Hey. I was talking to 2 LDS people at my college and they didn't believe that they are sinners. Do you believe you're a sinner?


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2 minutes ago, AbramM said:

What did I misunderstand? I literally just said you don't like to refer to yourself as a sinner  which is fine . I think that when the Apostle Paul refers to himself as the chief of sinners in 1 Timothy 1 15, it's incredible and so encouraging to me. That I am more than happy to refer to myself as a sinner, if it will encourage other and besides it encourages me. If you don't want to that is fine I'm not saying everyone has to wear a t-shirt saying I'm a sinner saved by grace. But it sounds like we agree that we are all sinners

 

There is a lot of misunderstanding around the phrase "I'm a sinner".  It's not an LDS-Christian-cultural phrase, and LDS Christians are misunderstanding what you mean when you use it.  Hence, esntailly you ask question A, they hear question B and respond to question B, which isn't the answer to question A you meant to ask.

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2 minutes ago, Jane_Doe said:

There is a lot of misunderstanding around the phrase "I'm a sinner".  It's not an LDS-Christian-cultural phrase, and LDS Christians are misunderstanding what you mean when you use it.  Hence, esntailly you ask question A, they hear question B and respond to question B, which isn't the answer to question A you meant to ask.

Why don't you refer to yourselves as sinners though? 

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3 minutes ago, AbramM said:

Why don't you refer to yourselves as sinners though? 

The phrase "I'm a sinner" is pretty distinctive Baptist/Evangelical culture.  Other groups (including LDS Christians) just don't have that cultural phrase.  There's still that acknowledgement that a person does regularly screw up, sin, & need repentance, and the fact that we should be striving to follow Him and do better.  But not the cultural phrase "I'm a sinner".   Hence the misunderstanding when you're using it.

Edited by Jane_Doe
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1 minute ago, Jane_Doe said:

The phrase "I'm a sinner" is pretty distinctive Baptist/Evangelical culture.  Other groups (including LDS Christians) just don't have that cultural phrase.  There's still that acknowledgement that a person does regularly screw up, sin, & need repentance, and the fact that we should be striving to follow Him and do better.  But not the cultural phrase "I'm a sinner".  

I think we get it from the Apostle Paul . I guess it just depends on people, personally when Christians I admire remind me they are a sinner it's encouraging and when I remind myself that Paul reffered to himself as the chief of sinners if encourages me. If Paul's words do not have that impact on you then I understand. 

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Just now, AbramM said:

I think we get it from the Apostle Paul . I guess it just depends on people, personally when Christians I admire remind me they are a sinner it's encouraging and when I remind myself that Paul reffered to himself as the chief of sinners if encourages me. If Paul's words do not have that impact on you then I understand. 

The bold part is offensive.  

Do not confuse 1) not having the culture of using a certain phraseology and 2) not taking any part of scripture seriously.

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4 minutes ago, Jane_Doe said:

The bold part is offensive.  

Do not confuse 1) not having the culture of using a certain phraseology and 2) not taking any part of scripture seriously.

I think if the Words of Paul the Apostle have an impact on you then I urge you to step out of you cultural norms and refer to yourself as a sinner. I'm sure it will encourage someone a friend or a family member, who just needed to hear a fellow believer identify as a sinner saved by grace. Especially, if in your culture it is rare I bet there is someone around dying to hear it! 

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7 minutes ago, AbramM said:

I think if the Words of Paul the Apostle have an impact on you then I urge you to step out of you cultural norms and refer to yourself as a sinner. I'm sure it will encourage someone a friend or a family member, who just needed to hear a fellow believer identify as a sinner saved by grace. Especially, if in your culture it is rare I bet there is someone around dying to hear it! 

Again:

32 minutes ago, Jane_Doe said:

I think that we can all agree on the following points:

- Naturally, each of us have the inclination to sin, and we regularly sin.

- We each need to accept Christ desperately, and to repent of those sins. 

- Even after a person accept Christ, each of us have the inclination to sin, and we regularly sin.  This should be less all around -- we do strive to follow Christ's commands and He empowers us to be better.  But the process of total sanctification is not likely going to be 100% complete in this mortal life.  We each still need regular repentance and to continue to strive follow Him.

See that the concept you are preaching here is already totally believed.  You're literally preaching to the choir here.  

Can you acknowledge that you hear this and understand it?

