Post by Gil on Oct 5, 2008 13:09:12 GMT -5
Alrighty. I just love this topic so much that I'm going to jump in and start from here, before I go back and read everything before this page 
So forgive me if I re-hash a few things that you guys may have already discussed ;P
So, (did I mention this earlier?) I am a Christian. What does that mean to me? Well, I could copy and paste my huge blog entry about my personal beliefs. Maybe I will do that, since it's already typed up Forgive me, it's long.
So those are my personal beliefs. Don't go ripping them apart, saying "that's not what the church says" or whatever. Because I'm just saying that's what I believe.
Anyway, at the blog I posted that on, most of my friends are atheists/agnostics. One of my good friends asked a really good question, that I'm sure some of you might be asking too.
Well, from the way I see it, when I was having my "super-scared-of-hell" stage in my late elementary/early middle school years, I really didn't understand what God meant. I was still worried that I had to somehow do something to get into Heaven. I was worried that somehow I wasn't "good enough"; didn't have enough faith, ect. But as I got older, I realized that wasn't true - that we don't HAVE to be anything to get into heaven, and so the fear went away. I realized that Heaven is a free gift of grace, all we have to do is accept it.
Now, moving on to the whole Hell issue. I have seen (from what I've read of this thread) a lot of people discussing how could a loving God ever condemn anyone to hell??? GREAT QUESTION. The answer: He doesn't.
"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." - John 3:17
God isn't saying "you, you, and you can come to heaven, but you, you, and you are bad. go to hell."
I think people have hit on this, but let me say it again. If Adam & Eve had never brought sin to the human race, we would all have spent eternity in heaven. No worries. Good to go. But since they brought sin to the human race, and sin just isn't ALLOWED in Heaven (not because God said so, but because it just isn't compatible. Heaven + sin = doesn't work). It's like one of the "physical laws of Heaven" or something =P HENCE (haha does that word even make sense here? I just like it xD), we need to somehow get rid of the sin. Solution - Jesus = perfect = dies and takes the penalty of sin (death - Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."). Now, for anyone who wants to get rid of the sin, they just have to accept Jesus' gift. Pretty easy right? Right.
OK, so that's the basics.
And this is a quote that I LOVE, from one of the most awesome guys living right now (Jon Foreman - lead singer of Switchfoot. Just love him!). It's actually a letter/note in response to a question a girl asked him about "being relevant in the current culture":
I love what he says at the end "Christ will never be cool..." because it's true. It's obvious by just looking at this thread. Some people are going to disagree, deny His divinity, His holiness, His teachings, His worth, His importance, until their dying day. And if that's what you truly believe, then so be it. That's you're own choice. But that doesn't mean that Christ is any less divine, holy, worthy, or important. It doesn't mean that His followers should keep quiet. I know this is going to make me unpopular with some of you. You may think I'm arrogant, saying that "Jesus is the only way". But that's what He said himself. And if I'm going to believe one part of Him, I'm going to believe it all.
Another great quote by CS Lewis goes like this:
CS Lewis is (as I'm sure most of you could agree) a brilliant writer, who can articulate his thoughts very well. And if you ever take the time to read his book Mere Christianity, you could have a lot of your questions answered much better than if I tried to answer them for you. He is NOT trying to convert anyone in the book - He is just explaining what it means to be a Christian, and what we believe. He addresses the Hell questions, the questions about people who have never heard of Christ, sins, faith, the reality of God (based on philosophy), and so much more. Not to mention, since he's a great writer, the book's interesting
OK, so I'm just throwing out random thoughts here, but that's what I have to say for now. Feel free to let me know if I left a few thoughts completely unfinished, and I'll try to clear them up xD
[edit] When I type up really long things like this, my punctuation and sentence-structure tends to go to crap, so forgive me
So forgive me if I re-hash a few things that you guys may have already discussed ;PSo, (did I mention this earlier?) I am a Christian. What does that mean to me? Well, I could copy and paste my huge blog entry about my personal beliefs. Maybe I will do that, since it's already typed up
Forgive me, it's long.Let me start out with a little bit of background - I was raised in a Christian home, but we never have really talked about God at home. More recently we have, now that my brother and I are really involved in our church, but when I was in elementary school and early middle school, we only mentioned God on Christmas, ect, and not in great depth. I went to sunday school occasionally, whenever my mom felt like taking my brother and I to church, but my dad (I have since found out) does not believe in God (or maybe he does, but it is a strange scientific thought thing going on with him...I don't even know. He's just weird lol) so he never came, and so, because of my dad, my mom didn't make church a huge priority in our life or anything. I believed in God (as most little kids who go to church sometimes do), knew the basic Bible stories...whatever.
