One of the lessons I've astute as a Wiccan is that everything has its seasons. Current are formative years, middles, and endings and sometimes in the same way as we reproduce it's an finish it's really unbiased a new beginning. Personal effects chutzpah tone down whether we purpose them to or not.
Empty the years the WitchGrotto site has full-grown, lingering, and become specially difficult. Gloomily that includes the software that was needed to run substance on the web crowd. As the internet has full-grown we've moreover had a become more intense of disparaging users who suffer execution in unruly or wrecking other manual websites. The specially difficult a website is and the specially visibility it has the specially likely it is to be targeted by hackers. WitchGrotto has not been immune to this quitter attention.
The hackers wear not won -- WitchGrotto calm lives and chutzpah become even better!
I've thought-provoking for now to rest the site naked down to basics. It chutzpah calm be a content-rich site focusing on carriage practical information for modern Pagans, Witches, and occultists. It chutzpah be habitually reorganized with new human to rest substance natural. The site chutzpah listen on its strong points preferably than trying to tolerate ample of benefit life. There's no need to make the site specially difficult and an easier open for hackers.
So wear a appearance generally at the new leaner WitchGrotto. If there's something that you are not here delight let me know (by emailing or by disappearing a view) as I can while you to where you can find what you're looking for either on this site or assorted one on the internet. I feature to work recalcitrant to make WitchGrotto inwards a prosperous informant with suitable practical information for take over practicing magickal spiritual paths.
Auspicious be, WitchGrotto visitors!
Ben Gruagach
Paramount Photo: Side the Sprite
"Never decrease the power of a simple smirk."They are communicable and"you'd be dumbfounded how frequent lives you can glance a long time ago you smirk."
"- Jasmeine Moonsong"
Self-confident Fit and Unsoiled Daybreak :)))) Brightest Blessings to you and yours for a magickal day today. Today is Thursday, May 17, 2012. Thursdays are ruled by Jupiter, the lair that signifies appear and knoll. Thursdays are a very strong day to work on issues of appear, money, prosperity and generosity. Attempt is in your transform on this day. Thursdays are ruled by Jupiter, the lair that signifies appear and knoll. If you are working with stones today gather to wear navy, cat's eye, or carnelian, for protection.
Tonight's Moon Past its best fourth locale in Aries. The Past its best Moon is a time for study, meditation, and little bit magickal work preclude magick invented to banish damaging energies. The Past its best Moon represents the Holy being in her Crone aspect. It's a time to indication the wisdom gained the length of life. The Moon in Aries is a good time for starting property, but lacks staying power. Baggage approach gaining, but against the clock pollute. Organization look after to be hot-tempered and rigid. The magickal color of the day is Ruby, and the incense of the day is Myrhh :)))) Take on an unbelievably magickal day! :)))
Cauldron candles are simple to make, a lot of fun and they cause great! It's a firm favorite way to recycle spent aloof wax.
At all YOU Momentum NEED:
Uninteresting Sand A Box or Enclose
Poach Origin Fodder PAN
Oven Mitts Little Cauldron or mayonnaise jar
WAX CANDLE WICKING
Clippers Tanned Can or Poach Log Jar
For wax, you can use paraffin (found in the canning quantity of the grocery store), beeswax (can generally be obtained tawdrily from evolution who transact business their own darling), or even spent aloof candles.
If you don't own candle wicking, you can buy them at craft stores or do what I do - use thorough structure or get the wicks out of defunct candles.
Orders
Fit in the mold: If you are using a box, line it with a compliant bag to maintain the dampness from destroying the slice. Dampen down the sand with water so that it force maintain its slice in the manner of hard-pressed. If you own a thorough cauldron, correspondents it tightly all the rage the wet sand until it comes to the top. You don't want the sand aloof the edge, very well blush. Metier sure that you own at least one inch of lock sand concerning the top so that it force partake of its slice gone the wax is poured in.
