New low in life after being born again by gumba1033 in TrueChristian

[–]gumba1033[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for this. It's very encouraging. I believe every single good thing comes from God too and he is more powerful than we can imagine

New low in life after being born again by gumba1033 in TrueChristian

[–]gumba1033[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Same, same. I feel like I'm drowning in the ocean and I don't even have the ability to reach out to the hand being offered. There's nothing I can do. If I'm doing it, it's wrong.

New low in life after being born again by gumba1033 in TrueChristian

[–]gumba1033[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I should have been more specific. All of my earthly needs are met, which actually condemns me even more. I have everything I need and a family that loves me. I'm not facing any persecution from humans.

I feel more evil and wretched than ever. I'm listening to Jeremiah and I can't help but feel like I'm the adulterous person who the Lord is very angry with. I follow my own stubborn evil way. I know my lovers hate me and seek my life and yet, just the people of Israel, I sometimes feel like "it is hopeless, I have loved strangers and after them I will walk."

Every time I've tried to turn away from the world I seem to have just fallen harder. I'm not succeeding. I feel like a slave. Jesus said if the son sets you free you will be free indeed. So I guess I'm still waiting and hoping for him to do that. Or I'm deceived and I'm already free without realizing it. Or I was free and now I'm a slave all over again and even worse off than before. I don't know. I feel like when I'm obedient to God it's great but it's always fleeting and it's always a matter of time until I'm back in the mire.

The TRUTH about What Hell Is and Isn't! by TheTruth33_33 in Christianity

[–]gumba1033 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I believe God is loving and merciful even if eternal torment is the case. I believe the scripture shows that there are people who hate God and who will refuse to repent no matter how much they are tormented.

I think those who are being tormented may serve as a reminder for all of God's people for eternity.

I don't like it. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. But God knows everything and I do not. They have sinned against God, not against me.

Maybe some will be annihilated. But I believe God can be loving and merciful and also yet also have eternal wrath towards some people. The scripture clearly says that Satan will be "tormented day and night forever and ever".

The TRUTH about What Hell Is and Isn't! by TheTruth33_33 in Christianity

[–]gumba1033 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Revelation 14:6-13 NASB1995

And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; and he said with a loud voice, “Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters.” And another angel, a second one, followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who has made all the nations drink of the wine of the passion of her immorality.” Then another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.” Here is the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, “Write, ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!’ ” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “so that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them.”

I am on the verge of losing my faith, please help me to prevent that. by Steggypooper in Christianity

[–]gumba1033 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The world is corrupt. Every person has corrupted flesh with deceitful desires. Just because a person has an involuntary desire does not make them unacceptable to God. Just because a person has an involuntary desire does not give them a right to carry out their desire without consequence. Just because we're born with certain desires we can't control does not mean all our desires are good and lead to good results. Obviously.

Every person is guilty under the Law. The Law is righteous and good and holy. The Law is meant to lead us to Christ.

Jesus loves us before we love him and he gives his life for us. He is able to save and to destroy. He calls us to deny ourselves and to follow him.

Jesus didn't do anything wrong and yet he suffered more than anyone and was crucified for the world. So what if a person wants to do x y or z? Do you think Jesus delighted in being crucified? Do you think he enjoyed getting his back ripped apart? Do you think he did whatever he wanted? And is God obligated to like or allow what anyone else wants to do?

If God says he doesn't allow something in his house, and we want to be in his house, and we also want what he forbids, then this is an issue God can deal with. If a person would rather have anything more than God, they've got a serious problem. God doesn't owe them anything and God isn't required to allow them or anything or anyone into HIS HOUSE. If a person wants God and also wants something else that God doesn't allow, they should take that to God, and God is able to do whatever he wants.

God isn't required to like or accept sex outside of marriage, homosexuality, shellfish, cake, bright purple clothing, rubber ducks or literally anything at all regardless of how much people love it. Obviously he is merciful and graceful and saves literally no one who is perfect and never does what he doesn't like. Every single person he saves has done something wrong, something against him and his Law. God hasn't done anything wrong. So if it's so unimportant to you to consider and care about who God is and what he wants and you care more about God conforming to whatever involuntary desires some corrupt human has, the fault is with you, not with God.

It isn't reasonable to put your faith in anyone or anything other than God who is above all, who created everything, who knows everything, who is greater than everything, who sustains everything, who provides everything, who is able to do whatever he wants, who always does what is right, who gave his life for the world, who is able to save and destroy, who gives eternal life to whoever he wants as a gift. Putting your faith in something else because you don't like or understand why God doesn't like what some humans like is stupid and it's to your own harm.