Then when I was maybe 10 or 11, I went to my first overnight summer camp at a Christian Bible camp in Northern Michigan. There is where I first heard what I would call the Gospel - the message that we have all sinned, fall short of the glory of God, and we can't get to heaven on our own - by good works or otherwise. The only way is through Jesus and putting your life in his hands. This news shocked me. I always thought I just had to be a pretty good kid, and that only really really bad people went to hell. But after hearing that it wasn't so, I gave my life to Christ - I prayed for Him to be the Lord of my life and that He would save me when I die.
Years went by...I bought a Bible, starting getting devotional books, trying to figure this whole "God thing" out. In 6th grade, I started going to youth group, but after just a few weeks, I was TERRIFIED of my youth pastor. I always felt like I was going to Hell...he talked about faith and Jesus so much, and I became unsure of myself, of my commitment to God. So I stopped going to youth group. I continued to read my Bible and do devotions on my own, but I constantly struggled with a fear that I wasn't going to go to heaven. Almost every night, I would lie awake in bed, wondering, "What if Jesus returns tonight? What if I don't go to heaven?" I would pray but lie in fear. I also struggled with the verse that said "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." I remember asking my mom, "How can I love God more than you?" I couldn't picture ever loving anyone more than my mom (I used to be EXTREMELY attached to her - I was a mommy's girl - not a daddy's girl).
Then, in 7th grade, I thought I'd try youth group one more time. I really enjoyed it this time around. I had grown in my faith over my year break, and I now had closer friends from school that also went to my youth group. Then, the winter of my 7th grade year, I went on a retreat with yg (youth group - I'll use yg from now on cause it's easier) where I met our new youth pastor (who is still our pastor today - Karl). He was such a FUN, awesome guy, and I loved him! I also loved hearing him speak and teach. That weekend, I learned so much about who God really was, and how I don't need to be afraid. I think I might have recommitted my life to Christ subconsciously, and my constant fear of death and hell finally disappeared that weekend.
After that retreat, my life gradually centered more and more around the God I called my own - around Jesus. I came to yg with excitement now, and I looked forward to more retreats! I got to know Karl and his teachings changed my life. My fear was gone, and a deep love for Christ began to grow in my life.
Continue in this manner until my freshman year of high school. That fall/winter, I learned about a mission's trip that would be heading to Poland that next summer! I had always wanted to go to Europe, so I signed up right away. I knew that it would be a great faith-building experience, but to be honest, I just wanted to travel. But I signed up, and preparation for the trip began in the spring. The group that was going began meeting regularly to pray, learn about Poland, plan what we were doing, get to know each other, fund raise, and just prepare in general. Then we went to Poland...
Poland really did change my life. I learned the POWER of prayer while I was there. I told my "testimony" (the story of how I came to Christ) in front of the entire English Camp we were working at - the first time I had ever shared my testimony with anyone! I made lifelong friendships. I realized what it meant to give Jesus my ALL.
And now this past year - from Poland to this summer to now, has been amazing. I have changed and grown so much. Now I can truly say that I love my Lord and my God - Jesus - more than ANYTHING else. He is EVERYTHING to me, and my heart swells up with love just thinking of Him. I have had so many rough, down patches in my life, these past years since I first came to know Christ, when I just didn't care. I was sinning, not spending any time at all in His Word or in prayer...I knew that I needed to come back to Him, but I didn't even have the motivation to try. I didn't care enough. But I would pray, feebly as it was, for God to take me back, to burn my heart for Him. And even though sometimes I wondered if He was listening, I have always been brought back.
