not what you called me to be, and I thank you for delivering me into the Kingdom of your Son, thank you for loving me, this temptation is not who I am, You love me and have set me apart, thank you for doing so etc... Thank you that instead of anger, you ahve given me peace through your Son, I am clean and you see me as Holy and Blameless in your eyes, thanks for loving me!

You are a Son of God, Sin is not who you are. Train your mind to believe the Lord over your experience that one time (which was important) but the experience is not your life, Christ is your life. I believe, The key to living a Christ-like life is receiving and knowing the Love He has for you (Faith)... if you don't receive it, it just becomes theological and it won't transform you...you'll say the words, but you won't live them and see them in others- all we can do is ask to receive it, to believe it and as you see and receive it, you will find you change, and you love God more. You will just talk with God in everything you do. "Wow God such beautiful flowers, you are amazing, with their smells, thank you for making a beautfiul world" Wow, God, these anamials are amazing thank you for letting me be a steward of them and I ask for grace to be a better steward" Wow God, I know sometimes I feel like my job is drudgery, but I thank you that I have to provide for the Family I have to be a good steward of them for you. You love them, thank you for being with me even in work so I might glorify you as I do these things" etc.. "God my co-worker is struggling, grant me the grace ot bless them with your love, to show your love to glorify you." Lord I thank you for the grace to help others in my job, I ask Lord that these wounds heal faster for this person that they make a full recovery because you love them- allow me to share your love with them thorugh out the day, not to puff up myself, but to glorify you" etc.... Your purpose and my purpose is to bear witness of God's image, to become love and manifest the love of God to others here on earth- to look like CHrist. We make that our goal, to glorify Him (remember Satan, wanted glory for himself) and God will give us the grace and all things will fall into place- at least that is my belief... and it is getting stronger as time goes on. If we keep that as the forefront and continually yield... All else will fall into place because love is in you already, in the Holy Ghost.

I love that HE did that for you! He is so awesome, it's So God and Jesus to me!

Anyways those are a few thoughts- I apologize if I am being too presumptuous. And perhaps this isn't even for you, but for others who are reading. I am grateful as Cruiserdude said for you asking and seeking, I think this is something many people go back and forth on in their own lives and we need to be strenghtened one with another from time to time, to build our faith in Christ. I appreciate you and the Lord does love you I feel it through Him towards you. He knows you and hears you. Like Daniel, : "He heard your prayer the first time" just believe :) ANyways, God bless brother, reach out if you need anything! You got this, cause Jesus is on your side!

With love,
JR
I wouldnt quite say ive gone back to an old way of thinking. Its more of a hybrid now for me. A couple years ago I was all "event" and then the path after the event. Now I put a little more value in the process AND the event the comes after. Sometimes we forget that the most important part of the miracle of Birth (event) Is all of the little miracles that occur during the pregnancy when the child Is developing (process). For most people, there is a beautiful process that unfolds before they are born of God where he shapes and molds them and prepares them for something greater. And that's what I'm learning right now in my own life.
I really sincerely believe we/you and John are describing the same path, just through different lenses at different times. But it's clear to me now that we see 'the path' similarly.
I actually do too. Sometimes I go back and read what I write and think, man the English language is just terrible at expressing how I really believe and feel.

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FrankOne
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Re: "Sin No More"

Post by FrankOne »

John Tavner wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 8:06 pm
Hosh wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 1:36 pm Okay lets view this from another angle.

Instead of saying "sin no more" lets call it "Always choose good over evil". But first we need to determine WHAT is good and WHAT is evil. For the purposes of this discussion im goong to assign defintions that i have i heard Rob Smith use that i find beneficial in my life. You might not agree but at least youll have a better understanding of where i am coming from. Good is what is BEST in terms of How you currently understand who Jesus is and what He would do in every situation. Evil is anything LESS THAN what is best in terms of your current understanding of who Jesus is and what He would do in every situation. Defining good in this way means what is good can and will change over time as you understand more and more about who God is. Because everything we currently believe to be good and of God is incomplete.

So with that, Lets look at Alma 13.

2 And those priests were ordained after the order of his Son, in a manner that thereby the people might know in what manner to look forward to his Son for redemption.

Okay so some priests are called and these priests at some point chose to become like Jesus and yes at some point were born of Him, but It involved an initial choice to do good. These priests lived in such a way that looking on their character would be similar to what the character of Jesus would look like. Which is why it says that the people would know, by having these priests among them, in what manner they might look forward to Jesus.

