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Not really, I can personally attest to the fact that many times I do not like that God will manage to save the person who raped my niece.
My feelings will tell me what a great thing it will be if God will have his veangence on the rapist. It doesn't for the most part really bother me if that person goes to hell and never gets out.
However, I have to go with my spirit tells me is the true nature of a God who is love and what the scriptures testify to even if my feelings do not like it.
Personally I get tired of these baseless accusations from any side. Simply because you do not agree with a certain point of view does not mean it cannot be scripturally justified.
The scriptures do testify of a God who at the very least (althought, it is not least in any manner) desires to save all mankind.
There is absolutely nothing spiritually or scripturally wrong with a belief that those desires will be accomplished.
No, the title of the thread is: Fear-based faith has damaged my faith. Why? Because the truth is not being accepted because people call it fear; then, the devil moves in to sympathize with feelings. That old serpent goes hand in hand with the flesh, but that is not faith. Do you think Jesus could have gone to the Cross by His feelings? What if He had listened to the devil when he whispered "How can the loving Father require such horror of thee?" "Can't it be done some other way?". But, thank God Jesus did not listen to the old serpent who tried to cater to His feelings. Jesus said to the Father, "not my will, but thine be done". Now, that's faith -- and we are to be just like Jesus. The just shall live by faith, but the UR doctrine is based on feelings.
The reason God became man and dwelt amongst us was initially to put to bed the wrong concept of him, that had been impressed onto our minds,by a constant bombardment of misrepresentations of who he is from men who though they professed to know him,but did not know him,and in truth wouldn't know him if he stood in front of them and said Here Am I.
The just live by faith in who God actually is (and not the god who men who do not know him tell us he is), they become who their faith is in.
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, [even] as by the Spirit of the Lord.
The god you believe in his foreign to me, he is nothing like the Jesus i behold in the scriptures.You can keep your angry,hating,condemning god because i do not want to become that by nature or character.
He Jesus(Salvation) is the exact representation of who God is (Heb 1:3).If you have seen me you have seen the Father. What was it we were seeing ?.
So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what youhave seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosyb are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.
Fundamentalism was and still is offended by this^^^, it wants to hear of wrath,damnation,justice metered out to those they judge as sinners.
If you have seen me you have seen the Father,I ask you again what was it they were seeing ? ..............Grace and truth(the reality of who God is by nature and character) came by Jesus Christ.
To address your view on feelings, yes faith does have feeling, the believer as peace in his heart through faith and this feeling of peace the believer as through faith cannot be described to those who do not possess it.
Trimac's faith is not damaged, his concept of God is through fear based christianity.
Your condition is common. You appear eager to embrace the light. Christ came to set the captivesfree. You are being drawn to the light of Christ. Jesus very often said, 'Do not be afraid.'
Quote:
Originally Posted by .sparrow.
I'm going to have to repeat what Heartsong said, because it's what popped in my mind as well.
Trimac, you have been blessed with a heart that feels. You love your neighbor, Trimac. The second command has seeped into your mind, heart, and spirit... and the things that are troubling you SHOULD trouble you. You are right on track. This is the fire that God brings us through on the path to the glorious truth of WHO He is.
You absolutely should be troubled by these things. These things are of the beastly carnal nature. Our spiritual nature is repulsed, as it should be. Trimac, you have just stepped off of the wide road of destruction and jumped on the narrow path that leads to life. Keep walking, friend. You are in a very good place.
peace,
sparrow
Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn_Jarber
I felt fear too, but when I accepted Christ into my heart, He took away the fear and gave me peace. Peace, joy and love come from having a personal relationship with the Lord.
Matthew 11:28-30 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Luke 10:27-28 ~THOU SHALT LOVE THE LORD THY GOD WITH ALL THY HEART, AND WITH ALL THY SOUL, AND WITH ALL THY STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL THY MIND; AND THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF...
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn_Jarber
I felt fear too, but when I accepted Christ into my heart, He took away the fear and gave me peace. Peace, joy and love come from having a personal relationship with the Lord.