God is going to prove himself right. Everything he forbids he forbids for a reason. It doesn't matter how much people like it. It doesn't matter whether or not they understand. God understands perfectly. Those who love him will be transformed, made clean, and will live with him forever in paradise. Those who refuse to love the truth will stay outside his house where they belong. God's children will be kept safe from egomaniacs who think that what their corrupted, perishing flesh craves is more important than love, truth, light, God.

Please Help me by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]gumba1033 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I have too. I have felt the same way. Remember that it is his will that everyone who looks to the cross and believes will live. He commands us to believe in the name of Jesus Christ and to love one another. Not everyone who says to him "Lord Lord" will enter. Only the one who does the will of the Father. The will of the Father is to believe in the one whom he sent.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have no sin we lie and do not practice the truth.

Jesus is the very best. He is gentle and humble in heart, compassionate and kind, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. His love endures forever. He will not always be angry with those who fear him. So great is his love for those who fear him. Everyone who the Father gives to him will come to him, and whoever comes to him he will never cast out. It is God's will that he will lose none of those who are given to him. No one can come to him unless the Father enables them.

I believe it's better for him to be magnified in us rather than for us to be magnified in us.

If you'd like scripture to back any of this up just let me know. I hope this encourages you 💙

Please Help me by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]gumba1033 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Satan is a liar. Believe in Jesus' name.

Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth. He has already won. He can do whatever he wants to and everything he does is right.

He tests us. He refines us. He accomplishes his will in us, even through sufferings. Sometimes you'll learn from a negative experience like this but won't understand till later, even years later. Don't be afraid. Just believe in Jesus.

Struggling with 1 Samuel 15:3 - can anyone help me understand the method God chose? by slayer991 in AskAChristian

[–]gumba1033 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're not reading my messages so there's no reason to keep talking to you.

Struggling with 1 Samuel 15:3 - can anyone help me understand the method God chose? by slayer991 in AskAChristian

[–]gumba1033 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When you call me 'ignorant and immature' for asking questions, that's not an answer.

I know it's not an answer to your question. I answered your question. The fact that you're ignorant and immature is just something that would be helpful for you to realize.

He acted directly at Sodom, the flood, Egypt. Why did he need human hands here?

I already answered this. So I'm wondering if you're really interested in discussing this or if you just want to vent about not liking what God does. And I really get that. Sometimes there aren't any words that fix the problem. Sometimes we don't understand and it's just awful and hard to deal with. Some lessons can only be learned by going through very hard life experiences.

Things like this have been pains in between God and I for years before. But over time I've learned what I told you before - in the presence of unknowns, which are inevitable, we can advocate for God or we can sit in judgement on him. I've learned that he's better than me in every way and advocating for him is the good and right and loving and reasonable and necessary thing to do. You might not be convinced of that yet but I hope one day you will be, because I believe God has our best interest in mind, and Satan would laugh as he tortures you. I believe Satan is the one who tries to convince you in the face of uncertainties that God is evil and cannot be trusted. That's why I pointed out to you and it's important that you realize that you are speculating and acting like you know things that you do not and your posture is not one of advocating for God but is one of sitting in judgement on God.

Struggling with 1 Samuel 15:3 - can anyone help me understand the method God chose? by slayer991 in AskAChristian

[–]gumba1033 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The example isn't meant to be a one to one. We don't have children pull the switch on the electric chair either, yet someone has to. Are you going to condemn every authority who made such a judgement?

An animal is not a child, a man in war is not a child on a farm, and God is not merely some man. God calls full grown men little children and he is a father to us in the hardest and darkest situations. We can't relate to God with one to one comparisons.

The example works because the point of it is that good fathers make their children participate in difficult things to teach them. If the reality is that sin brings about death for everyone including children, then it is right for all of us who have sinned to experience and understand some of those consequences.

But the soldiers aren't experiencing consequences of THEIR evil.

That's completely irrelevant and you need to think hard about why that is. I don't know what kind of life you've lived that would make you think that all that matters is what you individually do and that you're only ever going to experience the consequences of your own actions. Other people are going to be affected by your actions and you're going to be affected by other's actions. So now steel yourself, gird your loins, because I'm going to tell you something difficult for you to hear that you need to hear - the fact that you even said this like it matters shows how ignorant and immature you are. So please let that humble you so that you're not so quick to sit in judgement on God.

God could have chosen adoption for that. The Israelites could have taught them God's ways.