3 And this is the manner after which they were ordained—being called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of their exceeding faith and good works; in the first place being left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good, and exercising exceedingly great faith, are called with a holy calling, yea, with that holy calling which was prepared with, and according to, a preparatory redemption for such.

Okay so "in the first place", works played a part in these Priests becoming who they became. I know "works" is a dirty word. I get it I'm triggered by that word as much as anyone else, but hear me out. At some point in time, it takes some amount of heed and diligence to choose good over evil and like I said this is discussed heavily in Moroni 7. Before we become the Children of Christ which is to be born of Him, we must choose good over evil according to what the light of Christ reveals to us as being good. Even in the exceptions of the great born again stories like Alma the younger, he chose Jesus and his heart was committed to a life in Him after he agonized over his awful situation. I brought up the different mortal probabtions by the way because I do think it is relevant to the types of experiences some of these men had like Paul and Alma the younger.

4 And thus they have been called to this holy calling on account of their faith, while others would reject the Spirit of God on account of the hardness of their hearts and blindness of their minds, while, if it had not been for this they might have had as great privilege as their brethren.

5 Or in fine, in the first place they were on the same standing with their brethren;

So again, at some point in eternity wherever someone first starts (this I why I think mmp is important to understand to a certain degree) we are on the same standing. Before anyone Is ever Born of God and receieves the Holy Ghost, they are on the same standing. What separates them from anyone else? They chose to act on the good that came to their conscience. And they chose good after good after good as It was revealed to them. Whereas the rest of the brethren reject what is good and choose evil. And THIS according to John 3 is the condemnation of the world, that light comes in to every person who ever lived, and most choose to reject It because it corrects them and teaches them to do good and forsake sin. And that does not always feel good.

All this being said. I think before I started thinking this way I thought, works cannot be good unless someone has the Holy Ghost teaching them directly from God what Is good. While I agree to a certain extent, I also think what Is good is relative and there is a spectrum. Before we receive the Holy Ghost, we are evil, carnal and devilish. But, we have the light of Christ to teach us both good and evil. We are evil by nature because all mankind at somepoint chooses evil and they sin and are cut off. But that does not mean they don't have the ability to choose to turn towards Jesus and do good as far as what their perception of good is through their conscience. And as we choose what we sincerely believe is good, God reveals more and more of the reality if what good actually is. In this process of choosing every good thing we naturally forsake what is evil. The resolution gets better and better and we see more and more clearly the difference between good and evil. I believe the full commitment of choosing what is good over what is evil in all things Is what It is to repent. And this leads us to the gate.

Now let me clarify one more thing. When I say a full commitment to what Is good this Is what I mean: I mean that as one progresses in the light of Christ, and chooses every good thing, It becomes more and more clear that what IS good IS Jesus and everything He is. So when I say fully committ or SUBMIT to what is good according to our concience or the light of Christ, I am really saying a full submission to Jesus as He is revealed to us. At some point, our conscience, or the Light of Christ, If fully submitted to, leads us to Jesus and we are Born of Him and receieve His Spirit and become His children. At this point we are baptized with fire and the Holy Ghost and receieve an even greater portion of who He is and a new law to live by and obey.

Again, I understand that the examples provided on this thread (Paul, Alma ect) Dont all happen in this exact way, but at some point in a beings eternal progression, at some point, maybe in a different telestial world, I believe that being has to choose to hold fast to every good thing and progress through the light of Christ before being born of God. Our agency is extremely important in this process of choosing God.

10 And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full.

Haha I don't think we should be triggered by the word works, and I don't think works is a dirty word, (but I get your humor) I think it just has to have its proper place and perspective which is after faith and BY faith. We do good works because we are saved and because we believe in Christ, not because we need to be saved.
In agreement with the above point, I find a different meaning than the standard LDS interpretation of the scripture below. My take on it validates the true meanings of all the scriptures of being saved by grace

"For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."

Simple meaning for me:

If you have faith, your works will manifest it. If your works are not "good" than you have little faith. Many orthodox Christian religions (inc. LDS) hang their hat on the meaning that "Doing good works is necessary for salvation and forgiveness". The problem is that ANYONE can fake good works. A half idiot can pretend to be a great guy and is judged by everyone that his works are GOOD...so...guess what? He IS a good guy, right?