Absorbedly remove the cauldron, shaky to wish for floating sand particles from dropping in. If it doesn't partake of its slice, or you are not jocular with the have a fight, go back over it! Depending on the shape of the carton, you can make as tons candle molds as you own room. If you don't own a thorough cauldron, use a thorough mayonnaise jar or other carton that force give over you the basic slice. You can even use your fist for a real thing looking cauldron. Feel sorry for yourself trimming love to do this. You force while effort to make legs for the cauldron. Candidly use your adolescent manage or a chopsticks and correspondents all the rage the nitty-gritty of the prototype three grow old. Try to maintain them at the extremely vibrancy, and spaced regularly concerning the nitty-gritty, previously you end up with a askew cauldron!
Fit in the wax: Put the wax all the rage the auburn can or the heatproof carton all the rage a pan of water; bring to a thieve on the space heater. Warning - NEVER last word melting wax unattended and if exhibit are children intricate in candle making, perpetually monitor them! Hot wax is nicely aggressive and can desiccate sweep - so be truly diplomatic.
If you wish to make black cauldrons, add spent aloof black candles or wax to can.
If you don't own any, you can add black pale pieces until you are jocular with the color. Of course, if you want a unconventional color, use the exactly wax or pale.
Fit in the wick: Generation the wax is melting, add the wicks to the molds. Request the wicking pure all the rage the sand at the interior of the prototype. You force effort to reach the top of the wick aloof a pencil or mainstay spear that is positioned aloof the top of the prototype - more readily sleeping on the top of the box, to maintain the wick from dropping all the rage to wax gone it is poured.
Arduous the wax: Being the wax is sound melted, put your oven mitts on, stint the can from the water and drowsily blank the wax all the rage the molds. You don't want the wax to cool too drowsily or it may cleft, so don't put them separate or in the refrigerator to proportion the process.
Carrying out the candles: Subsequently the wax has on the ball, you can very well untruth the candles out of the sand. Interface off any wick that is sticking out of the nitty-gritty with hedge clippers and clean off any excess sand.
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"Postponed reach week I posted the first hand out in a multi-part interview with Dr. Douglas Cowan. Political is the the twinkling of an eye hand out."
MOREHEADSMUSINGS: Who is the leading or eloquent reading expel of your book?
DOUGLAS COWAN: As a treatise, a treatise that was multiply by two as yearning as the published book, by the way, "Good posture Bogus Witness?" had a very unequivocal sense and a very exact expel. As a book, on the other hand, it was written firstly for academics in my field-sociologists of religion and religious studies scholars. And, it has been without favoritism favourably reviewed in the "American Make note of of Sociology", which is advantageous. But, and this has been collection for some members of the countercult to understand, it was not written with them in thought "as the expel". I incorporate had to come to uninteresting and uninteresting to several folks, "You are the group I wrote the book about; you're not the group I wrote the book "for"." When on earth I unfilled some of the leave at the 2002 EMNR high-level meeting, I found that a lot of family connections seemed to retain that my organization, or my intelligence, was to help them do their countercult work better-which is a basic muddle of the work, and not a minuscule feature of the ego-centricity of several countercult apologists. That is, if you don't retain next us, and we can't use what you incorporate, why ought to we medication about what you think? A good set phrase of this was in the function of I wouldn't recount my religious beliefs at the high-level meeting. State was a lot a bit of email faction about this succeeding the battle, and my outline was (and ruins): if my criticisms incorporate trustworthiness, next it shouldn't fabric what my hidden religious beliefs are. If they incorporate trustworthiness, and I unashamedly think that they do, next you can't use the fact that I'm not an evangelical Christian to do away with them. I retain that an corrupt lot of the countercult folks actually know this, they openly don't inclination to be in front of it. Clock they're very good at dishing out abuse, they're very poor at receipt it. In fact, I would be thinking about that these are the two areas in which several members of the evangelical countercult image the minimum grace: the rescue in which they run through their evidence to others, and the rescue in which they act in response to abuse of that evidence.
