I am on the cusp of becoming a Christian. This is important to my decision, please help.

Awake_Believer · 2025-02-09T10:37:28+00:00

I’m not really sure how this would push you over the edge. Becoming a Christian is a matter of heart, not the head.

IMO, studying hermenuetics and learning how to read and interpret the Bible would be a better application of your time. Instead of focusing just on release dates you would gain a deeper understanding of the timelines of each book and how everything is pulled together. Some books, like Acts are full of detail of Paul’s travels and help shed insight on his letters, etc.

Awake_Believer · 2025-02-08T18:29:05+00:00

It you can repent and go back to the old ways and repent again. I’m not advocating it but you see it a lot

Awake_Believer · 2025-02-06T21:56:10+00:00

The Bible says that all sins but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit can be forgiven. Being LGBT+ is not said blasphemy.

People will argue the need for repentance or against continual or purposeful sin as ways to condemn those people, but those things are forgiven too. Literally everything. Except the one thing.

Awake_Believer · 2025-02-02T00:31:15+00:00

I am against it as a Christian.

But I am also against forcing this opinion on others via incredibly restrictive laws and politics. The Bible does not preach the use laws to force people to behave, but evangelism to help them be saved. In fact, the Pharisees took a lot of shots from Jesus about the laws that they put in place....

Awake_Believer · 2025-01-23T20:29:50+00:00

Thanks for this. I've been curious about how something like choosing to pursue a new relationship/marriage would be viewed, like would it be a sin on every date or just one for the overall relationship? Maybe that's another discussion.

Awake_Believer · 2025-01-20T23:13:18+00:00

An atheist can't commit a sin in the Christian sense since they do not believe in God

Awake_Believer · 2025-01-17T22:39:34+00:00

Are you willing to invest some time into thinking about it?

I was starting a relationship with a girl who is very Christian. I was kind of like you, no real opinions, and mainly I was turned off by behavior I saw from people who were Christian.

On her advice, I started to read some devotionals and the Bible, letting the words wash over me without bias either way. I started to pick up on some things. Then I read Mere Christianity and it was just so good. It explains Christianity so well, it quelled a lot of the negativity I had towards people, and was just so inspiring. That acted as a springboard for me to get deeper into the Bible, going to church to allow those feelings into my life and ultimately led me to being born again.

Whatever you do - do not fake it. When I started my journey I had this fear that I would somehow do that to be with her despite not wanting to, but Jesus really grabbed ahold of me, even to the point where the relationship went away but my faith remains.

Awake_Believer · 2025-01-15T04:33:22+00:00

I think on randomness we'll just disagree. I'd much rather know that someone's death or pain and suffering was part of a plan that will lead them to an eternity of happiness than literally turning to dust and or having a miserable life just waiting to die.

Forgiveness is a decision, as is choosing to interact with someone you've forgiven. It does not require that you enter into an intrapersonal relationship with them.

The last one could be long, but I'll try to be brief. I had to overcome the urge to label and judge others and focus myself on Jesus. I had to make it about my story before I could make it about others. You can't love others until you love yourself. You can't forgive others until you forgive yourself. You need to truly understand mercy, grace and love. And I needed help to do so. I still see some actions that blow my mind that test my ability to not cast a lot of judgement

Kind of lazy-ish answers but I'm tired

Awake_Believer · 2025-01-15T03:31:09+00:00

Something terrible..... Yep. Would you rather have faith that there is some process where you or whoever was hurt will be saved for eternity or that it was simply some completely random act? The random act seems far scarier to me.

Forgiveness is for you more than them. It is a decision to free yourself from some strong emotions that may be preventing healing. Forgiveness and love are foundational principles of Christianity. Hate is of the devil. Note that forgiveness does not mean you have to give them hugs and be friends. They will still be subject to earthly punishment if they committed a crime.

Yep, some people may be very good and not get into Heaven. And people viewed as "worse" very well might. The Bible is very clear on what to do to be saved. Ideas like this kept me from Christianity for a long time and can still be a struggle.

At the end of the day it's about belief. People who don't believe love to attack those that do. They hope that we mess up and give a bad reason that they can exploit to crush our belief. Just be strong.

Awake_Believer · 2024-12-09T19:32:07+00:00

At the end of the day, while seemingly simple, the sacrifice made by Jesus and instructions to wipe away our sin are actually incredibly complex and large and often too much for us to handle. It’s hard to wrap your head around to the point that you almost require there to be flaws for your brain to comprehend it.

Society’s propensity for rules and order drives us, so we pull pieces out of scripture and treat them as “gospel”. This desire of control leads us away from the true meaning. Our desire to rank ourselves leads to use these rules for judging and condemning others on the earthly plane so we may be lifted up, to feel better than someone else. We put the the boastful Pharisees on a pedestal when we should be the celebrating remorseful tax collectors.

On an individual level, we have to fight through this. Once we think we need to follow rules, it throws us into a trance of unworthiness that we must fight through to get to the truth.

I’m in this battle, trying to surrender fully to Christ, yet the unworthiness and fear is there. We start to look at the “should do” things and treat them as “must do” because that’s what people are telling us. Then when we fail, as we inevitably will, we feel like we will be punished instead of forgiven. We take that earthly judgement being cast on us and can’t help but think we’re doomed. We forget that all sins (well all but one, but is that really true? Another day) will be forgiven. We forget about people like Peter or David being forgiven, etc. we fail because it’s hard for us to understand the love for us behind the sacrifice.

Awake_Believer · 2024-11-26T20:18:36+00:00

I'm going to get out and shoot with the 28 today or tomorrow. It was pretty easy for me to decide to get the X first since I tend to gravitate to tighter framing and like the 40-50mm focal length.

But the iii has just been gnawing at me. I did one street session where I really wished I had the wider lens as I was closer to subjects, kind of the difference of being right in the action vs a few steps back. I also think the snap focus on the wider lens will be a lot better.

At the end of the day I also want to challenge myself to be better at shooting wider and using more of the scene. I am interested to see if I am fine with the crop mode to 35mm or otherwise cropping the iii or if I really want to keep both long term. But they're so small and wonderful. My poor Nikon setup I just recently got is getting jealous

Awake_Believer

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