The past few months especially have been a huge growing time for me. After reading The Shack by William P. Young these past few weeks (I started it in the middle of August but didn't finish until a few nights ago), my view of God has been completely redefined. I realized how much of a box I've been putting him in. And although I don't agree with everything this book says, I definitely learned a lot about the depth and power of God's love. And that is really what is making me fall even more in love with him...
So now a brief rundown of my actual beliefs, not just who I am
I believe that there is one God - Yahweh, Abba, I AM, Jehovah, Lord - and that He is a complex being of three - the Father, Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit. I believe that Jesus was a man - and God - who was born to this earth by the virgin Mary, and preformed miracles and taught people God's truth for approximately 33 years before he was nailed to a cross, dying for our sins. Without His death, we could never, never have life. And on the third day, I believe that his tomb was empty, and he had rose again. After appearing to various disciples, he ascended into heaven and is still living there today. Someday, tonight, tomorrow, or maybe in 1000 years, Jesus will return, this time not as a lowly Jewish carpenter's son, but as the King of Creation. I will not continue on that vain because I have not studied the book of Revelation enough to have concrete answers concerning the Rapture ect.
I believe that when Jesus died from our sins, he released us. We are no longer held under the law. We do not have to try and "follow all the rules" to get into heaven - we would never be able to anyway. The only way to spend eternity with Our Father is to accept that Jesus Christ is our Lord, and to LIVE our life for him, and to ask him to live inside of us, through us, by his Holy Spirit. Ask him to forgive us our sins, and have faith that we are clean through the blood of the lamb.
I don't believe that you can become "unsaved" - once you have Jesus in your life, he will never leave. It doesn't matter what you've done, what you are doing, or what you will do in the future, God will always love us and if we ask Him to, He'll forgive us. We just need to trust in the blood of Jesus.
And finally, I believe that life, creation, the universe itself is ALL about HIM^^! It took me awhile to grasp this, to understand what it all meant. You can't get it all at once - it is a growing process. And I'm still growing. But the more I grow & learn, the more I realize God's power, his importance, and that he is calling me to do whatever he asks. His will is perfect, and I will trust in that. For if God is for me, who can be against me? The only point of this life is to serve him and tell others about the wonderful, glorious things he has done. And once I am gone from this earth, I will be spending ETERNITY with him! How AWESOME is that??? I can't wait!! For what could be better than spending eternity with the perfect God who loves you more than you could ever even comprehend??
lol) so he never came, and so, because of my dad, my mom didn't make church a huge priority in our life or anything. I believed in God (as most little kids who go to church sometimes do), knew the basic Bible stories...whatever.Then when I was maybe 10 or 11, I went to my first overnight summer camp at a Christian Bible camp in Northern Michigan. There is where I first heard what I would call the Gospel - the message that we have all sinned, fall short of the glory of God, and we can't get to heaven on our own - by good works or otherwise. The only way is through Jesus and putting your life in his hands. This news shocked me. I always thought I just had to be a pretty good kid, and that only really really bad people went to hell. But after hearing that it wasn't so, I gave my life to Christ - I prayed for Him to be the Lord of my life and that He would save me when I die.
