pattygreen

Every persons belief in something starts with their faith. Faith is not a tangible work. Once you believe, a relationship begins. It is true that after a person chooses to believe in God, that they then desire to obey him. But, it is not required for salvation. It would be best if they did obey him, because once they died, there will be a judgment and they will be disciplined for their deeds (or God may discipline them in some way now), but it is not a judgment of their salvation,(where they will spend their eternity) for that was settled once they chose to believe in Jesus, but it is a judgment of the deeds done in the flesh. It's like this: A man has a child. That child does many things aginst his fathers will. His father will discipline him, but will the child ever cease to be his child? No. He will always be his child. In America, we have turned our backs on God, therefore, he disciplines us. A father disciplines his children by removing blessings from them (privileges), bringing pain (spanking) or allowing consequences for their actions. When we allow things like Homosexuality to be legalized, there will be consequences for it. (AIDS, The breakdown of the family and its values, immorality among us, etc.) When we allow millions of unborn babies to be aborted, the consequences are a removal of His blessings upon us or they could be individual conseqyences.(My sisterinlaw had 3 abortions when she was young cause she wasn't ready to have kids yet, then when she wanted to have kids later in her life, she was unable to. I'm not saying that was definitely God's discipline for her, but it could have been.) When we took prayer out of schools,etc., God began to remove his blessings from us. "You don't want to know me or ask me to bless you? Fine."

Because Christianity does have a monopoly on that. There is no other faith out there except christianity that doesn't demand a person to 'work' (be good, follow laws, go door to door, recite prayers, etc.) for their salvation. Religion is man's way of working to receive an eternal place in Heaven, and Christianity is God's way, his gift to us, reaching down and saving man on no merit of his own. Simply God's grace extended to us. You will not be able to find a religion out there that doesn't expect you to 'work' or 'do' something to be saved. In Judaism, if the people observed the rules of the Torah, they expected to be saved. In the Islam religion, forgiveness is based on a combination of Allah's grace and muslims works. On the day of judgement, if a muslims good works outweigh his bad ones, and if Allah so allows it, he may be forgiven and then enter into Paradise. Their book says, "To those who do deeds of righteousness hath Allah promised forgiveness and a great reward." (Surah 5:9) God knew that man was not able to live without sin in their lives. We can't follow the laws. So, in his Grace and love for us, he provided a way for us to be saved.

Then it has duped billions of people who profess to have had the same spiritual infilling of the Holy Spirit come and live within them. They had this life changing experience and indeed have been changed. (2Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!") That is why I say that all the proof we can give to an unbeliever in Jesus is our own testimony as to the infilling of the Holy Spirit in our own lives. Every born again christian has a story to tell of how once they believed, God did this miracle within them and opened their eyes to the truth. This is why it is a matter of 'faith'.

Can you name me one?

For me, this was not the case. I was raised in the catholic religion. When I got older, I pondered God. I was enticed to read the bible to see if there was something more to this life that I was missing. The first time I ever opened the book, I read from John chapter 3, the story of Nicodemus about being born twice. I felt it was crazy. Like him, I replied "How can a man be born twice. Bull sh*t." Yet, I continued to read and before long, I was a believer. I began to comprehend the spiritual things because God's Holy Spirit came to live within me and opened my eyes to the truth. (needless to say, I left the catholic religion, cause once you have read the bible through, you 'see' where they filled you with a bunch of their own teachings, rules and doctrines- just like most religions) Christianity is not like that. It's a 'relationship' with God. All other religions require something of you. Some sort of work on your part. Not so with Christianity. Just a faith in Jesus. That's all.

I understand that for an unbeliever this is a hard teaching, but it is the truth. One thing I do know is that one can not entirely understand these spiritual things until they have been born spritually. This is why we christians call it being 'born again'. We once are born physically through our mothers womb, and then when we make the "choice" to believe in God, His Holy Spirit enters into us and lives within us and we are born (again) spiritually. He then will open your eyes to these truths and you will be able to understand the spiritual as well as the physical being. It's quite amazing actually. Many born again christians 'know' this enlightening of the Holy Spirit and have a family connection one to another because of it. This is why when we talk to those who have not believed yet, we understand because we were there once, too.

God is all knowing. He knows your past, your present, your future. He works in your life to show you who he is and to bring you to that point of decision. He said," It is not my will that any should perish." He desires for you to choose him. Although he knows already what the outcome for every life will be, he does not make the choice for you. So, yes, it is your free will to choose him or not. It all began at the beginning when God created the angels. There is a spiritual warfare going on that our eyes can not see. One of them (Lucifer) 'chose' to rebel against God. God cast him from Heaven to the Earth. He became the Ruler of this planet, and 1/3 of the angels (now known as demons) chose to follow him. When God created mankind and placed them on the earth, and they also disobeyed him, by following Lucifer's lead,(now known as Satan) God gave them their discipline for their disobedience to him. Death. Mankind was created to live eternally here, but once they sinned, God set a number of years onto their life and then they would die physically. During this lifetime God has given us, we are to ponder God and make a decision. Will you choose to follow God or Satan? Who will have your love and allegience? Yes, if you don't choose God, there is only one other choice. Satan. God says in the bible that if you don't follow Him, then you follow the Devil.