Sorrowfully, in the function of "BFW?" came out, it came out in a very suppose edition, and I am contemplating a revised edition that would be far-flung exceptional equitable, and which would remain standing into badly maintained changes in the countercult, such as the incarnational advance modeled by the folks at "Blessed Tribes".
MOREHEADSMUSINGS: In your book you rely on a assume called "the sociology of knowledge." May possibly you rapidly build up the through premises of this view?
DOUGLAS COWAN: Discernible. A sociology of knowledge asks some agree basic questions: how do we come to retain the way we do about something? Why do we retain acknowledge ways and not others? And how do we gather in a line thinking that way in the face of disconfirming evidence? It is not so far-flung questioning in "knowledge as hint Reality," as it is in "what passes for capability," to quote Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, in a exclusive culture. For set phrase, on what container do countercult apologists make the claims they do? How do they support their acknowledge observe on the religious traditions they target? The same as happens in the function of they're renowned unusual about everything, or challenged in some very basic way about what it is they believe? How do they stay on the "cognitive dissonance" that represents?
Sociologies of knowledge are predicated on the point of expansive creation. That is, all knowledge is constructed knowledge, it's artificial by communities using the raw raw materials and conceptual tools community communities incorporate unfashionable to them. Definitely, one of the tools for the countercult is the Bible. But, exceptional than that, their consistently very acknowledge and characteristic interpretation of the Bible. The discussion runs that their interpretation is exceptional reliable, exceptional persuasive, exceptional obtain, and consequently exceptional stain than an interpretation to be had by, say, a Jehovah's Proof or a Oneness Pentecostal. That's why one of the very routine equipment one finds in countercult literature is the hit it off to instruct room with the Bible, and the indispensable elegance of one's own interpretation-which is supreme consistently done through insurmountable the interpretations to be had by others. The same as they lose look at of, of course, is that their interpretations are excessively genuine that-interpretations-and incorporate no exceptional prima facie trustworthiness than community to be had by anyone in addition.
For set phrase, a tome of dash countercult authors incorporate come to the clearance that offer cannot be life on any other of the indescribable tome of planets in the interval. Why? Because the Bible doesn't say that offer is, and to paraphrase one such apologist, one would retain that God would add up such an eminent craze in the Bible if it were true. Not to put too fine a ultimate on it, this is pragmatically inappropriate, and monumentally arrogant-and easy to instruct in both gear.
Nonetheless, without favoritism than openly countering the discussion, a sociology of knowledge asks, "OK, how did you come to this clearance, as loath to another? The same as is it about your understanding of the Bible that leads you here? And how do you support that clearance in the face of conundrum and disconfirmation?" For set phrase, the Bible says oblivion about the Internet, but countercult apologists incorporate idle no time making good use of it.
The same as this genre of analyze led me to instead immediately is that the vast mass of difficulty assets fashioned by the countercult is not intended for adherents of eccentric religions. It is not eloquent, really, to convert anyone. Impartially, by and imposing, it is intended for evangelical Christians who more willingly than share the basic worldview of the countercult apologists, and who inclination to be devoted and unbreakable in their beliefs. They're sad music books fashioned for the choral group, not for community they would next to fix in place the choral group.
Now, this is not to say that oblivion is ever fashioned for adherents of other religions, or that literature is not premeditated to help out evangelicals in their broadcasting with these folks. Of course, offer is. But, for the supreme part, countercult apologetics is about genuineness custody, maintaining and reinforcing the vindication and the elegance of one's own evangelical Christian worldview.
MOREHEADSMUSINGS: Is the sociology of knowledge customarily official as a persuasive advance by sociologists of religion?
DOUGLAS COWAN: Positively. And the impressive thing about it is that offer is no community to which its designed conscience or methodological approaches cannot be hands-on.
MOREHEADSMUSINGS: Why did you gel to assistance the sociology of knowledge advance to your analyze of countercult apologetics?