Years went by...I bought a Bible, starting getting devotional books, trying to figure this whole "God thing" out. In 6th grade, I started going to youth group, but after just a few weeks, I was TERRIFIED of my youth pastor. I always felt like I was going to Hell...he talked about faith and Jesus so much, and I became unsure of myself, of my commitment to God. So I stopped going to youth group. I continued to read my Bible and do devotions on my own, but I constantly struggled with a fear that I wasn't going to go to heaven. Almost every night, I would lie awake in bed, wondering, "What if Jesus returns tonight? What if I don't go to heaven?" I would pray but lie in fear. I also struggled with the verse that said "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." I remember asking my mom, "How can I love God more than you?" I couldn't picture ever loving anyone more than my mom (I used to be EXTREMELY attached to her - I was a mommy's girl - not a daddy's girl
).Then, in 7th grade, I thought I'd try youth group one more time. I really enjoyed it this time around. I had grown in my faith over my year break, and I now had closer friends from school that also went to my youth group. Then, the winter of my 7th grade year, I went on a retreat with yg (youth group - I'll use yg from now on cause it's easier) where I met our new youth pastor (who is still our pastor today - Karl). He was such a FUN, awesome guy, and I loved him! I also loved hearing him speak and teach. That weekend, I learned so much about who God really was, and how I don't need to be afraid. I think I might have recommitted my life to Christ subconsciously, and my constant fear of death and hell finally disappeared that weekend.
After that retreat, my life gradually centered more and more around the God I called my own - around Jesus. I came to yg with excitement now, and I looked forward to more retreats! I got to know Karl and his teachings changed my life. My fear was gone, and a deep love for Christ began to grow in my life.
Continue in this manner until my freshman year of high school. That fall/winter, I learned about a mission's trip that would be heading to Poland that next summer! I had always wanted to go to Europe, so I signed up right away. I knew that it would be a great faith-building experience, but to be honest, I just wanted to travel. But I signed up, and preparation for the trip began in the spring. The group that was going began meeting regularly to pray, learn about Poland, plan what we were doing, get to know each other, fund raise, and just prepare in general. Then we went to Poland...
Poland really did change my life. I learned the POWER of prayer while I was there. I told my "testimony" (the story of how I came to Christ) in front of the entire English Camp we were working at - the first time I had ever shared my testimony with anyone! I made lifelong friendships. I realized what it meant to give Jesus my ALL.
And now this past year - from Poland to this summer to now, has been amazing. I have changed and grown so much. Now I can truly say that I love my Lord and my God - Jesus - more than ANYTHING else. He is EVERYTHING to me, and my heart swells up with love just thinking of Him. I have had so many rough, down patches in my life, these past years since I first came to know Christ, when I just didn't care. I was sinning, not spending any time at all in His Word or in prayer...I knew that I needed to come back to Him, but I didn't even have the motivation to try. I didn't care enough. But I would pray, feebly as it was, for God to take me back, to burn my heart for Him. And even though sometimes I wondered if He was listening, I have always been brought back.
The past few months especially have been a huge growing time for me. After reading The Shack by William P. Young these past few weeks (I started it in the middle of August but didn't finish until a few nights ago), my view of God has been completely redefined. I realized how much of a box I've been putting him in. And although I don't agree with everything this book says, I definitely learned a lot about the depth and power of God's love. And that is really what is making me fall even more in love with him...
So now a brief rundown of my actual beliefs, not just who I am
I believe that there is one God - Yahweh, Abba, I AM, Jehovah, Lord - and that He is a complex being of three - the Father, Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit. I believe that Jesus was a man - and God - who was born to this earth by the virgin Mary, and preformed miracles and taught people God's truth for approximately 33 years before he was nailed to a cross, dying for our sins. Without His death, we could never, never have life. And on the third day, I believe that his tomb was empty, and he had rose again. After appearing to various disciples, he ascended into heaven and is still living there today. Someday, tonight, tomorrow, or maybe in 1000 years, Jesus will return, this time not as a lowly Jewish carpenter's son, but as the King of Creation. I will not continue on that vain because I have not studied the book of Revelation enough to have concrete answers concerning the Rapture ect.
I believe that when Jesus died from our sins, he released us. We are no longer held under the law. We do not have to try and "follow all the rules" to get into heaven - we would never be able to anyway. The only way to spend eternity with Our Father is to accept that Jesus Christ is our Lord, and to LIVE our life for him, and to ask him to live inside of us, through us, by his Holy Spirit. Ask him to forgive us our sins, and have faith that we are clean through the blood of the lamb.
