Response to: "I have become an agnostic" thread

I used to think that, but the bible says you never had a problem loving yourself.

Ephesians 5:29
29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:

We need to love ourselves in the correct manner, by being obedient to Christ, so that we do not end up hating ourselves in the future while we love ourselves now. God must come first.

 

Amen, preach it!!

 

Did I ever fully believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and saviour, the first and final mediator between man and god? Did I acknowledge and accept his one time perfect sacrifice, sufficient to save all men? Was the gospel message of salvation and the christian life of peace, discipline and love an integral part of my heart and mind?

Yes.

However, I finally have to be honest with myself. If Jesus is really the only way to god, then god is evil. There is no rationalization on earth which can make me believe in an all knowing and all loving god who would allow people to exist without ever having the chance to accept him. I really don't care what perspective you take either. If god fully predestines, he is cruel. If he allows freewill (whatever that means), then he is incompetent.

 

Travelsong, I don't think you are being honest with yourself. If the God of the universe gave you a way out of the punishment that you deserve for your sin, why does that make Him anything other than merciful? If there are people who do not know His mercy, that makes us evil for not going out and spreading the Gospel. Your imposing your own morality on the God of all creation shows that you are unaware of just how little good actually resides in you. When Satan has spent a little time chewing on you, I pray that God will have mercy on you and bring you again to repentence.

 

No one every goes to hell against their will. God is too respectful and loving to force us to go somewhere against our will. Everyone who goes to hell goes there because they do not want to go near God.

Think of it this way: There are people here on earth that cannot stand to go to church for 1 hour a week. What kind of God would force them to go to church 24 hours a day for all eternity?

God merely allows people to do what they want: to be separated from him. Since God is life, separation from God is death.

 

I don't feel I deserve anything like eternal punishment. I am not responsible for my imperfections. I am however responsible for my actions in spite of my imperfections.

If there are people that do not know him and die without knowing him, that makes god incompetetent for being unable to offer them a choice. If God has simply chosen some people and damned the rest, that makes him cruel. Either way, that kind of god is not worthy of my worship.

 

If that were the open and shut of it, then I'd agree with you. And a hypercalvinist/hyperarminian may indeed make that kind of statement. But they'd be wrong. I'm satisfied to let the hypers argue that until their blue in the face I don't have to buy what they're selling, and neither do you, my friend.

The bottom line is that God loves us, and wants to share Himself with us. That is why he sent His Son. That's sufficient for me. I hope it helps you as well.

 

The bottom line is that I am willing to acknowledge certain characteristics of my nature over which I have no control.

Accountability is irrelevant. I didn't do anything. I just am. Now what do I do?

 

Travelsong--stop thinking about yourself!

God gave you life.

God gave you a wife.

God gave you a family.

God gave you any thing good that you may have.

Now you want to doubt.

What have you been smoking?

I am not a doctor of any sort--but you have all the symptoms of someone on the wrong depression medicine or some sort of alkyloid interaction. This sort of thing can mess with every aspect of life including the spirit. Been there, done that. Seek a Christian psychologist. Get focussed on the reality of the spirit. Then realize that God is Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.

Turn it over to the Lord. Only He can heal your spirit.

Now, take a look at something you love dearly and say: I cannot know if God is.

Now go and tell your son or daughter what they are doing in this world.

God still saves.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

Travelsong,

I have spent a lifetime of preaching, and I am not going to preach to you now. I simply want to say, with a famous missionary, "I have but one passion, and that is the Christ." Count Nicholas Ludwig Von Zinzendorf. He was one of the richest men on earth at the time and had nothing until he found Jesus.

I do not do good because I am good, but because God dwells within me and compells me to do good. See the difference? It is a passion. It is this passion that goes beyond any theology, but the same passion that brings theology into reality.

In the Anglican communion, we speak of realizing the Christ, when one comes into a personal relationship with him. Religiosity falls far behind, and the relationship becomes everything.

Cheers, and please do not give up searching. It is in seeking that you will find. God bless.

Jim

 

Not to sound rude, but you sound like an old friend of mine. He experimented with "spirituality" and he never took the full leap. His complaint was yours basically. I found his problem was that he lacked humility. He thought too highly of himself to admit that there is an ultimate truth - namely - Jesus Christ and every word from the mouth of God.

I agree with a few things said. I almost wrote you an email the other day until I saw some of your remarks.

I guess I'll stop here. Sorry you feel this way.
1 John 2:19

 

Praise God that He will never abandon you!

 

If the truth were known it might rather sad to know how many are not really believers. When I lived in Memphis I attended a great IFB church with a great pastor. But one Sunday a man who had been a deacon for a long time, received Christ. Some years ago a friend of mine was preaching and his wife came forward at the invitation to receive Christ. She had grown up in the home of a Baptist evangelist. He thought she was a believer all along.

