Posted on 04/26/2015 7:30:49 AM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
“I’m a woman.” So said Bruce Jenner, during his coming out appearance this past Friday on a special two-hour edition of the ABC News program “20/20.”
And that’s not the only shocking revelation Jenner confided to interviewer Diane Sawyer. “She” also claimed to be a Republican, a conservative and a Christian.
Well, it’s conceivable that Jenner is a Republican. After all, there’s a LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) group that calls itself the Log Cabin Republicans.
It’s also possible that Jenner is a “conservative.” Indeed, there have been any number of conservative lawmakers – including former Idaho Senator Larry Craig, a homosexual, and former Florida congressman Mark Foley – who were outed as homosexuals.
But there’s no way that Jenner, who is “transitioning” from male to female, is a true Christ follower.
Indeed, in his letter to the Church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul advised: “Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.”
Does that mean any and every one of us who has committed any of those aforementioned sins is unsaved; that we have condemned ourselves to “the second death,” as John of Patmos put it, when we appear before the judgment seat of Christ?
No.
Because, the Scripture assures us: “If we confess our sins, He is just and faithful to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.”
Conversely, “If we say that we have no sin,” as Jenner, the transgender in the making maintains, “we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
So it matters not if Jenner attends church every Sunday; if he tithes what earns for his upcoming reality show; if he reads his Bible every day; if he prays first thing each morning, and last thing every night.
If he unrepentantly undergoes a sex change, if he refuses to acknowledge that doing so is an abomination in the eyes of God, he will be in open rebellion against his Creator.
That’s why Christ warned us, everyone: “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.”
What that says is that we are not to surrender ourselves to sin; to deceive ourselves that God will forgive us for our unconfessed, unrepented adultery or financial wrongdoing or substance abuse or acts of violence or twisted sexual orientation.
If Jenner truly was a Christian, he would not blithely embrace transgenderism. No, he would fall on his knees and ask the Lord to free him from Satan’s grip. For greater is He who is in Bruce Jenner – who is in all of us struggling with sin – than he who is in the world.
I never said a word about how I felt about Bruce Jenner “disclosing” anything. I said he has a mental illness and needs help, not encouragement. He could disclose he thinks he’s a dog and wants to learn how to bark and eat Alpo. He needs Christ in his life, not liberals that try to justify his mental illness.
Bless your heart. Only those called by God, born from above, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit are part of the ekklesia of Christ. It includes all of those "called out" throughout history. That is the invisible ekklesia as only God knows who they all are. The local "assemblies" are members of the universal ekklesia and are the visible part of that ekklesia. Christ is the head of that ekklesia and present with them when meeting with as few as two or three. There is no single earthly organized hierarchical structure such as the Catholic Church would have you believe.
Is that why John called them ekklesias?
That would be correct! That is how they started but obviously most were invaded by false teaching and some or many within the group were not born again Spirit filled Christians. Thus some of those assemblies were at risk of being rejected by Christ.
Or was that a different FReeper who said that?
The letters were addressed to the assemblies, not the individuals in those assemblies. An assembly can start out pure but over time and with new leadership leave what it originally taught. We can see that happening in "churches" today. Even in the Catholic Church there are those who believe that after Vatican 2 it has changed. Read the letters again.
Some of these Seven Ekklesiae of Asia were in apostasy. How can an "ekklesia" go apostate, when it is not an institution at all, but an assembly of individual spirit-indwelt members, who are individually and securely saved by grace and by faith, no matter what they do??
(Or am I getting your beliefs mixed up with those of the Calvinists?)
I’m not surprised that you jumbled that all up. If you can’t see that not all individuals within assemblies that meet are saved I don’t suppose any explanation will suffice. I’m sure with that “package deal” you seem to be holding the views of your pope Francis are your views as well? And Nancy Pelosi is equally as Catholic as you are?
Do you believe in Eternal Security?
Unfortunately that will always be the case with faithful Catholics and non Catholics. The Catholic Church has assigned different meanings to words. Just a few examples would be things like "the virgin Mary", "church", and "saints". As long as a Catholic looks to the magisterium for belief system rather than scripture communication is going to be difficult
Same thing back at’cha, dear CynicalBear, mutatis mutandis.
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