Posted on 06/07/2013 2:33:44 PM PDT by NYer
A friend of mine was showing a Southern Baptist neighbor around the Catholic Church. She explained the Stations of the Cross, the crucifix, the image of the Blessed Mother and the saints.
Then they came to the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Baptist was bemused.
“Why do y’all have a statue of Jesus with his heart on the outside?”
“Well,” said the Catholic lady sweetly, “You Baptists like to ask Jesus into your heart right?”
“That’s right.”
“We like to ask Jesus to take us into his heart.”
Perfect apologetics. Welcoming and kind and working from what the other person knows to what they have yet to discover.
Here’s a poem for the Solemnity today:
My true love hath my heart and I have his,
By just exchange one for another given;
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot mis,
There never was a better bargain driven.
My true love has my heart and I have his.
His heart in me keeps him and me in one,
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides
He loves my heart, for once it was his own,
I cherish his, because in me it bides.
My true love has my heart and I have his.
Read Sacred Heart – Tough Love
Ping!
A resounding YES!
See Romans 10:9.
He already took me into HIS heart the day he took my sins on the cross and died for me - I took Him as my Savior at the tender age of 6 and KNOW it is by HIS GRACE I have been saved, not by works should I even boast. (Eph 2:8,9)
we're already in His heart.
WE'RE the ones that have the option to choose or refuse.
Christ refuses no one.
WHY would The One that made us, loves us, will never forsake us need or want us to ask Him if He will let us in?
Nay ... WE must open OUR hearts and ask Him into ours.
The poem is from a sonnet in Sir Philip Sidney’s “Arcadia.”
But I must admit it does fit the subject here.
More appropriate would be 2 Thessalonians 3:5 (NIV)
This brief vignette is amazing only in that neither participant knew what God teaches in His Holy Bible about salvation - nor does the article use a single inspired verse to inform. instead, we are treated to a manmade art object as a substitute for His truth. Astounding!
Yes. It is a good thing. Interesting though, the Bible of course states to “believe” but it never mentions the actual “accept Jesus in to your heart”.
I just corrected my wife on this one. The bible says nothing about accepting Him into your heart, it says to believe.
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, (then) I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me. Rev. 3:20
“Well,” said the Catholic lady sweetly, “You Baptists like to ask Jesus into your heart right?”
“That’s right.”
“We like to ask Jesus to take us into his heart.”
SYNTAX ERROR
Revelation 3:20 is one of the most abused verses in all of the Bible and it does not mean what your post implied.
Jesus does not knock at the heart’s door of sinners. He never has, and He never will. When He wants to save a man, He calls him to eternal life by His life-giving voice (John 5:25). Sinners can no more resist than did Lazarus (John 11:43-44) or will all dead bodies in the last day (John 5:28-29). If He merely asked sinners to open their doors, no man would be saved (Ps 14:1-3; Rom 3:9- 18). He forcibly and sovereignly regenerates sinners by His own power (John 1:13; 3:8; 5:21). The great God does not ask or beg sinners to cooperate with Him: He raises them from spiritual death with the same resurrection power that raised Jesus from the dead (Eph 1:19-20; 2:1).
The words in this verse are for the church at Laodicea, not sinners in general (Rev 3:14-22). The words were for those with ears to hear, not those needing ears (John 8:43,47). This section of Revelation has the words of Jesus Christ to the pastors of seven churches of Asia. The church of the Laodiceans was self-confident and self-righteous. Jesus rebuked them for their lukewarm condition and haughty spirit, and He described them as being spiritually wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked! They needed a personal relationship with Him for true spiritual riches.
The benefit offered by Jesus in the verse is fellowship, not salvation from hell. The Lord Jesus Christ offered the members of this church His personal presence for spiritual communion and fellowship, not regeneration or justification. These saints were already saved from hell as much as they could be; but they were living a miserable existence without a personal relationship with Christ. This offer was the fellowship and joy that John described elsewhere (I John 1:1-10).
And for the record, not all Southern Baptists like to “invite Jesus into our hearts.”
Exactly. Catholic apologists often seem proud of their supposedly profound retorts such as this one but rarely use scripture. That is because most will ultimately fall back on the Church supposedly being a higher authority than scripture.
The fact that the Bible never instructs us explicitly to ask Jesus into our hearts certainly does not provide cover for yet another example of the Catholic tolerance and even promotion of idol worship which includes the supposed representation of Jesus’s heart.
At least scripture actually does say that Christ can dwell in our heart by faith. Jesus also told His disciples the Father would give His Spirit to those who asked. The Spirit is the means by which both the Father and Son take residence in the believer.
Exactly. The confession of our mouth that Jesus is Lord and that God raised Him from the dead cannot be empty words, but rather an expression of true faith. Ephesians 2:8-9 states that it is that faith, by grace, that saves us. Many people give intellectual assent to the Gospel, but have not allowed Jesus to be Lord of their life.
Very true.
I’m often amused at fundies who claim that praying the Believers Prayer and asking Jesus to come into their heart = Salvation.
Disclaimer: I’m an evangelical non-denom Christian myself - and NOWHERE in the Bible is this found as the (only) way unto salvation
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, (then) I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me. Rev. 3:20
Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem;
Creatorem caeli et terrae.
Et in Jesum Christum,
Filium eius unicum, Dominum nostrum;
qui conceptus est
de Spiritu Sancto,
natus ex Maria virgine;
passus sub Pontio Pilato,
crucifixus, mortuus, et sepultus;
descendit ad inferos;
tertia die resurrexit a mortuis;
ascendit ad caelos;
sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipotentis;
inde venturus est
iudicare vivos et mortuos.
Credo in Spiritum Sanctum;
sanctam ecclesiam catholicam;
sanctorum communionem;
remissionem peccatorum;
carnis resurrectionem;
vitam aeternam. Amen.
In English:
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ,
his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived
by the power of the Holy Spirit,
and born of the Virgin Mary,
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
He descended into hell.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
he will come again
to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen
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