 

Travelsong, I don't if it is advisable or not for me to respond on this thread, but my answer will be quite different from the others I read.

For several years I have thought myself to be near the line of becoming an agnostic. I don't really know your situation, of course, but I do know mine. I regard myself as a logical thinking person, with a degree in mathematics and some very strange approaches to activities and problems, at least in the minds of some people. I am a lonely person, never-married, middle-aged, and often sad that friend and family members are gone, and I go through long nights and uneventful holidays, and just that what made up some elements of 'happiness' are long gone and have not been replaced. I have long ceased to listen to what many Christians want to tell me, that God "has someone special for you," or has a "plan" about career, et al, while I work at a job with low pay and nothing at all to do with my degree or my interests. So it's easy to become skeptical and think people who are happy in their jobs or their families were nothing but fortunate. Burnout is about the closest thing to describe my approach many aspects of life. This has made it easy for me point out some errors in reasoning I see among so many fellow Christians, and to understand they believe in their Bible like others believe in fortune-telling; they perceive God to be "working" in their lives because they choose to see it, while I don't see it in my life because I choose to look at things from logical angles. One example is the story I have told more than once here about my 'tithing' test, in response to these "testimonies" that "giving God his tithe" keeps their own financcial situations profitable and in order; my statistical test showed tithing has nothing to do with finances other there is less money than if I don't do it.

But your resignation seems to be based more on the fairness issue of all people being sinners, yet some are saved from eternal perdition, while most, in spite of upbringing or essentially trying to do what they thing is right, will suffer infinite punishment for very finite 'crimes.' I know there is nothing that can be said to make you change the view that this is monstrous. But I think any Christian really thinks this. From the only perspectives we have, a Being which would do this is extremely, infinitely unjust. So to continue to believe in the God of the Bible is to continue to believe in this 'injustice.' So then you think that to participate in the gospel-- even if only by continuing to believe it-- is participation in this injustice. I have no answer for this, but I know you don't need cliches, such as you should focus on how loving and gracious he is to offer the means of escape, when it was his mode of creation that created what it is that he offers an an escape from.

There is no simple reply to the question implicit in your posting this info, "I am no longer certain of the existence of a god; is there any reason I have not thought of to believe again?" I'm sure you expected some of the responses you have gotten; esecially like you must have never believed, or what can be read between the lines that you cannot now be an unbeliever, even if you want to. All I can say is that I have pushed my own tendency to no longer believe to the limits a few times; and sometimes quickly, sometimes not so, I find I can't cross that line. Some person or some event finally gives me a fresh angle. And I know this fresh angle is 'there' because I wish and perceive it to be there, but why can God not appeal to one's logical thinking if that is how one chooses to seek such a new perspective? As to the injustice issue, I choose to leave it for others to argue about; my own approval or abhorance will not change anything about it. But it seems ironic that the more one disbelieves in it, the more one abhors it, so you think about how awful something is that doesn't exist. This rather compares to those posts condemning many aspects of Halloween. One may leave alone what one chooses to abhor; if it's not there, or we have misperceived it, it can't hurt you-- or anyone else.

 

quote:
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Charles:

Yes, I have abandoned faith in Christ.
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Just for the record this was Travelsong responding to me - not my quote!!!

 

Do you think life is lonely?

Imagine the loneliness Jesus must have felt most of His life. Then try to imagine His horrific death. He made statements like: "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" He felt the weight of the penalty of the sins WE committed. Yes, He paid our debt--a debt we could not pay.

Jesus also said: "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." Also: "It is finished."

The debt is paid in full. Redemption is made.

What part did we have in it? The guilty were pardoned and set free.

The Apostle Paul certainly had circumstances which could have made him lonely. I don't think he had time to reflect on loneliness--he was too busy preaching: Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

God's gifts and calling are without repentance. If one has them they last forever.

Sometimes WE think WE got them and WE really don't. The deceiver then has us in a major emotional event--clinical depression--instead of a spiritual awakening from God. The gifts and calling are still available--whosoever shall call upon the Lord shall be saved.

Let the Lord bring you out of the miry clay--only He can do it.

Don't look back!!! The pit is still there.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

Travelsong: //I was also equally fearful of god's wrath
because it is after all, completely random.//

I'm agnostic toward that god also.
I believe in a God that loved me so much He sent His
only begotten Son to Die in my place. I believe
Elements of which plan He has shared with us who follow him.

When I was saved at a Pretribulation Rapture meeting
at age 8 (that was back in 1952), I though "Ah Ha!
God is going to zap those bad guys in the Tribulation
period. But about 1970 i realized that in 1964 the world
had enough nuclear weapons to destroy all human life on the
planet earth. Then i saw that God loves the people of
the world so much that He is going to intervene in the
Tribulation period to keep mankind from destroying themselves.