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Immigration Issues from About.com

Links and information about immigration law, policy, social and ethical issues.

Immigration Lawyers on the Web

Attorney directory. Also contains resources, regular columns, chat, and immigration forms.

Immigration Lawyers on the Web

Attorney directory. Also contains resources, regular columns, chat, and immigration forms.

Immigration Times

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ImmigrationLinks.com

Immigration news, information, and legal links.

Immiseek

Guide to visa application.

Latour & Lleras, P.A - usvisanews.com

Immigration news archive, INS memos, and State Department releases, from a Florida law firm.

National Immigration Law Center

Information on the law, and the employment and public benefits rights of immigrants.

US State Department - Visa Services

Official Information about visas from the Bureau of Consular Affairs.

> I can't seem to grasp the lesson you are trying to teach. Could you
> kind of sum up the thrust of your idea in a way that even I can
> understand it.

What he said. I'm glad it's not just me.

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gkmcnees@comcast.net wrote:

> I am interested in how you infer keeping the 1st commandment
> is saving faith. In fact, all I infer from the commandments is
> quite the opposite. Any commandment for that matter.
>
> I'm a lot like Adam, not very good at keeping commandments,
> no matter how simple. And then you go and say that keeping
> the 1st commandment is saving faith, and, well, I am overwhelmed!

This is the key issue. You (the "you" who hypothetically
buys into my system) are thinking "If having saving faith is
tantamount to keeping the 1st Commandment, then, since I
can't keep the 1st Commandment, I won't have saving faith."

And this shows that you think of "having saving faith"
as an action. But I'm saying that faith is _granted_.
We are saved because Christ's perfect obedience is imputed
to us. This includes obedience to the 1st Commandment
and having perfect faith in God.

Failing to have perfect faith is a sin, and even that
sin is forgiven.

You want to insist that there's some sort of meta-mechanics
whereby salvation (which is some sort of ethereal substance, I
guess) is given through faith (which is some sort of tube, I
guess.)

My assertion is that salvation IS the granting of faith.
Not that salvation comes first or second, but is the same
as. Christ saves us by gracing us with faith.

It's a lot to ask, but maybe if you'd read Luther's sermon on
the 1st Commandment, you'd understand my viewpoint better.
You can find it online at:

http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/catechism/web/ca
t-03.html

(But it's very long. No American today could sit through a sermon
like this. About 8 pages, I think.)


> Yet again another passage which proves to us who actually believe
> God, that we can never be lost.

So now it's you who is preaching OSAS?


>> I don't say it does. You do. You think we can
>> do things to save ourselves, i.e., believe.
>
> Only those who believe the Gospel are saved.

And, as the statistians chant, "Correlation is not
causation." The fact that we believe is a gift, and
it's part of the gift of salvation. You keep insisting
that God says something different, but you haven't
been able to quote Him yet.



> Salvation is truly by Grace, but through faith.