Just joined!

Hello!

I just joined. I am hoping to find a Biblically mature Christian or Christian elder that would be willing to kind of guide me and such as I am wanting to grow as much in God as possible.

I also want to clarify, I listed my self as Baptist, because it seemed the best option. I believe myself to be Baptist by doctrine, but do not consider myself Baptist by denomination. This may change as I learn more. The church I went to before was non-denominational with a Baptist pastor, which is what I was looking for, God seems to always direct me to Baptist material, the church I just started going to recently does not list a denomination.

I grew up in a family that taught me that God was real and the Bible true, went to some church and church summer camps, I believed I was saved, but was not.

When I was 20 my fiancé at the time passed away and I started searching for specific information about after this life. I was also feeling bad for some ways I treated her.

Eventually I read the miracle catching of fish that Jesus wrought and I believe Peter fell down before Jesus and said something like, "Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man." It struck me if the head/lead apostle could have no part with Jesus how little I could, and that is when I believe I got saved.

I grew in my usage of the Bible and eventually started in church and became very active. I had come across some independent fundamental Baptist material on the internet that I vehemently disagreed with at the time, but I wanted God's truth and sought him on it and realized it was true. It struck me that denominations were contrary to the Bible, and ended up at the perfect scenario for me a non-denominational church with a Baptist pastor. It seems some think there is evil with non-denominational, so maybe I'll be convinced otherwise.

At that church I grew to where I lead the adult Sunday school and did some other services and maybe 1 Sunday morning.

I ended up having bad migraines with constant light sensitivity and ended up in a bedroom tucked away for months two summers in a row, during this I was made the assistant pastor. However, I ended up moving due to the health reasons and wanting to be closer to family. This somehow turned into me going for almost ten years with very little church or Bible.

Somehow recently God has graciously brought me back to the Bible and I started going to a local church that does not list a denomination, and do not know all its intricacies. I am wanting to soak in the Bible and God and grow as much as I can. I still believe I got saved 18 years ago when I was 20, but don't know how to explain the past 10ish years. May God be gracious and merciful to me.

 

Thank you, I am hoping to not get sucked into any circus-type aspects, I recall I had a moment of wariness about joining a forum do to the circus-type aspects you may be referring to and I don't want to spend time on those type things really, and hopefully can get some decent guidance here, maybe not? What do you think?

 

The first person to reply said welcome to the circus, I thought they were perhaps referring to forum drama. Forums being open as they are can have people of all levels, and not everyone is necessarily there to help, there can be people putting each other down and so on, perhaps those things don't happen here, this seems a little more closed than public, but I am just not wanting to get involved in anything that would either be not right, such as name calling and so on, or I do not want to get into some things that may not be as valuable of a use of my time as others, which is why I'd also like guidance on some things. I don't want to get into things that would fall under:

"Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do." 1 Timothy 1:4 KJV

Sorry, it may have been my misunderstanding of the original persons use of circus. I am not wanting to make a bad first impression. But it is true with any group there are differences and so on that is to be expected. Perhaps the fact that it seems like the website isnt working to allow new people to join with gmail accounts and so on, may also lead to those with less helpful comments to not be here.

I knew a guy who would pose all these different ideas on things in a Christian setting of believers there to learn more, and he told me once that he did not pose these ideas because he believed them, but actually I forget why he said he posed them, but the point was that it comments and so on that even he didn't believe and was not truly helpful or edifying.

I have wasted the last 10 years, I need to redeem the time and not fall in any new bad habits as much as possible. I could easily spend all my time on forums probably, and maybe it is a good place for Christian fellowship and guidance, I don't know yet, but I think I need to be careful on how I spend my time. Writing a post like this might take me such an amount of time, and perhaps it would be better if I was reading a Spurgeon sermon or something.

I hope I have explained myself and do not come across in a bad light, I would imagine most here would feel the same way, do correct me if I am wrong, I need to keep learning, but have learned so much recently about how I can get so many things wrong and not even see the possibility of how I could have been wrong until I found out I was in fact wrong.

 

Thank you, I maybe need to look at commentaries or something on the 2 Peter verses as you are right that I should do that, but honestly I am not sure what it all means, and I know I've looked up the words in the dictionary before and probably will need to keep doing that, but not sure what all that means or how it works.

Any material on that anyone recommends?

For the 1 John verses, I wonder how do I be sure I have the Son? Your signature has the first verse in it as well, I believe that Jesus is the Christ, but how does that work, I just read a work of A. W. Pink talking about so many people who believe but are lost, such as those who will say Lord, Lord, but do not the things that he says.

Somehow lately I have been assaulted as well with doubts about God existing and the truth of the Bible and these types of things, and I am just trying to hold onto the anchor of faith in Jesus and get through that stuff and hope it goes away and either ignore it or sometimes think of things that prove God and the Bible are real and true.

 

Thank you, as long as I end up saved in the end and with God that is all that matters, but I thought I had been exposed to some material in the past that said there were no such things as backsliders and it just meant you weren't saved kind of a thing, so I just don't understand how I could go from a state much like the one I am currently in, to like nothing, I still would pray and think I wanted to do what God wanted in everything, but maybe it was anxiety rather than real prayer, I don't know, but I am praying all the time for help figuring out what to do with my scrupulosity and I don't know. But I like what you said about how its about Christ and his gospel. As long as I have saving faith I am saved regardless of the bath it took, I just hope that that is what I have or that I will have it before the end.

 

I am glad for any help I can get. I took the circus comment to refer to some of the more childish and fleshly things we can fall into doing, perhaps I took it wrong, sorry. I think this is likely do to reading some forum reviews of a different forum recently and seeing people's negative remarks.

 

Its ok, I kept editing that post to try to make it better, I ended up taking out the "Honestly I am not real sure why you are talking like this" part as I thought perhaps I was just mistaken and didn't want to aggravate you, I am not looking for any problems

 

I couldn't get a confirmation email to my Gmail account, i had to use a private email for work.