Holy Changes!

I guess it's sort of like your "Jesus prayer" then.

Isn't that the core of your belief? Say the right words and you are instantly and for all time saved?

Glass houses....

 

Nope, I don't believe anyone will be changed if they just say a certain prayer. God knows the hearts of men, he knows when you mean it and when you don't. You can't fool God.

From the leaflet
"Prayer recommended before reading: O most Holy Spirit, enlighten our minds so that we may absorb and understand the great and miraculous powers of the Holy Rosary and the Scapular"

Notice how the person who wrote this seperates a prayer and the "miraculous powers of the Holy Rosary".
Again I say, to a Roman Catholic the rosary is much more than just a prayer, there is power behind it.

Mary’s Rosary Promises to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan: Whosoever shall faithfully pray My Rosary

2. shall have my special protection and the greatest graces.

I ask you: What is the greatest graces?

 

I just started praying the rosary in the car on the way to work every morning. What a great way to start the day. It is also my understanding that the rosary is formal and meditative prayer and when praying this way it can lead to contemplitive prayer which is the deepest form of prayer. Also praying the rosary brings us closer to Jesus as we meditate on his life. That is the only thing Mary every wants, is to bring people to her son.

Yours in Christ
Daniel

 

Can you demonstrate through Scripture that Mary wants us to come to Christ by praying to her.
DHK

 

"But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." Matthew 6:7

This cannot be proven in scripture. It is the basic Baptist belief that practicing Mariolatry is akin to pagan idolatry. We are told to make no graven image..."Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth" Exodus 20:4

That's a pretty plain verse. And a pretty plain violation of scripture. Praying to mary does nothing, according to scripture. Teaching prayer to Mary could be considered blasphemy, because it's contrary to scripture.

[ October 26, 2002, 01:13 AM: Message edited by: Bro. Curtis ]

 

You guys seem so paranoid about Mary, why do you reject the her so. Do you actually think Jesus would be mad because we honor his mother. Remember we do not worship her. When we say the Hail Mary prayer we are asking Mary to bring us to her son. Look at the prayer by versus..

Hail Mary full of grace, the lord is with thee

This is reciting the scripture Luke 1:28 when the angel spoke to Mary. On an interesting note, the first person to call Mary "Full of Grace" was God the Father since the angel who is the messenger of God is only repeating what he heard. I assume its ok to recite scripture since we do it when we sing the psalms,

Blesses art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb

This too is reciting scripture Luke 1:42 when Mary visiting with Elizabeth. Another interesting thing is what Mary says after that in her canticle Luke 1:48 "from now on all ages will call me blessed". That is what we do when we recite this prayer.

Holy Mary mother of God

Now this verse we are saying that Mary gave birth to Jesus who is God, she gave birth to both the human and divine parts of Jesus. We believe that Jesus gets his humaness from Mary but his divine nature is from God. We do not mean that Mary created God. I think people sometimes think this is what we mean when it is not the case.

Pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death amen

And this being the last verse we are asking Mary to pray for us. We are not asking her to save us, that is only through God, but we are asking her to pray to her son for us. The son who did as Mary asked at the feast of Cana even when he said it was not his time yet. Jesus honors his mother and her prayers are more pleasing than are prayers are. If you look at Job 42:8

let my servant Job pray for you, for his prayer I will accept, not to punish you severly. For he has spoken rightly concerning me as has my servant job

This shows that prayers from the righteous have more weight and when we pray to saints like Mary who are now purified and in Gods glory, we feel that their prayers to God will be more pleasing than our own. I am not saying that we do not pray to Jesus but its nice to have others prayer for us too. Just as we ask our friend or neighbor to pray for us.

Getting back to the rosary and vain repetition, it is true that we repeat our prayers when saying the rosary, but as long as we mean what we say it is not vain. Its like telling God we love him, do you think he would be offended if we said it over and over to him?

When we pray the rosary we are repeating the Hail Mary, Our Father, Glory be and Fatima Prayer while we meditate on the life of Jesus through the 15 mysteries. By meditating on the life of Jesus it brings us closer to him which is what Mary wants.

Its true that Mary does not say this in the Bible but she has through her private apparitions.

Come on guys, don't be afraid of our Heavenly Mother, she won't bite. Jesus is the only person who was able to pick his own mother and if Mary is good enough for Jesus she is good enough for me.

God Bless You

Daniel

 

Revelation 4:8
And they do not rest day or night, saying:
"Holy, holy, holy,[6]
Lord God Almighty,
Who was and is and is to come!"

What's up with that?

Perhaps Baptists don't have all the answers.

A little further along in Exodus, God instructed the construction of the Ark, complete with "ANGLES"!!!

What's this? God contradicting Himself? The Bible contradicting itself? Baptists got it wrong?

Ron

 

Your construction of the "Hail Mary" 'verse by verse' is taking each verse out of the context in which they are given and stringing them all together to make them mean something totally blasphemous, and something never taught in Scripture. We can give examples of that too:

"Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest." (Luke 9:57)
"Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly." (John 13:27)
"18 Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out." (Acts 1:18)
"Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise." (Luke 10:37)
"Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest." (Luke 9:57)
"I will lay down my life for thy sake." (John 13:37)
"and departed, and went and hanged himself." (Mat.27:5)

Why not pray this prayer instead? It has just as much Scriptural value.
DHK

 

Hi DHK, I agree that the scriptures are not next to each other and out of context but please tell me where they wrong teaching is in the prayer.