I don't believe that you can become "unsaved" - once you have Jesus in your life, he will never leave. It doesn't matter what you've done, what you are doing, or what you will do in the future, God will always love us and if we ask Him to, He'll forgive us. We just need to trust in the blood of Jesus.
And finally, I believe that life, creation, the universe itself is ALL about HIM^^! It took me awhile to grasp this, to understand what it all meant. You can't get it all at once - it is a growing process. And I'm still growing. But the more I grow & learn, the more I realize God's power, his importance, and that he is calling me to do whatever he asks. His will is perfect, and I will trust in that. For if God is for me, who can be against me? The only point of this life is to serve him and tell others about the wonderful, glorious things he has done. And once I am gone from this earth, I will be spending ETERNITY with him! How AWESOME is that??? I can't wait!! For what could be better than spending eternity with the perfect God who loves you more than you could ever even comprehend??
So those are my personal beliefs. Don't go ripping them apart, saying "that's not what the church says" or whatever. Because I'm just saying that's what I believe.
Anyway, at the blog I posted that on, most of my friends are atheists/agnostics. One of my good friends asked a really good question, that I'm sure some of you might be asking too.
What do you think about a religion/god that made you live in fear for a time as a child (if I've understood correctly)?
Well, from the way I see it, when I was having my "super-scared-of-hell" stage in my late elementary/early middle school years, I really didn't understand what God meant. I was still worried that I had to somehow do something to get into Heaven. I was worried that somehow I wasn't "good enough"; didn't have enough faith, ect. But as I got older, I realized that wasn't true - that we don't HAVE to be anything to get into heaven, and so the fear went away. I realized that Heaven is a free gift of grace, all we have to do is accept it.
Now, moving on to the whole Hell issue. I have seen (from what I've read of this thread) a lot of people discussing how could a loving God ever condemn anyone to hell??? GREAT QUESTION. The answer: He doesn't.
"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." - John 3:17
God isn't saying "you, you, and you can come to heaven, but you, you, and you are bad. go to hell."
I think people have hit on this, but let me say it again. If Adam & Eve had never brought sin to the human race, we would all have spent eternity in heaven. No worries. Good to go. But since they brought sin to the human race, and sin just isn't ALLOWED in Heaven (not because God said so, but because it just isn't compatible. Heaven + sin = doesn't work). It's like one of the "physical laws of Heaven" or something =P HENCE (haha does that word even make sense here? I just like it xD), we need to somehow get rid of the sin. Solution - Jesus = perfect = dies and takes the penalty of sin (death - Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."). Now, for anyone who wants to get rid of the sin, they just have to accept Jesus' gift. Pretty easy right? Right.
OK, so that's the basics.
And this is a quote that I LOVE, from one of the most awesome guys living right now (Jon Foreman - lead singer of Switchfoot. Just love him!). It's actually a letter/note in response to a question a girl asked him about "being relevant in the current culture":
Hi tonya,
thanks for your thoughtful question. I like where you're coming from- trying to get at the heart of what it means to be a believer and how to best spend our time here on the planet. I don't recall ever saying that we want to be "relevant to our current culture" but it's certainly a tag we've received from others at times. here's my thoughts on the subject:
to begin, let's separate the talk about content and language for a moment.
content first: I want to create art that has timeless transcendence shining through, art that is true. It seems to me that if the subject matter is an attempt to be "relevant" it might as well be an act. There's nothing wrong with acting but I'm a horrible actor! I'm not interested. For this I meditate and pray that God would give me his words, the words that were true before time began.
language: For communication reasons, language has to be understood- current, "relevant." We need to use metaphors and icons that will be meaningful to the folks around us. We need to dive into what it means to be alive in the house, alive in the community, alive in our country. We need to invest deeply in the folks around us and give them love in ways that are meaningful to them.
the paragraph that you included says, "imagine what would have happened had they spent their time studying and conferencing about the pagan world around them." Maybe we've forgotten that paul himself studied up on greek gods. When he started his appeal for Christ in Athens he began like this: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you." So he did his homework and began with common ground.
