If the baby is your body then why is it murder to kill a mother’s child outside of the womb? Shouldn’t it just be assault? The mother is still alive. Only part of her body is dead.

“We are curious for the experiences that we have not known, and sex is always one of them. So then, since we are made in God’s nature, aren’t we disrespecting him by going against our nature, or HIS nature?”

Where in the Bible does it say we have God’s NATURE? We are made in God’s IMAGE–we do not have His NATURE. That would be blasphemous to suggest we share a nature found only between the members of the Trinity. Besides, God does not have sexual desires. That thought is laughable, but sinister as well.

Jesus accepts anyone who will turn to Him, repent, and believe. Please repent of your sins, believe in the only One who can save you from God’s justice, and enjoy the peace and security of God’s children.

Furthermore, and the reason I decided to leave your ridiculous reply: you have no idea what I have or have not been through. Do you know me? Or did you stumble across this website, noted its Christian positions, and decide to push your own political agenda? You think I don’t know how difficult it is to say abortion is wrong to my friends? Do you honestly think, simply on account that I coauthor a Christian site, that I haven’t had to sit with girls I know very well who had been drugged and raped and counsel them that IF they’ve conceived, they should not punish the child? And when you now imagine me doing that, do you see me on my podium, thumping them over the head with my Bible, screaming at them: “REPENT!”?? Is that what you see; instead of me bawling my eyes out listening to my friend tell me she screamed “No, please! I want to save myself for my husband!” over and over and over? Not being able to sleep for days, writhing in empathetic anguish over their abuse? You think, because I’m a MAN, a CHRISTIAN MAN who happens to hold high the name of Jesus, that I DON’T KNOW? Well, you guessed wrong. You see, the difference between you and me isn’t that I “don’t know” or that I “haven’t been there”. The difference between you and me is that when I speak to one of these girls . . . I can tell them that there’s hope. I can tell them that all their anxiety, all their depression, their past regrets, their most shameful nights can disappear, can all be washed away. I can tell them that there’s a brighter day coming. I can tell them that someday Christ will return, and He will wipe every tear away from our eyes and we won’t remember our suffering any longer. We can have freedom because of His shed blood, not because of your legislative agenda.

I run a Christian blog called “The Theological Round Table”. http://1jaybird.blogspot.com/

I conduct a blog to engage in and grow Internet Evangelism. I would like you to consider linking your site to mine. If I link to you, will you link to me?
Thank you so much

Lord bless you,
Jaybird632

I think the “trick” to assurance does lie in this quote but the challenge is to evaluate our characteristics justly. On the one hand, if the mark is Jesus’ own life and character, we are continuously and grossly inadequate in meeting it or feeling like we meet it. On the other hand, as the writer has indicated, our very turmoil over our inadequacy is, perhaps, one of the best marks of our salvation.

I was struck when reading this series of posts that this issue of the assurance of salvation is one where Satan can wreak havoc in our souls. Reminded of the fictional account of hellborn strategies that C.S. Lewis provides in The Screwtape Letters, I imagined how the devil could use a sense of our own failings as ammunition to debilitate our sense of assurance as a tactic to render us spiritually useless.

In other words, if he can’t get us caught up in overt or covert sins that, in and of themselves, hamper our relationship with God, he might engage us in innterminable bouts of circular self-examination that absorb us from simply acting out our faith.

I say “acting out” very purposefully, because I think we can fall into the trap of thinking that, if we are saved, we will naturally, with a joyful heart, act accordingly. However, if “obedience” and “loving one’s neighbor” and “returning good for evil” and “hoping” and “demonstrating patience” were automatic responses stemming from our salvation, they would be effortless in a way that would render them meaningless–systematic responses from a changed individual who would do less or more. The fact that we wrestle with these (not all of us with the same ones) is where the power of our acting them out is found.

The best non-spiritual example I can think of regarding this is courage. Courage is not “acting without fear” as some would define it. Rather, courage is “acting in spite of fear.” Likewise,”patience” is not necessarily the ability to wait without fretting; rather, it is, for many of us who are impatient by nature, simply the ability to force ourselves to “wait.” Over time, as we force ourselves, kicking and screaming inside, to wait, we find it easier. Does the Spirit help us with “patience?” Surely. But if He simply endowed us with such by so much “spiritual magic,” then it would not have as much meaning in demonstrating our transformed hearts to us or others.

Put another way, if Jesus and the Scriptures just command us to do things that are now easy to our regenerated selves, then much of Scripture, written to the saints, would be pointless, since there would be no need for admonitions directed to the saints to begin with.

At any rate, those are my initial thoughts on the subject, without a great deal of research or specific theological underpinnings.

The difficulty is in showing that the Bible’s relationship with God is such that his perfection entails its inerrancy. I’m not convinced that that can be done.

The simple answer is that they have surrendered to idolatry disguised as the illusion of “The America Dream”. Abortion is child sacrifice but Christians don’t recognize this as truth because they are biblically illiterate especially on issues that may have an impact on them personally.

I encourage folks to learn about FOCA, don’t be fooled by its title like the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society was. Then sign the Fight FOCA Petition at the following web address.
http://www.fightfoca.com/

Thanks &
God Bless,
Marc

“But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth”
2 Thessalonians 2:13

There are three things here which deserve special attention. First, the fact that we are expressly told that God’s elect are “chosen to salvation”: Language could not be more explicit. How summarily do these words dispose of the sophistries and equivocations of all who would make election refer to nothing but external privileges or rank in service! It is to “salvation” itself that God has chosen us. Second, we are warned here that election unto salvation does not disregard the use of appropriate means: salvation is reached through “sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” It is not true that because God has chosen a certain one to salvation that he will be saved willy-nilly, whether he believes or not: nowhere do the Scriptures so represent it. The same God who “chose unto salvation”, decreed that His purpose should be realized through the work of the spirit and belief of the truth. Third, that God has chosen us unto salvation is a profound cause for fervent praise. Note how strongly the apostle express this – “we are bound to give thanks always to God for you. brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation”, etc. Instead of shrinking back in horror from the doctrine of predestination, the believer, when he sees this blessed truth as it is unfolded in the Word, discovers a ground for gratitude and thanksgiving such as nothing else affords, save the unspeakable gift of the Redeemer Himself.