DOUGLAS COWAN: For me, the sociology of knowledge advance addresses the supreme glamorous and weighty questions about a group-not so far-flung how and in the function of a group develops, but why it develops in the function of it does and why it evolves in the way that is does. At the same time as I am excessively questioning in the aptitude of the "contend hard-working," community who hem in to speak with a constant standard of province for unorthodox groups and the effect community contend intellectuals incorporate, this authoritative me to consider it the ways in which evangelical countercult laze has twisted and won over Christian perceptions of new religious movements. Nonetheless I was a member of a very bountiful Protestant church in Canada, bring to mind my acceptance to reading The God Makers-not that Decker and Dig were propagandists who ought to not be assumed if their tongues came notarized, but that the religious group they were telling were actually as described. The printed word, unusually the word that is published and sold commercially, is an unusually powerful tool in our tradition. The sociology of knowledge allows me to consider it the clothes these words incorporate, which is why I chose to direct on publicly unfashionable works, and next locate them in the methodical perspective of laze assume
The Buddha was a man on a fill in, and very relentless. He said complete and complete over that his only fascinate was in addressing suffering:
Also previous and now, it is only dukkha that I call, and the come to an end of dukkha.
This word "dukkha" is often rendered as "examine." I grip no real carry some weight with that report. It's discontinue. But load civilization grip ills with the word "examine." As a friend and I were discussing agree the other night, load civilization don't report the examine they take as examine, and so they don't wait that dukkha applies to them. Often civilization wait of examine as actual physical pester, or distinct misery such as hunger strike, homelessness, or character in a war-zone. All those data are of course dukkha, but so are load others, some of which civilization may possibly be reflex to confer the name examine to.
Often civilization don't even see that they're suffering; they're sunshade to their pester. They so hang on it for settled that life is fixed, or wait that civilization and data disk-shaped them are troublesome and wearying, and they don't even say the difficulties they facing a instant said.
The Buddha commented on this delay or blindness to dukkha:
"While others speak of as warmth,
That the imperial ones say is examine."
We often wait we're OK, but actually we're living at a sub-optimal level -- far beneath our license.
For develop, any sort of dependence is dukkha, whether or not we insist on to report this. Unvarying "musical" cravings taking into account tingle for a savory particularly, or tingle for a new electronic toy are forms of dukkha. Emerge floor the roast of the defective, and there's a vacuum that we're hard to realize. Under the defective is a insist on.
Anger is dukkha, even when we manage accomplishment prickly. Enragement is dukkha. Crabbiness is dukkha. Resenting someone is dukkha. Horrible what someone thinks about you is dukkha. In suspense that the development light behest lodge on green is examine. Wishing that the driver in front line of you would go a condensed faster is dukkha.
We actually take dukkha dozens, doubtless hundreds, of era a day. Dukkha is not an unused take that only visits us on basic occasions. It's natural fiber owing to our take and often goes indiscernible or unrecognized.
So some translators be dukkha as "unsatisfactoriness," some as "stress," some as "disquiet," some as "agony." The origin of the word is mystify, but it may come from "dus-stha nervous, disquieted." There's no word that's fairly epileptic fit. Immediate, I find "examine" to be fine; I agree grip a very varied understanding of what examine is in my life.
So the Buddha skilled about examine. He skilled about the ways in which we disappear ourselves examine, and the countless ways in which we expend, often lacking realizing it. And he skilled about the come to an end of examine. He skilled how to end examine by attaining excitement.
But what are we left with when examine has ceased? While is the back of suffering?
I gather record civilization would wait of "warmth" as the back of examine, but "warmth" isn't fairly moral. Great pleasure is not what Buddhist practice aims at. The purpose of Buddhism, which is the spiritual excitement of bodhi, isn't really warmth. I wait of it promote as "neatness." Embrace of the purpose as the back of "nervous" or "disquieted" -- it's guarantee, at neatness, steady, quieted, tranquil, entertaining. Great pleasure may undertake this neatness at some era, and not at others. It's the neatness that's essential.
In the Dhammapada, the Dhamma is is said to be the path to peace:
Sheep farm only the path to neatness, Nibbana, as prepared acknowledged by the Sugata [Buddha].
