Minty-fresh soul

https://www.clawscustomboxes.com/aftd9o814y A friend of mine commented that her children say that they come out of confession with a minty-fresh soul. I think that is a wonderful way to phrase it. If 1 John 1:9 means anything, it certainly does mean that our souls have been refreshed through the process of repenting and confessing our sins so that they may be forgiven and purified from all unrighteousness. I pointed out yesterday that the state of having been forgiven and purified is a state of being sinless. I also pointed out that we need to say that lest we inadvertently find ourselves saying that God’s forgiveness is not real. If we are not free of sin after we confess our sins, are forgiven, and are purified from all unrighteousness, then God’s forgiveness is just a phrase, and nothing more.

Xanax Online Shipping Of course, the problem is that our sinlessness does not tend to last very long. Rather, it is the frequent testimony of the majority of Christians that they do not manage to make it to the end of the day without somehow sinning again. So, what do we do? We can indeed work on making our periods of sinlessness last longer and longer. That is what the process of theosis (called sanctification in the West) is all about. It is the process of becoming like Our Lord Jesus Christ more and more. How do we do that? Well, we do our part and God does his part. That is the process called synergy by the Orthodox. And the process has some similarities to some of the steps in Alcoholics Anonymous. After all, sin is not only a missing the mark, but it is also the habit of missing the mark in a particular way. In the case of the alcoholic, that missing the mark is an undue passion for alcohol. That is, the alcoholic has disordered passions.

Buy Xanax Brand Name So, what does an alcoholic do in AA? Well, the first step is taken in every AA meeting, every time the person speaks at that AA meeting. “Hi, I am John Doe, and I am an alcoholic.” Regardless of the time that has passed since his last drink, even if it has been years, whenever John Doe stands up at AA, he says it anew. “Hi, I am John Doe, and I am an alcoholic.” We do the same thing every Liturgy, as we repeat over and over, “Lord, have mercy.” When you see the priest crossing himself three times in front of the altar, which he does multiple times, he is almost always saying, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” It is our version of saying, “Hi, I am Father John Doe, and I am a sinner.” Regardless of how exemplary the priest’s behavior may have been, the refrain is repeated every Liturgy before the priest even utters the first phrase, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” It is an ongoing recognition of just how fallen and damaged our human nature is. You catch a glimpse of this in C.S. Lewis’ space trilogy, when the head angel of Earth who rebelled–the Oyarsa of Earth–is called, “the Bent One.” I, too, am bent.

Buy Authentic Xanax As the alcoholic goes through the AA program, additional steps are traversed that, little by little, allow him to become a little less bent, so that he gains control of his addiction and is able to resist drink. Nevertheless, even those who have been sober for 20 years will tell you that they must watch themselves, because it only takes one little taste to throw them back into the hole out of which they crawled. “Hi, I am John Doe, and I am an alcoholic.” In the same way, there have been many holy men and women. Yet, when you read their biographies you will find that every one of them keeps themselves in prayer and regular fasting in order to maintain a control over their addiction to sin. No, none of them, as far as I know, ever claimed to have reached perfection. But their rigorous self-examination and time with the Lord resulted in an incremental and regular change in their outward behavior so that they more and more conformed to the image of Christ. In other words, their periods of sinlessness increased.

https://oevenezolano.org/2024/08/2oym2cw84vq If the phrase sinlessness troubles you, perhaps I could say that the saints have demonstrated that it is possible to sin less. And that is the goal of Great Lent. We want this to be a period during which we especially concentrate on the Lord in order that we might learn to sin less, or like I just put it, to have longer and longer periods of sinlessness. The entire judgment of Matthew 24 is based on whether a person has learned to sin less and has learned to reach out to God and their neighbor in love. There is not a word in that judgment passage about correct doctrine. Rather the proof of the correct doctrine is in the changed behavior. There is an even more frightening passage in Matthew 7:

https://homeupgradespecialist.com/pd3r3bg9ex “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'”

Alprazolam Buy Online Cheap You see, the truly lawless are those who think that merely correct doctrine, without a growth in holiness, is sufficient to grant them entrance into heaven. There is a reason why John Calvin could not write about election without writing about the perseverance of the saints. No, the Orthodox do not believe in Calvinist election, but they can certainly appreciate that Calvin had enough Biblical honesty to realize that he could not have election without holiness.

Nevertheless, God does have a very large part in the process. Remember that I said that it was synergy.

https://foster2forever.com/2024/08/0d8d4b5eir.html ===MORE TO COME===