Thought not to do because I believe God wants us to trust in gospel and if other truth is required God reveals truth to those who submit to Him to lean not on own understanding but I think it is only safe to do so incase so I will because it may because it may seem I am trusting in my own understanding if I do not though the first may be so and God only says so maybe for those who are willing to accept that they are safe in their path that God will lead them but I may not trust. It’s just that I want a perfect faith in the faith outside and I would be happy to just be Christian but I think I should join church incase
I am worried about myself and I believe I just have to submit to what God may want which it may be in a church I can not know if church is true but I should follow incase it is true because maybe I am blind on my own and not able to know the truth about things or to accept the truth but I may understand when I live in church if God wills to show me I can not know if church is true for sure but as it may be I think I should accept it
I am not convinced of the Catholic Church but I understand some believed it I think maybe those who claim to represent the current leadership of Orthodox Church who teach salvation only in Orthodox Church do not correctly reflect orthodox faith because I believe a requirement of orthodox faith is that person can prove that is what church held but I do not know what is the truth if their position is true or not so I can only hold I know salvation is in Orthodox Church I am not convinced of Catholicism so I won’t be Catholic
My dad says it is only the simple people who will be saved that is repentance God hates the proud He wants people to trust in His salvation which some in church do not he may think you need to be trusting In Christ not in church or he may agree you can accept church doctrine but you should not really believe it is good other Christians are not saved
I am worried church just wants to win me with sayings of church just as below to humiliate me or to hinder others from being saved but people have to accept divisions of church and hope in God or join the church for I want to join church to test if it heals me but even if not to accept it as way of salvation but if it does not heal me and open my vision it shows church does not prove itself yet people can follow me to be saved if they want to
Such is the loving-kindness of God; He never turns his face away from a sincere repentance.But, if anyone has pushed on to the very extremity of wickedness, and chooses to return thence towards the path of virtue, God accepts and welcomes, and does everything so as to restore him to his former position.And He does what is yet more merciful; for even should anyone not manifest complete repentance, he does not pass by one which is small and insignificant, but assigns a great reward even to this.
This is evident from what Esaias the prophet says concerning the people of the Jews, speaking on this wise:
“On account of his sin I put him to pain for a little while, and smote him, and turned my face away from him, and he was pained, and walked sorrowfully, and then I healed him, and comforted him” (
Isaiah 57;17-18).[…] And after this again, Manasses, having…subverted the legal form of worship, and shut up the temple, and caused the deceit of idolatry to flourish, and having become more ungodly than all who were before him, when he afterwards repented, was ranked amongst the friends of God.Now if, looking to the magnitude of his own iniquities, he had despaired of restoration and repentance, he would have missed all which he afterwards obtained.But as it was, looking to the boundlessness of God’s tender mercy instead of the enormity of his transgressions, and having broken in sunder the bonds of the devil, he rose up and contended with him, and finished the good course (2 Chron. 33:10-19). And not only by what was done to these men, but also by the words of the prophet does God destroy the counsels of despair, speaking on this wise: “To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation” (Psalm 94:9).Now that expression “to-day,” may be uttered at every time of life, even on the verge of old age, if you desire it: for repentance is judged not by quantity of time, but by disposition of the soul.For the Ninevites did not need many days to blot out their sin, but the short space of one day availed to efface all their iniquity.And the robber also did not take a long time to effect his entrance into Paradise, but in such a brief moment as one might occupy in uttering a single word, did he wash off all the sins which he had committed in his whole life, and received the prize bestowed by the divine approval even before the Apostles.And we also see the martyrs obtain glorious crowns for themselves in the course, not of many years, but of a few days, and often in a single day only.
John Chrysostom (c.347-407):
An exhortation