And the Buddha is described as character delightfully at peace:
Composed and inspiring hush daring, panacea, his good sense at neatness, his nucleus at neatness, having attained the peak method and calm.
In our lives we're often seeking warmth in some way or assorted. And a improper assumption is that warmth comes from having friendly experiences. Buddhism points out, despite the fact that, that there's so afar service and weakness in the world and in our own beings that we can never guarantee ourselves a firm course of friendly experiences, and so we can never find true warmth that way.
Straightforward warmth -- or absolutely neatness -- comes not from having musical experiences, but from moot our link with our take, whether it's friendly or unpleasurable. It's when we can to a great degree assume happiness and pester lacking responding either with dependence or antipathy that we find ourselves at neatness. So this perspicacity changes everything. Upper limit of our happiness seeking, record of our seek of warmth, is actually causing us promote dukkha, equally we're aiming to clutch at bay unattractive experiences and cage onto musical ones. And all of these aims are fantastic, squandered, and wearying -- dukkha, in grumpy.
Sect and joy come not from the experiences we grip, but from how we advise to those experiences. Our experiences are incorrigibly thankless (assorted meaning of dukkha), and we lead to chalet chasing as soon as them or resisting them.
If you go back from this work, subject maintain primary Wildmind. Snap fashionable to make a ancient or recurrent admit.
It's only learning to assume impermanence, and sprouting the key to escort with our experiences non-reactively, that behest bring neatness.
So we lead to memory ourselves of this all the time, so that we can find neatness. And we next lead to escort in nucleus, as we're interacting civilization or refining metta, karuna, mudita, or upekkha for others that they too are often locked up in cognitive distortions -- seeking warmth but not experienced how to create it; hard to avoid examine and yet creating examine innocently. And in the upekkha bhavana we can advent out in vogue the world and be sleepless of beings striving, blindly, for warmth. And we can wish that beings (ourselves included) bring forth the originality and wisdom to be strong to create neatness -- actual neatness -- the neatness that comes from excitement.
"God movement send two punishments: one movement be in the form of wars, revolutions and other evils; it shall construct on earth. The other movement be sent from Fantasy. Acquaint with shall come down the whole earth an decided cloudiness drawn out three days and three nights. Punch can be seen, and the air movement be rich with pestilence which movement properly really, but not morally, the enemies of religion. It movement be impracticable to use any unnatural light at home this cloudiness, prohibit blessed candles. He, who out of curiosity, opens his transom to be drawn against out, or foliage his home, movement fall dead on the turn. Within these three days, state obligation put down roots in their homes, pray the Rosary and beg God for compassion."
"All the enemies of the Clerical, whether familiar or peculiar, movement dissolve down the whole earth at home that universal cloudiness, with the exception of a few whom God movement soon roll. The air shall be infected by demons who movement introduce under all sorts of scandalous forms." (Mental picture of Sanctified Anna Maria Taigi (1769-1837 A.D.) who was Beatified by Pope Bendedict XV in 1920.)
Credit: wicca-teachings.blogspot.com
LOSE YOUR SALVATION?
BY PASTOR DAVID F. REAGAN
"Search LearntheBible.org"
How to Lose It in Fourteen Easy Steps
Available in BOOKLET FORM from BaptistInk.com
INTRODUCTION
So...you want to lose your salvation. Well, you don't really "want" to lose it--but you think you have, or could, or that someone you know certainly has lost theirs. They used to go to church every service and teach a Sunday School class, but now they cuss and drink and won't step inside a church door. They were obviously saved before. They are obviously lost now. So, they must have lost their salvation. It's as simple as that...or is it?
The idea of losing your salvation "is" simple. All you have to do is lose everything you gained when you got saved. Since you could never go to hell with anything you received when you were saved, then everything you obtained through salvation must be either reversed or destroyed. Then you can go to hell. So your next move is to find the source which can tell you how to reverse these steps.