I agree with you that our current western church (including myself from time to time) is far too interested in being cool, being trendy, being relevant. But these folks might be doing the same thing you're hoping to do: namely, trying to figure out what it means to be a believer in the here and now. So talk to them about it. We can't resort to throwing rocks at the things we don't understand... especially other believers. The hand needs the foot needs the mouth needs the ear. And we all need the mind of christ. We're called to love each other and love never goes out of fashion.
Christ will never be cool. Terrifying, life-changing, shocking,
and iconoclastic, but never cool. Jesus is not my homeboy. The Gospel will always be "relevant" but never trendy.
peace,
jon
thanks for your thoughtful question. I like where you're coming from- trying to get at the heart of what it means to be a believer and how to best spend our time here on the planet. I don't recall ever saying that we want to be "relevant to our current culture" but it's certainly a tag we've received from others at times. here's my thoughts on the subject:
to begin, let's separate the talk about content and language for a moment.
content first: I want to create art that has timeless transcendence shining through, art that is true. It seems to me that if the subject matter is an attempt to be "relevant" it might as well be an act. There's nothing wrong with acting but I'm a horrible actor! I'm not interested. For this I meditate and pray that God would give me his words, the words that were true before time began.
language: For communication reasons, language has to be understood- current, "relevant." We need to use metaphors and icons that will be meaningful to the folks around us. We need to dive into what it means to be alive in the house, alive in the community, alive in our country. We need to invest deeply in the folks around us and give them love in ways that are meaningful to them.
the paragraph that you included says, "imagine what would have happened had they spent their time studying and conferencing about the pagan world around them." Maybe we've forgotten that paul himself studied up on greek gods. When he started his appeal for Christ in Athens he began like this: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you." So he did his homework and began with common ground.
I agree with you that our current western church (including myself from time to time) is far too interested in being cool, being trendy, being relevant. But these folks might be doing the same thing you're hoping to do: namely, trying to figure out what it means to be a believer in the here and now. So talk to them about it. We can't resort to throwing rocks at the things we don't understand... especially other believers. The hand needs the foot needs the mouth needs the ear. And we all need the mind of christ. We're called to love each other and love never goes out of fashion.
Christ will never be cool. Terrifying, life-changing, shocking,
and iconoclastic, but never cool. Jesus is not my homeboy. The Gospel will always be "relevant" but never trendy.
peace,
jon
I love what he says at the end "Christ will never be cool..." because it's true. It's obvious by just looking at this thread. Some people are going to disagree, deny His divinity, His holiness, His teachings, His worth, His importance, until their dying day. And if that's what you truly believe, then so be it. That's you're own choice. But that doesn't mean that Christ is any less divine, holy, worthy, or important. It doesn't mean that His followers should keep quiet. I know this is going to make me unpopular with some of you. You may think I'm arrogant, saying that "Jesus is the only way". But that's what He said himself. And if I'm going to believe one part of Him, I'm going to believe it all.
Another great quote by CS Lewis goes like this:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a good moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great moral teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
CS Lewis is (as I'm sure most of you could agree) a brilliant writer, who can articulate his thoughts very well. And if you ever take the time to read his book Mere Christianity, you could have a lot of your questions answered much better than if I tried to answer them for you. He is NOT trying to convert anyone in the book - He is just explaining what it means to be a Christian, and what we believe. He addresses the Hell questions, the questions about people who have never heard of Christ, sins, faith, the reality of God (based on philosophy), and so much more. Not to mention, since he's a great writer, the book's interesting
OK, so I'm just throwing out random thoughts here, but that's what I have to say for now. Feel free to let me know if I left a few thoughts completely unfinished, and I'll try to clear them up xD
[edit] When I type up really long things like this, my punctuation and sentence-structure tends to go to crap, so forgive me
Your post was a very interesting read. It's great that you can find happiness in your religion, and I also respect that you aren't a Christian just because you're afraid of going to hell. Probably too many people do that nowadays.
