I saw that earlier and thought "wow"! I guess that's what "faith working in love" is.

"This voluntarily accepted discomfort is a way of joining oneself to Jesus Christ and the sufferings he voluntarily accepted in order to redeem us from sin."

To beat yourself with a belt isn't Scriptural. We will suffer, and carry a cross, but to use a belt on our own back?

I remember when my dad used his belt on me. That was suffering in the right way: As a bad son, and a good father not sparing the "belt".

Isn't the verse where Jesus says, "It is Finished", awesome truth for the believer in Christ!

Christ fulfilled my salvation. He died for me, and that makes life precious. All my sin was imputed to His glorious Death; His broken Body broke the curse, and His precious blood washes me pure and clean.
And he even clothes me in His Robe of grace and righteousness.

What a Savior!

I'm reminiscing, sort of, from yesterday when I shared time at McDonald's having lunch a some good theology to eat with a Seventh day Adventists. I enjoyed the spiritual food immensely. I actually think this man is a brother, who needs to continue to hear the whole counsel of God's Gospel of grace alone through faith alone.

Have a great Lord's day.

It is a good thing that in the Protestant Bible Jesus doesn't say anything about the Publican beating his chest, or refer to Tyre and Sidon repenting in sackcloth and ashes, and doesn't say that when the Bridegroom is taken away His disciples will fast (since there would be no need for such penance, since He will already have paid for all their sins), or say anything about cutting off your hand and plucking out your eye if they cause you to sin (what would it matter, since Christ has already paid for all your sin), and Matthew doesn't mention Zaccheus paying back four times what he stole, and St. Paul doesn't mention beating his body to make it his slave, or putting to death the members of our physical body, and the prophets do not mention pulling out one's hair in repentance. In the Protestant Bible, apparently, the Christian life is much like that depicted on the Axiom in the film WALL-E, and any suffering one might (God forbid) encounter has no redemptive value, because Christ has already paid it all.

In the peace of Christ,

- Bryan

Bryan,
   You prove my point better than I could: reading the Bible through Rome-colored glasses can only lead away from the gospel of Jesus Christ and into perverse bondage.

"Christ has already paid it all." -Bryan

Yes, He surely has. Of course I recognize you are using sarcasm.

Yet the Word is clear what the ture Gospel is.
Isaiah 53:6 "..and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all."

Matt 1:21 "you shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save His people from their sin."

The Gospel is that God saved us by His grace, through faith alone, and that's 100% purely Christ, and 0% of us; completely of the Lord. He quickens dead sinners, who were sons of God's wrath, and makes us sons of mercy, and no one can snatch us out of the Savior's loving grip, and especially our heavenly Father's omnipotent gracious hand! Hallelujah!

God surely does save us for good works; His workmanship, to be more precise.

May the Lord open your eyes Bryan to the pureness of Christ's atoning sacrifice, which to add to it any of our own goodness is blasphemous.

I pray that one day I can mean these words, with all my heart, that the Apostle Paul said:

"But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."