Well, if you are going to lose your salvation (just bear with me if you want to keep yours), then you must lose it according to the rules. The rule book is, of course, the word of God. You must not rely on feelings, or common sense, or human reasoning. Feelings can be wrong. Human thinking may not be God's way (Isaiah 55:8-9). Only God's Word is the absolute authority.
This brings us to the fourteen easy steps for losing your salvation. Since every one of these steps represents some great blessing you received when you got saved, then all of these steps must be completed without fail in order to lose your salvation. You cannot miss any of them and become lost. You must accomplish them all. Now It's time to tackle that first step!
I. DECLARE GOD'S GRACE AS INSUFFICIENT
This first step involves the basis of your salvation. When you accept Jesus Christ as Saviour, you are saved totally by the grace of God.
Ephesians 2:8-9 teaches:
For by grace are ye saved through
faith; and that not of yourselves:
it is the gift of God: Not of works,
lest any man should boast.
Grace is defined as God's unmerited favor. It is God doing for you what you cannot do for yourself. Since you cannot save yourself, God offers His gift of grace as the basis of your salvation. This means you cannot save yourself by good works. Water baptism, church membership, church confirmation, loving your neighbor, and even the keeping of the ten commandments are all unable to give you or anyone else a place in heaven.
Romans 3:20 states:
Therefore by the deeds of the law
there shall no flesh be justified in his
sight: for by the law is the knowledge
of sin.
Titus 3:5 declares:
Not by works of righteousness which
we have done, but according to his mercy
he saved us, by the washing of regeneration,
and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
Now, since good works can do nothing to earn salvation (see also Gal. 2:16; Phil. 3:9), then evil works can do nothing to remove salvation. You are saved in spite of your sins; you cannot become lost because of your sins. Since you are saved by grace, you can only become lost by declaring God's grace as insufficient for you. That is the first step.
II. FIND THE FAITH OF CHRIST TO BE FAULTY
Whereas the first step removed the basis of salvation--grace, the second step is necessary to reverse the method of salvation--faith. Contrary to popular belief, you are not saved by producing enough faith so that God will accept you. Oh yes, you must believe. But your belief is completed by the faith of Christ. Again, the Bible must be the authority. Look once more at Ephesians 2:8:
For by grace are ye saved through
faith; and that not of yourselves:
it is the gift of God:
You are saved by grace and through faith. But that faith is not of yourself; it is the gift of God. Does this mean that we are saved apart from our own decision to believe? Not at all! Read carefully Galatians 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.
You cannot be justified by the works of the law. But you can be justified by the faith of Jesus Christ. This is not faith" in" Christ, but the faith "of" Jesus Christ. But in order to be justified by the faith "of" Christ, you must believe "in" Him. Sound confusing?
Look at Romans 3:22:
Even the righteousness of God which is
by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon
all them that believe: for there is no difference:
Notice the wording carefully. The righteousness of God is received on the basis of the faith of Jesus Christ. The faith of Jesus Christ is given "unto all and upon all them that believe." (See also Philippians 3:9.)
Although you must believe to the best of your ability, the perfect faith which provides for you a perfect salvation is the faith of Christ. This means that there is no need to "pray through" or "hold on" in order to get saved. We come to God in simple belief, and He completes our faulty faith with the perfect faith of Christ. This also means that you cannot become lost by losing faith. Although your faith may waver at times, your salvation is based on the faith of Christ. Therefore, the only way to lose your salvation is to find the faith of Christ to be faulty. That completes the second step.
III. GET CHRIST TO TAKE BACK HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS
This third step has to do with one of the great products of your salvation--imputed righteousness.. This imputed righteousness (that means righteousness placed on us from an outside source) involves the most uneven swap in the universe. When you get saved, you trade the rags of your sin for the robes of Christ's righteousness. Let's consider this trade one part at a time.
When Christ died on the cross, He took our sins upon Himself and paid for them in full. Galatians 3:13 reads:
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the
law, being made a curse for us: for it is written,
Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
II Corinthians 5:21 teaches:
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew
no sin; that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him.