 

Edited by Jane_Doe
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48 minutes ago, AbramM said:

You misunderstood me, I have overcome the wages of sin which is death through my faith in Jesus Christ. However, I still sin because I'm a fallen person same as you. Every night when I go to bed I acknowledge that I did not Love God properly today and I did not Love my neighbor with a Christ like love today. Yet in the morning I wake up with thanksgiving in my heart because I am saved and as it says in Lamentations 3 

22 It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

Every day is a clean slate with the L9rd when you are saved and are trying to be better. Do you know the story of Jesus and the Fig Tree in Matthew? 

I don't want to be like that Fig Tree that Jesus destroys I want to bare fruit in my life that pleases the Lord. Will I do that some days? Yes. Some days I won't because I'm not perfect and in this life I never will be, but I want to live God's Law the best I can. 

  

I appreciate and respect that on a personal level.  But with all due respect, this seems less like an argument that I’ve misunderstood your theology; and more like a protestation that you personally are a good guy in spite of the fatalistically libertine underpinnings of the theology being advanced.  Which is fair, given the context of my observation (which I perhaps rendered in an overly personal way); but it doesn’t really address the underlying theological conundrum:  fundamentally, there seems to be no universal reason or need for the sort of ongoing contrition or penitence or resolve that fires your own personal faith-journey.

Your post also strikes me as taking a simplistic view of what sin is and how it affects us—in other words, what the true “wages of sin” really are.  

For example:  I commit adultery.  I am converted.  I have overcome my sin!  I then commit adultery again.  

Now, maybe by virtue of that earlier conversion I have somehow escaped the eternal damnation that I deserve.  But the there are other wages of sin.  There’s the cycle of character rot in my own soul that the act of adultery both results from, and reinforces.  There’s the spiritual and perhaps material harm done to my partner in adultery.  There’s the heartbreak to my wife, the loss of trust to my children, the material consequences of unintended pregnancy and disease and divorce.  Can I really say I have “overcome” my predisposition for adultery on Monday, and act as Satan’s agent for unleashing all of these horrors on Tuesday?

This is the difference I’m seeing between Latter-day Saint theology, as compared to your paradigm.  In yours, the approach seems to be to look at one’s sins and shrug and say “well, I’m a sinner and Jesus covered it, so on to the next day; and I know I’ll rise in the resurrection as a better person, so I don’t need to grapple with the fallout of what I’ve done or try to do better going forward, except insofar as I may find doing so to be personally fulfilling due to my material circumstances or my idiosyncratic sense of altruism.”  The LDS approach seems to be more along the line of “Yes, I sin.  Call me a sinner—whatevs.  I’ve known that for years.  But I’m not going to perseverate on it.  It’s my job to work hand-in-hand with Jesus to become less of a sinner now and try to contain the consequences of my fallen nature, rather than standing idly by while my nature continues to degenerate and innocent third parties suffer for my reprobate acts; and the further along I get in that process now, the better off I’ll be on the long run.”

 

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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5 minutes ago, Jane_Doe said:

Again:

See that the concept you are preaching here is already totally believed.  You're literally preaching to the choir here.  

Can you acknowledge that you hear this and understand it?

 

I understand I just wish to encourage you to not be fearful of telling people you're a sinner. Lots of times the Devil makes Christians seem perfect to non believers and we play along with it, but that isn't right it's important people know we are just sinners with a hope in Jesus Christ.

I went to a revival in Oklahoma last year and I took my friend with me who wasn't a believer and at the end the preacher said come up and tell me what you want from God. My friend went up and said " I want to be like Abram". I was like no you don't want to be like me I'm a sinner, you want to be like Jesus. Sometimes people close to us think we are perfect and that's why God chose us and it is our job to tell them that we are sinners just like them the only difference is our faith in Christ. 

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3 minutes ago, Vort said:

Don't bet on it.

I will only respond to you with a Christ like love. May you be in peace brother. I will continue to pray for you to be comforted. 

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6 minutes ago, AbramM said:

I understand I just wish to encourage you to not be fearful of telling people you're a sinner. Lots of times the Devil makes Christians seem perfect to non believers and we play along with it, but that isn't right it's important people know we are just sinners with a hope in Jesus Christ.

Having known lots of Protestants and Mormons, and watching the way they tend to live their lives I am sorely tempted to observe:

Protestants call themselves sinners—but most of them don’t believe it.

Mormons call themselves saints—but most of them don’t believe it.  

;) 

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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3 minutes ago, AbramM said:

I understand I just wish to encourage you to not be fearful of telling people you're a sinner. Lots of times the Devil makes Christians seem perfect to non believers and we play along with it, but that isn't right it's important people know we are just sinners with a hope in Jesus Christ.

