Joel, Can you recommend any books on the topic of LDS forgiveness? Or any specific links on the topic?

I will go sometime this week and buy them if they are available.
I already have the LDS book "The Miracle of Forgiveness"

The Bible

The Book of Mormon

The Doctrine & Covenants

The Pearl of Great Price

I've never dodged a question Echo. I'm just tired of answering the same one from you over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

And as such, I'm done with the discussion. Have fun.

Well thank you for the reccomends, I do already have those in my personal library.






Proverbs 28:13 "He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy."

Galatians 5:22 "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control."

Luke 6:31-33 "Do to others as you would have them do to you.
"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. 33And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that."

Joel33, you have produced fruit only when things are going well. When things don't go well, you show absolutely no fruit. The true test of faith is producing fruit when things aren't going well, no matter what others might do or say. Even God haters can produce fruit when things are going well.

Joel, you do not have saving faith because you cannot produce any of the fruit when the going gets rough. You slander, get angry, makes jokes of people, blame people for your own sin, accuse people of lying, judge people's hearts etc. Your disprectful, rude, arrogant and filled with pride. Your never repentant, never aplogize, never forgive.

I still love you though! That is the thing about unconditional love! When you love someone unconditionally, you don't ever give up on them. You show them love and respect regardless of what they do or say. You love them and forgive them even in their sins.

The reason you cannot produce any fruit is because you don't understand the forgiveness of God.

So wether you join me or not, I am going to continue with this thread in hopes that you will at least read it. But if you want to join in, by all means I would welcome that.

I think your worth it and I care about you and I respect you.

Understanding the true forgiveness of God is powerful! You will then know what it means to have the peace that surpasses all understanding.

Hugs
I will continue...

Echo - how bout Pm/'ing Joel instead. The Mormon thing with Joel - is really getting tiresome. I believe that is why Allen closed the other thread...

Yes, then I can ignore your PM and we won't bother anyone else.

She's already asked me via PM if I'd like to continue the discussion and I declined.

I believe I said




Interesting, I disagree.

and to quote you I'd say you are Specifically mine.

And you don't even know the first thing about me.

It used to be entertaining that you could be so blind to the fact that you were being so clueless, now it's tiresome.

Just to defend myself. The Mormon thread never got tiresome until Echo showed up.

Not judging your heart Joel, just your actions and words. You said them and so you need to take responsiblity for them. God surely holds you responsible for them. God holds us all responsible for our sin. Judging hearts means to judge someone contrary to their own words, I have not done that.

God has asked us to love one another and therefore helping one another see sin in hopes of repentance and restoration is what People do who care about one another. Freinds know that Forgiveness is alway free and instant because God's forgiveness is free and instant. Freinds want to help each other mature, they want to restore wrong relationships into right ones etc. Sin devides freindships, but repentance and forgiveness restore the relationship. What could be better than that?

But I pointed those things out for another even more important reason! God has already forgiven you, hence the topic of this thread.

If you have to overcome your sin and do other things before you can be forgiven and recieve eternal life, you may not make it to eternal life.

However, God has a better plan, you may know you already have eternal life and it will set you free!


Hugs

What Is Grace? Grace is the unmerited, undeserved, unconditional love of God toward mankind apart from anything we do. The moment we say: “but we must do this… or refrain from doing that…” We have mixed grace with works.

The Bible teaches that we are either saved(to eternal life) by grace alone or by works alone. It also teaches that there cannot be a mixture of Grace and Works together.

Romans 11:6 “And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.”

If we mix salvation(to eternal life) by grace with salvation(to eternal life) by works we always end up with salvation by works. If you imagine a glass of pure milk. It’s healthy to drink, but the moment you add a few drops of poison to it, the milk is no longer fit for drinking. It doesn’t matter whether you add a few drops or use ˝ cup, either way, the milk is poison and deadly to drink.

Christ died and as a result, the whole world HAS been forgiven. The Righteous and the unrighteous, the repentant and the unrepentant. All mankind HAVE been forgiven.
2 Corinthians 5:19 “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the WORLD unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them”

That unmerited, undeserved forgiveness of God is his Grace.

According to the LDS, they mix grace with works. In fact, works come “before” grace. You don’t get the milk until you drink the poison first. Unfortunatly poison kills so there won't be any milk to drink. The fruit grows before the tree does. (Works are anything we do in accordance with what God commands us to do or anything we refrain to do in accordance with what God commands us not to do.)

In the LDS book: “Gospel Principles” is the following definition of repentance:
“There is no royal road to repentance, no privileged path to forgiveness.... There is only one way. It is a long road spiked with thorns and briars and pitfalls and problems” Then the steps of repentance are listed as follows:

1) We must recognize our sins
2) We must feel sorrow for our sins
3) We must forsake our sins
4) We must confess our sins
5) We must make restitution
6) We must forgive others
7) We must keep the commandments of God

LDS repentance becomes the doing of many works in order to gain (merit) the grace(unmerited-only forgiveness) of God. And so LDS repentance is a system of works. These Works that must come before forgiveness.

True repentance is a turning from trusting in our own works to merit God’s forgiveness and instead believing that In Jesus we have already been forgiven apart from anything we do. So true repentance isn’t a work. It is simply the hand of a beggar receiving the gift of the King! It’s the King who has done all the work!

Someone once said: “ To depend on our own good works to save us[unto eternal life], even partially, is essentially to throw our salvation away. It’s like refusing to let a helicopter carry us across a canyon because we would rather try flapping our arms and flying across. Whether we try to fly all the way across or only part of the way, the result will be the same” (Author unknown)

The result most certainly is that we won’t make it across by flapping our arms! Grace and works can’t be mixed. You either fly across in the Helicopter by grace alone or you flap your arms by works alone. It’s one or the other but never a mix of the two. Romans 11:6 “And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.”

THE HELICOPTER: Christ has finished the job of reconciling us to himself: Romans 5:10 “For if, when we were ENEMIES, we WERE RECONCILED to God by the death of his Son” and
2 Corinthians 5:19 “To wit, that God was in Christ, RECONCILING the WORLD unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them”

FLAPPING OUR ARMS: The LDS by contrast reconciles themselves to God and it’s a process: “Those who take the course of honest confession of their sin further the process of repentance, of adjustment in their lives, of RECONCILIATION with God.” (Miracle of Forgiveness by Spencer W. Kimball page 188)

If anyone is interested in hearing my response. Please post.

If not, I'll try to abide by Allen's obvious distaste for Mormon themed topics.

However, since I believe that no one is actually interested, I will submit to continuing this conversation in private with Echo.