I was having a talk with my pastor about the belief that Mary was sinless, a view as you know held by Catholics as declared by the ineffable God decree of 1854 and the idea of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.

I was wondering if you thought that a person who believes Mary was sinless can also be a Christian. Does the view of Mary being sinless take away from Christ’s glory? Ineffable God does stress that Mary remained sinless by the power of God and not by her own deeds, however does this even change anything?

I just read your response to a question about gifts and had some of my own. Do gifts change? From my experience I think they do based on what God desires to happen in both my life and how I interact with those around me. I see some of the change being based on my growth as a Christian and maybe some based on gaps in the Church I attend. My wife and I recently took a class in Church on the spiritual gifts. In that class we covered about 13 or 14 of them in the time frame of the class and then took a “gifts” test at the end. One of the things which struck me was I had one or two which stood out (was strong in) but others that I had some affinity for (not quite as strongly inclined). I also saw that what I had today (at the time of the evaluation) was not even close to what I saw in my life when I was younger in age and Christian walk as well as single. Is this biblical?

I know that Jesus is my Savior, and I know that the only way to get saved is to believe in Him and His death on the cross for my sins. I have been wrestling with Satan, who is trying to convince me that I am not saved because I don’t have enough faith in what Christ did, and therefore I have to do more to keep my salvation. I know none of this is true, but how can I convince my heart of this and get Satan out of my head?

I don’t understand the apparent contradiction in 1 John 1:8-10 versus 1 John 3:6-9. Am I misunderstanding something, if we claim we have not sinned we make God out to be a liar, but if we continue to sin this is evidence that we are not born of God? I know that I am a saint who sins … but please enlightenment me on these verses.

I have been troubled over a book I started reading (and decided not to finish) a couple of weeks ago. I believe the author is grossly misinterpreting the Kingdom Parables, the Bema Judgment and the Church’s place/role in the Millennial/Heavenly Kingdoms. Furthermore, our sanctification “process” is equated with our Kingdom rewards, and actually states that the “outer darkness” and “weeping and gnashing of teeth” is about “believers” who are cast out of the presence of God after the Bema judgment because they failed to achieve a certain level of sanctification.

The focus is on Matthew’s parables from chapters 8:11-12, 22:13, 24:50-51, 25:12, and 25:30, and before listing these parables the author states, “Always remember the ones who were not able to inherit:”. Then the author says, after the list, “These passages are all talking about Christians! And yet none of them inherited the Kingdom. Yes, they were all in it. But they were in some other region, some other place -the darkness outside – and thus separated from the light of the Lord’s presence.”

The book goes out of its way to state that the person is still saved, and still goes to Heaven, but because they did not follow Christ faithfully they will dwell in a part of Heaven away from Him and forfeit any rewards of reigning with Him in His Kingdom.

I have a question related to something Jesus said in John 14:12. “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these.” Some take this scripture to mean all sorts of things that just don’t square with my own understanding of God’s word. I’m not sure their doctrine is sound. What do you think He meant by that?

Does the Holy Spirit leave us when we die? Does giving up the ghost mean separating from the Holy Spirit or merely separating our body from our spirit? What about all the people that have died? Do they get the Holy Spirit back when they are resurrected, or were they never separated?

I am having a discussion with friends, and they don’t believe that Christ died for everyone. I believe He did die for everyone, but it’s only good for those who accept it. Unless you believe and accept it, His death means nothing. His blood is of no effect to those who refuse it. Do you think that’s correct?

A friend of mine posed a question about how they used to keep track of the years. We read that Adam was over 900 years old when he died. How did those keeping track of the years know this? I know in Genesis it says that the sun and the moon and the stars were there for signs and such…is this how they kept track of everyone’s number of years?

When I pray I almost always pray in my mind and not aloud. Is it necessary to pray aloud and does it make any difference? Also should you pray on your knees when praying? Is there any scripture to support any of this? I would like to be most effective when praying and should think it’s how sincere you are and what you’re praying for that counts.