Love is a decision. "I choose to love my husband," "I choose to love my neighbor." " I choose to love my Creator." We have been given a free will by God in order to make that choice. God wants us to choose him. If you seek and pray and still come away unbelieving, then it's because that's what you have chosen. Faith is not a biological feature that some have. God tells us that he has given each one of us a measure of faith. He said, "if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can move mountains.", (simply meaning you can do anything) Therefore, not much faith is needed to become a believer.

Faith is just that. Faith. In Romans 10:17, God tells us that "Faith comes from hearing the message and the message is heard through the word of God." So, if anyone, including a skeptic, wants that faith, they must read the bible to get it, or hear others tell them what God says. Only you can decide to believe it, in faith, or not.

People can pray while they get on with the productivity of life. Praying people don't just sit around and do nothing but pray. The pray while they do everything else.

It will matter to you a great deal after you leave this earth.

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Lydiafree: "And besides, if your god is one that would send good people to suffer in torment for all eternity in hell because they did exactly as he planned, exactly as he created them to do, and exactly as he knew they would do - he's one right bastard."

Oh yeah, This was the forum I said I was done with. I came back and posted unaware, once i got the email. bye.

It's actually The bible (God) who tells people how to behave. Religion tells people how THEY think people should behave. Spirituality is an individuals concern with the inner spirit.

I can't remember who it was who said something to me when I said that "the wisdom of man is foolishness in God's eyes." They felt that to trust the bible over science was crazy. But I just thought of something to rebut that...... Many years ago, man thought that the world was flat. Yet the bible taught in Isaiah 40:22 "God sits enthroned above the 'circle' of the earth......" So, you see, there are many things that man thinks he has the answers for in his scientific wisdom, but God has the truth. Before man even knew the earth was round, God had already fortold that it was in his words to us. We would be wise to heed the rest of his words when considering what should be or shouldn't be acceptable laws in this Nation.

I don't want the government sticking their nose in my faith either, but I also don't want them removing God from this country every time they turn sround. It's funny how they took prayer out of our schools, yet open up their own day with it. They don't want our children to be taught bible lessons in school, yet in their courts, they swear upon it. They remove God from all public places, yet end each speech with "And may God Bless America". They just don't get it. The bible has been our moral guidebook ever since the country began. This country is blessed, not because the president says so in a speech every now and then, but because God teaches that "Blessed is the Nation whose God is the Lord." Their removal of Him from this country will eventually also remove his blessing.

Sorry, there's no coming back. But if I could, I'd like to be a skinny girl this time around. lol

Oh..... Then I should reply by saying that even though our founding fathers were no more moral than us, they had a christian faith and believed in Jesus. We are losing that. I understand that we will probably never get back to the way it once was, but I can hope and pray for it. When once a teachers biggest problem in school was gum chewing, today it is far more severe problems. I believe we have headed in this direction solely due to society turning their backs on God who is slowly removing his blessings from this country because of it.

The bible is the only infallible written word of God. I believe all that it states. There is an afterlife. That is the life that really counts. If I were to say that our time in Heaven after we die lasted approximately 100 years, you might say ,"well that's not too long, why should I dedicate my life to live for God for just a 100 year stint in Heaven. It's about equal to my lifetime here." And if I were to say that your time in heaven was 1000 years long, you may say," well, that's about 1/10 of my lifetime here." But if I were to tell you that your time in Heaven after you die lasts for infinity (eternally forever and ever), you may think that it would be a good idea to give up your life on earth (90 years or so)to live for God so that you could spend an eternity in Heaven. I would gladly live for God now and have an eternity in Heaven then reject him and live eternally without him forever and ever.. Besides, having a relationship with God now is a great blessing. His ways are wonderful. Everything he asks us to do and not to do is only for our own benefit. His desire for us is only for good and not evil. You can't go wrong. Now in this life and in the next. And beside that, He loves us so much. It's a win, win.

Just about every christian (and non christian) out there could bring you a list of their immorality. We are all sinners, and there is noone without sin in their life. What does that have to do with the fact that they were our founding fathers and that they set up a christian nation?

The bible does not say what you have said it says. God is against all of those things. Also, If you want to call me a slave, I do not mind. I love God and will obey him. And , yes, when He returns, "everyone" will bow down to him and confess that he is Lord. If you don't believe in him now, you will still bow to him. You won't be a 'slave' to him (as you call our obedience to him), you just won't be part of his heavenly kingdom that he is preparing for those who choose to love him. Mankind can choose to kneel down and worship their creator now, or be forced to kneel before Him later. It's best to do it now. He is the God of all the Earth, and it would be in everyones best interest to recognize that while they are alive now on this earth. There is an afterlife, you know.

Do muslims believe that Jesus is God? No, God did not intend America to be and remain a slave nation. Man did that. Just because man is a sinful being and doesn't always do what's right, doesn't negate the fact that God is real.

An atherist is putting his "faith" in his belief that there is no God. That sounds like a faith to me. When I get out of the bed in the morning, I put my faith in the fact that my feet will hold me up, I practice faith in my car when I apply the brakes. You are putting your faith in your belief, just as I put my faith in mine. Keeping God out of the public realm is akin to having atheist in control of this country. For they don't believe he exists and they don't want him in cluded in anything, laws, schools, public places, etc. Their 'faith' in No God rules.

I said before that the 1st amendment was written to protect the christian church from government interference, not the other way around as people have come to see it today. Did you completely ignore my post (#18) that shows the clear intent of the founding fathers when they set up our "Christian" gevernment?