Eternal damnation certainly does prevent many people from truly loving God, imo, it did me. When I was a more fervent Christian some of the fear did indeed subside, because I was more assured if you will that I was not one of the lost. But with that came the constant worry that I might 'backslide'...either way, it still seemed so selfish to be reassured that YOU won't be there while knowing that millions of others WOULD. To me evangelism always felt like a losing battle if God had already pre-destined that most would not be saved. If God was working so hard to save 1/100th of the ants from the fire, yet at the same time was kindling the flames hotter, it seemed he was doing one thing with one hand and another thing with another.
The kind of peace which you speak is the smug assurance that YOU won't be God's firewood. What if you woke up and for some reason struggled to believe, God forbid. You'd probably be in such a panic you wouldn't know what to do.
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Obamuchadnezzar
I like how all of the believers tried to paliate the insidiousness of the idea of eternal torment with the whole "Jesus is love/God sent his only son to die for you!" spiel.
There are two types of Christians. Those who are not fully aware of how diabolical eternal damnation (those who have never stopped to think of what ETERNITY entails, much less, what ETERNAL PAIN really is; those who haven't imagined their close friends or distant family members who weren't Christians, writhing and screaming in pain forever) and those who have thought of it and who TRULY fear God because of it.
I can see now, Trimac, that you are the latter. With the terror of hell on your mind, you are on the verge of either becoming an atheist, going over to UR, or checking into an asylum.
No atheism has never rung a chord with me, and I can say even when I was more of an agnostic as a teen I was never a pure atheist. I definitely believe there is a conscious, benign power controlling the Universe and I believe, despite my misgivings with the specific, he sent a man named Jesus (whom yes I believe to be God too) to earth to save us.
This is more than fear...this is a profound moral characteristic of our universe...even if I felt no fear of hell for myself or others, I'd be deeply saddened by its existence. God gives me a heart, a conscience, and expects me to flip it right round when it comes to this issue? Sounds like a sick joke to me. If I were some kind of sadist I could probably rejoice in it, though.
I know some here will say you have to swallow the 'all or nothing' approach, but this is the way it is.
I was brought up in a Christian home and went to churches which, although they didn't preach hellfire and brimstone sermons every Sunday, taught of 'eternal separation' etc for unbelievers. This was one thing that at the time I generally accepted (with discomfort once I got to about age 12), although it was my own reading of Revelation and Gospels (with the understanding that hell was very eternal and very painful) that frankly, quite sickened me and changed my view of all that I knew. Rather than rejoicing when the author of Revelation spoke about cherubs or whatever worshiping God while the damned convulsed in God knows what kind of misery, I only felt pity for them and felt rather cold and empty at the sheer mercilessness of the picture. Even in the movies if the good guy catches the villain part of us wants him to show mercy, not even killing him let alone torturing.
Even though my mother wasn't Carrie White's mother or some kind of wacko, it seemed the fear of hell and the disapproval of God was as strong a motive to believe as the promise of heaven. A God who would do that at any second was one to be feared, and someone you fear that much is bound to seem distant. God's love always mixed in with hate if you ever slipped up.
So basically, faith began to equal fear and paranoia. I would constantly fear I wasn't good enough etc. Pretending it wasn't true was a sort of escape from this, and seemed to soothe my OCD thoughts a little bit. Too often now I would try to FORCE my mind to believe in things like Noah's ark, the literality of Genesis, even when I couldn't...had the Devil 'snatched me away', or was it because it simply was too implausible? I didn't want my parents to be concerned that I was headed to hell or whatever. The more I forced, the less I felt my faith was even real...now I look back this was a bad thing to do, because now most of the time I'm in a sort of agnostic state; I still belief in God and Jesus in a sort of vague way, but it doesn't feel 'real.'