I went to a revival in Oklahoma last year and I took my friend with me who wasn't a believer and at the end the preacher said come up and tell me what you want from God. My friend went up and said " I want to be like Abram". I was like no you don't want to be like me I'm a sinner, you want to be like Jesus. Sometimes people close to us think we are perfect and that's why God chose us and it is our job to tell them that we are sinners just like them the only difference is our faith in Christ. 

Good point. Here's a good scripture from The Book of Mormon on the fallacy of complacency:

2 Nephi 28:21 And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well—and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell.
22 And behold, others he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell; and he saith unto them: I am no devil, for there is none—and thus he whispereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance

 

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17 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

This is the difference I’m seeing between Latter-day Saint theology, as compared to your paradigm.  In yours, the approach seems to be to look at one’s sins and shrug and say “well, I’m a sinner and Jesus covered it, so on to the next day; and I know I’ll rise in the resurrection as a better person, so I don’t need to grapple with the fallout of what I’ve done or try to do better going forward, except insofar as I may find doing so to be personally fulfilling due to my material circumstances or my idiosyncratic sense of altruism.”  The LDS approach seems to be more along the line of “Yes, I sin.  Call me a sinner—whatevs.  I’ve known that for years.  But I’m not going to perseverate on it.  It’s my job to work hand-in-hand with Jesus to become less of a sinner now and try to contain the consequences of my fallen nature, rather than standing idly by while my nature continues to degenerate and innocent third parties suffer for my reprobate acts; and the further along I get in that process now, the better off I’ll be on the long run.”

I don't know how you came to this conclusion. I will always sin yes. That does not mean I sin and think oh well. Do you believe you are under God's Law? Do you love God and love your Neighbor ? Are you aware of how the Lord Jesus fulfilled the Law of Moses? 

There is so much in the bible to encourage us to do better. Matthew 25 verse 40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

I wake up every day and try to love my neighbor more and try to love God more. I don't wake up with the mindset of I'm going to sin less today. But by loving my neighbor more and God more I will naturally sin less. That is the entirety of the law brother. 

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1 minute ago, Vort said:

This statement is self-contradictory.

Brother go in peace. If you would like I can send you the prayer I have said for you and you can say it for yourself? I will say it again for you too. 

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2 minutes ago, AbramM said:

There is so much in the bible to encourage us to do better. Matthew 25 verse 40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

“Encourage”.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But at the end the end of the day, take two believers—one who heeds the “encouragement”, and one who doesn’t.

Is one of them really any off than the other?

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1 minute ago, AbramM said:

Brother go in peace. If you would like I can send you the prayer I have said for you and you can say it for yourself? I will say it again for you too. 

That's wonderful, but of course it unsurprisingly avoids responding to the point I raised.

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29 minutes ago, AbramM said:

I will only respond to you with a Christ like love. May you be in peace brother. I will continue to pray for you to be comforted. 

That is very kind.  I will put your (internet) name on the prayer rolls of the Provo temple next time I’m there, as well.  :) 

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7 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

“Encourage”.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But at the end the end of the day, take two believers—one who heeds the “encouragement”, and one who doesn’t.

Is one of them really any off than the other?

Oh man the blessing that come when you serve the Lord are always worth it

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38 minutes ago, AbramM said:

I understand I just wish to encourage you to not be fearful of telling people you're a sinner.

Oh I totally don't hide the fact that I have many flaws, don't worry about that.  I couldn't hide them even if I wanted to.    

Again, acknowledging that is different than being mandated to use a certain phrase.

Edited by Jane_Doe
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6 minutes ago, Vort said:

That's wonderful, but of course it unsurprisingly avoids responding to the point I raised.

You have no desire to have a discussion with me you have made that clear a few times. I wish you peace and I hope you come to know that you don't have to be antagonizing as a person. Jesus loves you, find your identity in Christ and you won't feel the need to behave this way towards your fellow man. God bless. Go in peace 

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5 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

That is very kind.  I will put your (internet) name on the prayer rolls of the Provo temple next time I’m there, as well.  :) 

Please don't Jesus is my high priest and he is in Heaven not in Buildings made by human hands. That is where my treasures are stored in heaven. 

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Just now, AbramM said:

Please don't Jesus is my high priest and he is in Heaven not in Buildings made by human hands. That is where my treasures are stored in heaven. 

Having an LDS Christian pray for you is the same as having a Baptist Christian pray for you.  The same as you praying for people on here.

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