So, if you aren't doing good works, then it may or may not mean that you have faith. But...if you have faith, your works WILL be good. As I've heard since I was a kid, "In this day and age, it isn't about what's good, it's about what looks good that's important".

anyone can obey. Obedience does absolutely nothing for a man that is not genuine. It's called pretending.

The truth of all this, in my opinion, is that the focus MUST be on learning faith and then everything follows from that.

the above being said, the next scripture makes perfect sense:

Gal 2:16
"Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified."

Hosh
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Posts: 836

Re: "Sin No More"

Post by Hosh »

FrankOne wrote: March 24th, 2023, 2:51 pm
John Tavner wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 8:06 pm
Hosh wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 1:36 pm Okay lets view this from another angle.

Instead of saying "sin no more" lets call it "Always choose good over evil". But first we need to determine WHAT is good and WHAT is evil. For the purposes of this discussion im goong to assign defintions that i have i heard Rob Smith use that i find beneficial in my life. You might not agree but at least youll have a better understanding of where i am coming from. Good is what is BEST in terms of How you currently understand who Jesus is and what He would do in every situation. Evil is anything LESS THAN what is best in terms of your current understanding of who Jesus is and what He would do in every situation. Defining good in this way means what is good can and will change over time as you understand more and more about who God is. Because everything we currently believe to be good and of God is incomplete.

So with that, Lets look at Alma 13.

2 And those priests were ordained after the order of his Son, in a manner that thereby the people might know in what manner to look forward to his Son for redemption.

Okay so some priests are called and these priests at some point chose to become like Jesus and yes at some point were born of Him, but It involved an initial choice to do good. These priests lived in such a way that looking on their character would be similar to what the character of Jesus would look like. Which is why it says that the people would know, by having these priests among them, in what manner they might look forward to Jesus.

3 And this is the manner after which they were ordained—being called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of their exceeding faith and good works; in the first place being left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good, and exercising exceedingly great faith, are called with a holy calling, yea, with that holy calling which was prepared with, and according to, a preparatory redemption for such.

Okay so "in the first place", works played a part in these Priests becoming who they became. I know "works" is a dirty word. I get it I'm triggered by that word as much as anyone else, but hear me out. At some point in time, it takes some amount of heed and diligence to choose good over evil and like I said this is discussed heavily in Moroni 7. Before we become the Children of Christ which is to be born of Him, we must choose good over evil according to what the light of Christ reveals to us as being good. Even in the exceptions of the great born again stories like Alma the younger, he chose Jesus and his heart was committed to a life in Him after he agonized over his awful situation. I brought up the different mortal probabtions by the way because I do think it is relevant to the types of experiences some of these men had like Paul and Alma the younger.

4 And thus they have been called to this holy calling on account of their faith, while others would reject the Spirit of God on account of the hardness of their hearts and blindness of their minds, while, if it had not been for this they might have had as great privilege as their brethren.

5 Or in fine, in the first place they were on the same standing with their brethren;

So again, at some point in eternity wherever someone first starts (this I why I think mmp is important to understand to a certain degree) we are on the same standing. Before anyone Is ever Born of God and receieves the Holy Ghost, they are on the same standing. What separates them from anyone else? They chose to act on the good that came to their conscience. And they chose good after good after good as It was revealed to them. Whereas the rest of the brethren reject what is good and choose evil. And THIS according to John 3 is the condemnation of the world, that light comes in to every person who ever lived, and most choose to reject It because it corrects them and teaches them to do good and forsake sin. And that does not always feel good.

All this being said. I think before I started thinking this way I thought, works cannot be good unless someone has the Holy Ghost teaching them directly from God what Is good. While I agree to a certain extent, I also think what Is good is relative and there is a spectrum. Before we receive the Holy Ghost, we are evil, carnal and devilish. But, we have the light of Christ to teach us both good and evil. We are evil by nature because all mankind at somepoint chooses evil and they sin and are cut off. But that does not mean they don't have the ability to choose to turn towards Jesus and do good as far as what their perception of good is through their conscience. And as we choose what we sincerely believe is good, God reveals more and more of the reality if what good actually is. In this process of choosing every good thing we naturally forsake what is evil. The resolution gets better and better and we see more and more clearly the difference between good and evil. I believe the full commitment of choosing what is good over what is evil in all things Is what It is to repent. And this leads us to the gate.