I think a big reason for that is, all these years I've been taught of how dreadful the picture is...the weird thing is, Christianity was generally presented as a good thing, but the idea that the damned won't even receive the mercy for death definitely trumps all of that. When I first learned of CI it seemed a veil was lifted, but as you'd expect I was paranoid of being led astray by so-called 'false teachers.' Many Christians I saw were paranoid/terrified of being 'led astray' by false teachers, so would confront any unorthodox teachings with suspicion. The thing is, everything suddenly made alot more sense. The problem now is I can't rest in the assurance that CI is true, let alone UR, even though I believe it is, because so many people still believe otherwise. There's no way I can go back to believing everything I used to as a child while retaining my sanity and without me feeling kind of cynical about it all. If God doesn't care to torture someone forever, why should we even make the effort to 'save' this person? And then it's supposed to be OUR fault when God can easily whisper in their ears and show himself to them? I'm sick of all that guilt, shifting the weight of somebody else's 'eternal destiny' to someone else while you're the one calling the shots?
Anyway, as I said, this has severely weakened my faith...added to that was my paranoia of blaspheming the Holy Spirit, the troubling feeling that Christ's return was indeed expected way back in the 1st century (that pesky 'generation' verse, as well as all the apostles clearly saying the 'time is near' and not in a 'near is 2000 years' kind of way), the fact that parts of the Bible ARE NOT scientific, and the implausibility that all people descended from a bunch of Hebrews). Btw if anyone has good answers to these questions (I've searched myself) that'd be much appreciated. My answer at this stage is to not take things so literally.
I think I've wasted my life worrying that I haven't really 'connected' with God much so to speak. My faith is still there but at times I do feel like giving up. I do wish there was a 'nicer' version, but at the same time I am a seeker of truth, whatever that is, above all. I wish I could remove all this emotional bull**** and get on with the other important stuff, but I can't. If the 'Orthodox Christian' version of reality is indeed true, than I want all of you to understand it will be a nightmare beyond your worse imaginings. You may look forward to Christ's return, but be aware that it will be terrible beyond your imagination for those who are not the elect. Suffering will be magnified in the 'Paradise' of this World to come, and their screams will fill your ears. How you can be just cool with this is the biggest mystery to me. How can people invent such ridiculous, spiteful and vengeful ideas is beyond me. My pastor would probably try to convince me this is the truth and I must accept it no matter what. What am I to do, become a zombie and submit? Why didn't God then just make me a robot in the first place if he wanted me to use my 'free will' to follow the line no matter what?
Basially you are free to beleive has you wish so why have something sinners tell you mean anything to your faith. Might be lookig for a reason for your own faith problems. Your problem is a lack of person faith :IMO.
I am a seeker of truth, whatever that is, above all. I wish I could remove all this emotional bull**** and get on with the other important stuff, but I can't.
You sound like a person who whines instead of a seeker of truth.
Of course you can remove all of this emotional bull. Just do it.
Don't listen to anyone else. Think for yourself. That's what the rest of us have done.
No. Not a whiner at all. Just a person who is seriously seeking.
It's easy to give up and to say "hell with it, what's the use? whatever, what will be, will be"
Not so easy to keep walking through it and seeking and searching despite the obstacles and rough terrain.
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
24,606 posts, read 55,891,938 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Phazelwood
Not really, I can personally attest to the fact that many times I do not like that God will manage to save the person who raped my niece.
My feelings will tell me what a great thing it will be if God will have his veangence on the rapist. It doesn't for the most part really bother me if that person goes to hell and never gets out.
However, I have to go with my spirit tells me is the true nature of a God who is love and what the scriptures testify to even if my feelings do not like it.
Personally I get tired of these baseless accusations from any side. Simply because you do not agree with a certain point of view does not mean it cannot be scripturally justified.
The scriptures do testify of a God who at the very least (althought, it is not least in any manner) desires to save all mankind.
There is absolutely nothing spiritually or scripturally wrong with a belief that those desires will be accomplished.
Indeed, ET is just as emotional as UR, the only difference is the emotions involved are hate and vengeance rather than love and forgiveness.
Here Tertullian, Polycarp, Iranaeus and the saints in the book of Revelation talk. Vengeance is what they seek from God, as if their happiness depended on it.
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