Hail Mary full of grace the lord is with thee... Is this false, seems to me that since Mary is in Heaven she is full of grace and with the Lord

Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of they womb... This verse also is true, of women she is blessed and so was the fruit of her womb which was Jesus, that too is a true statement

Holy Mary mother of God, ...this is not scripture but is acurate as I explained earlier

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen... again this is not scripture but as I mentioned before we are asking Mary to pray for us. Scripture tells us to pray for one another and that is all we are doing is asking Mary to pray for us.

There is no worship of Mary in this prayer, we do honor her because she is the mother of Jesus. It has been shown in scripture that Jesus listens to his mother, why not have Mary put in a good word for us.

As a rule regarding the Marian devotions, Jesus must be at the center of them.

God Bless you DHK

Daniel

 

As noted before, any prayer is worship. All prayer ought to be directed to God alone. If prayer is directed to someone other than God it becomes idolatry, whether or not a false disctinction has been made by using terms such as: latria and dulia. Prayer for the believer is coming right into the very presence of God. That is worship. It is adoration. It is that which is due only to God.

In "Marian devotions" Jesus is not at the center. That point is quite obvious by a brief recitation of the "Hail Mary." How much is said or addressed to Mary, and how much is centered around Christ? The answer is clear. The prayer/devotion is not centered around Christ at all. It is pure worship of Mary. It, and other prayers like it, are meant solely to exalt Mary, "the Queen of Heaven." That is blasphemy.
DHK

 

DHK,

Let's say that my father just died in a freak accident, well before what we would consider was "his time to go."

I'm a believer in God, and I start praying. But in my prayer, I get mad at God. I started yelling at him "why, why?!" I get even more mad, and I curse His name. I even get so mad as to tell Him that I don't love Him anymore.

I do this all in prayer, and being God, he hears it all.

Tell me...was I worshipping God then?

God bless,

Grant

 

No, you would not be worshipping God. How can one worship God in anger? You would be foolishly throwing a selfish temper-tantrum, in spite of your circumstances, and thinking more of yourself than of God. You, in spite of your so-called cry to God, would be actually pitying yourself, not worshipping God. That is not prayer; not worship. Both prayer and worship is selfless. Even though we may ask in prayer for our own needs, our prayer still is: "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven." Thus, when praying for the needs of oneself or the needs of others, the will of God comes first. The worship of God comes first. Prayer is selfless. It is not a pity-party, nor a temper-tantrum, nor is it one who is commanding God what to do (Word of Faith theology).
DHK

 

DHK,

Then, by your own admission, if it is not God's will for a dying parent to survive a surgery, 'praying' to God, "Lord, let my mother have a successful surgery and a successful recovery." Since that is not God's will in this instance, this is not prayer.

Quite frankly, your definition of prayer is not in the Bible. Any time we don't have the will of God as our focus, we're not praying. That means God doesn't listen to our prayers of frustration, or sadness, or when we are stuck in a rut and are searching for a friend.

That's not my God, DHK. My God listens to everything I take Him, good or bad, because that's the kind of merciful God He is. I'm not perfect, and my prayers are not perfect. Sometimes my mind wanders in prayer when I've had a really long day. Sometimes in prayer I've said things I've regretted. Those were still prayers.

Your definition of prayer is false.

God bless,

Grant

 

John 16:24 Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.

1John 5:14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:
15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.

James 4:2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

Mat.6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Mat.6:9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

"Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," should sum it all up. That is how Jesus taught us to pray. Not selfishly, greedily, but as John taught in 1John 5:14, "according to His will."
DHK

[ October 29, 2002, 12:39 AM: Message edited by: DHK ]

 

DHK,

You're missing the point. These verses all tell us the optimal way to pray, and, more or less, the way to pray if we want our prayers answered. I never said the examples I listed were good ways to pray. Rather, they were bad ways to pray. That does not make them cease in being prayer. You haven't proven it yet, either.

God bless,

Grant

 

Brian,

So, in your opinion, if I pray to Mary, asking her to pray for me for one or other personal intention, and I do not believe that Mary is God, nor do I look upon her as if she were God, nor do I worship her as if she were God...that in my act, I'm regardless worshipping her just as if she were God?

God bless,

Grant

 

To a Catholic, prayer is communication. I don't know how Mary prays for me, because I don't know how communication in Heaven will work. I do know that I ask her to pray for me, and in some way, she takes my requests to her Son, on her behalf. I think it's just a difference in words and meanings.

Heaven isn't like earth, though. It's worship, prayer, and communion with God 24/7. Nor is there anger, so Mary would never knock me one. Of course, I'm assuming you're talking about the Rosary (that is the topic, after all!). In the Rosary, while the Hail Mary's are being said, the individual is meditating on Christ's life. Thus, throughout the duration of the meditation, we're asking Mary to pray for us. So that we can concentrate on the mysteries of Christ, the prayer is redundant (but not meaningless). Our lips are in prayer while our minds are focusing on Christ.

The fact that God could be born of the flesh and be both fully human and fully God at the same time defies logic. That doesn't make it less true.

I hope that you don't take this bluntly, because I'm only using it for illustration. When someone says "God d**n him," I've always been told that this is a prayer to God to literally damn the person, which is why it is so dangerous to say! In this instance, we are not respecting God or his will, we are angry, and we are selfish, perhaps even trying to be "god" ourselves. And yet...it's still a prayer.

Your attitude always humbles me, Brian. God bless you,

Grant