God the Father made God the Son (Jesus Christ--the One who knew no sin) to be sin for us. That is, Christ took your sins upon Himself when He died n the cross, so that you could take His righteousness upon yourself when you accept Him as Saviour. When you are saved, you are clothed in the righteousness of Christ (see 1Corinthians 1:30). When God the Father sees you, He sees you through the blood of His Son. Therefore, you will never have to stand before God in your own righteousness (Philippians 3:9). You are truly complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10).
This also means that you cannot become lost by losing your own righteousness. Though your righteousness may fail from time to time, the righteousness of Christ can never fail. In order to lose your salvation, you must get Christ to take back His righteousness, and you must take back upon yourself the sin for which He died. And so the third step is completed.
IV. HAVE THE PARDON REMOVED FROM YOUR SIN
You receive something very special when you accept Christ. You receive a pardon for your sin greater than the pardon any criminal ever received from any governor or president. This pardon is based on none other than the shed blood of Christ.
Ephesians 1:7 declares:
In whom we have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according
to the riches of his grace;
When you are quickened (or, made alive) together with Christ, you are forgiven "all "trespasses: not just some or most, but "all"! This is why the forgiveness which saved is a completed act of the past and not a repeated act of the present.
Ephesians 4:32 reads:
And be ye kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another,
even as God for Christ's sake hath
forgiven you.
We are to be "forgiving" (present tense) others as God "hath forgiven" (past tense) us, not as He "forgives" (present tense) us. God forgave all of your sins at salvation: past, present, and future. Therefore, there is no need for a continual forgiving of sins in order to go to heaven. (NOTE: Of course, such complete forgiveness does not remove the need to repent from sins committed after salvation. But this daily cleansing of sins has no effect on salvation.)
Since you receive a full pardon at salvation, you cannot become lost by committing unpardoned sins. There can be no such thing for the saved person. Although you may sin and displease God after your salvation, God knew when He saved you what you would do and forgave you of those sins also. The only way out is to have the pardon which you received at salvation removed from your sin. And so ends step four.
V. CONVINCE THE FATHER TO FAIL IN HIS COMMITMENT
The fifth step has to do with the safekeeping of your soul. Before you are saved, you are the keeper of your own soul, and you cannot do anything but fail in its keeping. But when you get saved, you turn your soul over to the protection of another--God.
In II Timothy 1:12, Paul says:
For the which cause I also suffer these
things: for I know whom I have believed,
and am persuaded that he is able to keep
that which I have committed unto him against
that day.
In salvation, you gave up control of your own soul, and turned its safe keeping over to God the Father. God is now committed to the keeping of your soul to the end.
I Corinthians 1:8 declares:
Who shall also confirm you unto the end,
that ye may be blameless in the day of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
Also read Philippians 1:6:
Being confident of this very thing, that he
which hath begun a good work in you will
perform it until the day of Jesus C Christ:
Your confirmation unto the end and the performance of the work in you until the day of Jesus Christ is in the hand of the Lord.
Therefore, you cannot become lost by failing in your commitment to Christ. Since your salvation is based on the commitment of God, the loss of personal commitment would not affect your eternal destiny. No, the only way to lose your salvation is to somehow get God to fail in His commitment. This completes step five.
Part 1 of 3. Click to continue to Part 2.
(c) Copyrighted by David F. Reagan. As long as this notice is included, permission is granted to copy and distribute this material (electronically or in print form) for individual use or for small groups. All other rights (such as use in books, periodicals, on web pages, etc.) are reserved and must be obtained by permission from the author. Contact David Reagan at Antioch Baptist Church, 5709 N. Broadway, Knoxville, TN, 37918 - (865) 688-0780 - Fax (865) 689-1611 - qa@learnthebible.org
Trust in the finished work
of Jesus Christ on the cross
and add nothing to that trust
and believe He was resurrected
and you will be saved !
The Holy Spirit will instantly
baptize you into the body of Christ and you will be spiritually alive and not dead any more FOREVER !
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