All One Has To Do Is Believe, Alone?

Lk 18:9 And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.

Outwardly, any would say the Pharisee was a much better man than the publican, but God saw the heart. The Pharisee believed himself righteous because he followed the law, while the publican confessed he was a sinner and trusted in God's mercy. The publican alone went down to his house justified.

I am glad you do your best to obey the Lord, we all should. But be careful you do not despise others.

 

Thank you for your high thoughts of me, but to say I do my best to obey the Lord is simply incorrect. If I did I suppose I would never sin. Also incorrect is to hold that being honest with others about what scripture says is not despising another.
I am shocked at the lack of love for others when someone sees a person who gives evidence of being lost and they say nothing to them with the excuse of not judging. I am sure satan is filled with joy at such attitudes. Scripture says we can know them and we can. The purpose is not to look down on them but offer them the lifting helping hand to get out of the mire and as long as they are left thinking they are not in the mire they will continue to wallow in their lost estate.

 

Well, I don't see that. I don't know what your church is like, but the folks in my church all seem to love the Lord. No one is perfect there, but we don't have folks living in gross sin at all. Reminds me of a Pentacostal fellow I worked with once, he said Baptists are all hypocrites that are in the bars Saturday night, and in church "playing Christian" Sunday morning. I told him we don't have folks like that in my church and it was the truth. He told me they were all filled with the Spirit, if someone like that tried to come to his church the Spirit would chase him out. Then the Jimmy Swaggart scandal broke out and he was crushed, as he was a big fan of Swaggart. This fellow was always seeing faults in others but could not see his own.

When I was a young man, a good older Christian man told me;

"If you ever find a perfect church, don't go there, you'll mess it up!"

 

You seem to have the common response to sin down very good, "no one is perfect." I think you have a blind eye to your church which is common today. Are you saying there is no divorce in your church? That comes from gross sin.

 

FAL,

Is one sin greater than another, except of course the "unpardonable sin"?

 

While any single sin is enough to condemn, sins do vary in degree, and effect for this life, and the life to come. Everyone in hell will not suffer at the same level and not everyone in heaven will be blessed at the same level.
That is the reason there are different penalties for different sins.
Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power [at all] against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.
So yes there are greater and lessor sins.

 

Think that you to exalted a view of man, as NONE of us can be walking in that state of "sinless perfection", as we all still will sin, hopefully less and less daily...

You seem to forget that BECAUSE of just how weak we all are, that Jesus WILL be able to keep FOREVER ALL those that come unto him, reember the last verses of Jude?

 

Weak perhaps, but we have someone who is strong and we do not have to ever sin as all sin is a choice not a have to.

Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

 

As long as you manage to keep totally seperated Justification, for that is faith/Grace + NOTHING from getting more like Christ each day...

You seem to mix the 2 up a lot though!

 

There is no faith without repentance

 

Both are the gifts of God to those whom He has elected unto Eternal Life in Christ...

 

You have never seen me disagree with that, but that has nothing to do with this discussion.
However I also believe that man has the volition to exercise or deny the gift given which also has nothing to do with this discussion.

 

Being a sheep is the easiest thing a sheep knows how to do.

Being a hog and pretending to be a sheep is very difficult, especially when it walks by a cesspool.

HankD