Now let me clarify one more thing. When I say a full commitment to what Is good this Is what I mean: I mean that as one progresses in the light of Christ, and chooses every good thing, It becomes more and more clear that what IS good IS Jesus and everything He is. So when I say fully committ or SUBMIT to what is good according to our concience or the light of Christ, I am really saying a full submission to Jesus as He is revealed to us. At some point, our conscience, or the Light of Christ, If fully submitted to, leads us to Jesus and we are Born of Him and receieve His Spirit and become His children. At this point we are baptized with fire and the Holy Ghost and receieve an even greater portion of who He is and a new law to live by and obey.

Again, I understand that the examples provided on this thread (Paul, Alma ect) Dont all happen in this exact way, but at some point in a beings eternal progression, at some point, maybe in a different telestial world, I believe that being has to choose to hold fast to every good thing and progress through the light of Christ before being born of God. Our agency is extremely important in this process of choosing God.

10 And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full.

Haha I don't think we should be triggered by the word works, and I don't think works is a dirty word, (but I get your humor) I think it just has to have its proper place and perspective which is after faith and BY faith. We do good works because we are saved and because we believe in Christ, not because we need to be saved.
In agreement with the above point, I find a different meaning than the standard LDS interpretation of the scripture below. My take on it validates the true meanings of all the scriptures of being saved by grace

"For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."

Simple meaning for me:

If you have faith, your works will manifest it. If your works are not "good" than you have little faith. Many orthodox Christian religions (inc. LDS) hang their hat on the meaning that "Doing good works is necessary for salvation and forgiveness". The problem is that ANYONE can fake good works. A half idiot can pretend to be a great guy and is judged by everyone that his works are GOOD...so...guess what? He IS a good guy, right?

So, if you aren't doing good works, then it may or may not mean that you have faith. But...if you have faith, your works WILL be good. As I've heard since I was a kid, "In this day and age, it isn't about what's good, it's about what looks good that's important".

anyone can obey. Obedience does absolutely nothing for a man that is not genuine. It's called pretending.

The truth of all this, in my opinion, is that the focus MUST be on learning faith and then everything follows from that.

the above being said, the next scripture makes perfect sense:

Gal 2:16
"Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified."
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Thinker
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Re: "Sin No More"

Post by Thinker »

FrankOne wrote: March 24th, 2023, 2:51 pm In agreement with the above point, I find a different meaning than the standard LDS interpretation of the scripture below. My take on it validates the true meanings of all the scriptures of being saved by grace

"For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."

Simple meaning for me:

If you have faith, your works will manifest it. If your works are not "good" than you have little faith. Many orthodox Christian religions (inc. LDS) hang their hat on the meaning that "Doing good works is necessary for salvation and forgiveness". The problem is that ANYONE can fake good works. A half idiot can pretend to be a great guy and is judged by everyone that his works are GOOD...so...guess what? He IS a good guy, right?

So, if you aren't doing good works, then it may or may not mean that you have faith. But...if you have faith, your works WILL be good. As I've heard since I was a kid, "In this day and age, it isn't about what's good, it's about what looks good that's important".

anyone can obey. Obedience does absolutely nothing for a man that is not genuine. It's called pretending.

The truth of all this, in my opinion, is that the focus MUST be on learning faith and then everything follows from that.

the above being said, the next scripture makes perfect sense:

Gal 2:16
"Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified."
Good points. I’d emphasize the implication that faith misdirected may not be godly faith. There is a saying that I’ll adapt, “All (including people choosing evil ) have faith, but not all are conscious of having faith.”

Considering ideas of God & Jesus have been through the hands of many questionable influencers, it’s good to regularly do as Jacob & wrestle our ideas of God, Jesus etc.

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FrankOne
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Posts: 2826

Re: "Sin No More"

Post by FrankOne »

I thought I'd re-read a few things and came up with this:

The problem today is that most people focus on works.

The only focus that is valid is that of faith because if your faith in Christ is strong, your works will follow without any effort or plan or conscious exercise. The works are simply a manifestation of who you are within. To focus on works at all is vanity and it's like the tail wagging the dog or putting the cart before the horse, it.does.not.work. (but it sure does look good to onlookers!) Like looking at a beautiful home from the street , yet the floors inside are rotting and moldy.

This, of course, brings up the underlying question, "what is faith"?

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