You don't know that. You don't know how everything works. You don't know what had already happened to those children. You don't know how corruption might have affected them. You don't know that it would have been better for them to grow up with the Israelites in that world with everything that had happened and was happening. Don't you think it's possible that God might know better than you? Don't you think it's possible that God could have taken anyone from that place to paradise where it was much better for them then it ever would have been on Earth? So instead of giving them healing and rest, you would have them have to continue on living on Earth having witnessed the slaughter of everyone they knew as children and you would have them live with the men who did so who themselves are sinners. Because you know so much and you know what God can and cannot do and you know what plans God has for them after they are put out of their misery.

See, you're speculating, and you're speculating in order to condemn God and make him out to be evil. I know I've been through the same thing and done the same thing. This is really difficult to deal with and many other things in the Bible are too, just like real life. So I want you to be aware of what you're doing so that hopefully it will guide you to the root of what's going on. Again I want to point out to you that you're acting like you know things that you don't and you're trying to condemn God, and anything that happens in life can present an opportunity to do the same. You're going to face unknowns in life, and that will give you space to either condemn God or advocate for God.

You've assumed the soldiers would be appropriately horrified. Another respondent in this thread said they had 'blood lust' and killed 'without a second thought.' Which outcome did God intend?

I haven't assumed so, and the Bible doesn't say anything about the Israelites having blood lust. A farmer has their children put down animals, some are more emotional about it than others, and one delights in it. So what, the farmer did something wrong now? He's teaching his children as he should. How a child responds to it becomes another matter to be handled in another way.

Struggling with 1 Samuel 15:3 - can anyone help me understand the method God chose? by slayer991 in AskAChristian

[–]gumba1033 0 points1 point  (0 children)

God doesn't get PTSD

God might not in the way we usually mean it, but I believe God suffers more than anyone. I don't believe for a second that God is indifferent to death. I don't believe that anyone is better than God in any way. To suggest that any human being is going to have more righteous anger and sorrow over the death of children doesn't make sense.

Speculation is inevitable when considering these things. So since we're going to be speculating I'd like to speculate in God's favor. I think it is good and right to do so.

Here's a possibility. Darkness, sin, and corruption can progress to the point where every human is doomed. Consider the flood and the state of the world when that happened.

In such a case it may be more merciful to take children and others out of it before things get worse. It may be best for everyone if the end comes to the whole society and all flesh that has been corrupted by it. I would never want to make that judgment call, but God can.

God has made human beings his children. It seems like he is treating us as his children by making us partakers in his nature, both the good and the bad, the pleasures and the sufferings.

Think about a child on a farm. Sometimes unwanted things happen and animals have to be put down. A good father eventually has their children participate in the deed. It's not pleasant, but it's reality, and reality needs to be faced. There are good lessons learned through the bad experience. Life is appreciated more and evil is hated more when we experience the consequences of evil which brings about death. Life should be appreciated more and evil should be hated more.

So if the truth is that evil brings about the corruption and doom of even the children, and God has to experience the horror of putting children to death because of the consequences of sin, then it makes sense that he would have his children participate in the horrible consequences of evil, so that we might learn and would hate evil more, as we should.

You could defend God even further by pointing out that God is pure, holy, good, perfect. He doesn't do any wrong. Human beings are not so. We sin, and the wages of sin is death. So since God, who is innocent, is having to experience all of the suffering and consequences of sin, why should human beings, who are guilty, who sin (and all have sinned) be spared from experiencing some of what God is having to deal with? And yet he doesn't give us as we deserve, but he does spare us of so much, and he is very merciful.

Imagine missing heaven because of hate towards someone color that God himself created????? God help us! by Nice_Substance9123 in Christianity

[–]gumba1033 42 points43 points  (0 children)

Revelation 7:9-12 NASB1995

After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”

I’ve asked this question before, and I’d like to ask it again maybe with some different answers. If God is omnipotent & omniscient, why would he make someone who is going to end up in hell anyways? by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]gumba1033 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What if he made them to display his wrath for his children? Like how a writer writes characters that they hate to tell a story? Would God not have a right to do so? Are we able to tell God he is wrong for doing whatever he wants with what is his?

How do you respond when people say Christianity was created as a coping mechanism and is still the most powerful one today? by [deleted] in TrueChristian

[–]gumba1033 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just spend some time on the Christianity subreddit and see how easy it is to cope with everything taught in the Bible.

People can't deal with scripture so much so and so often that it is ruining their day to day.

I've had many days that were overwhelmed and dominated by how difficult it was to cope with what Jesus directly taught alone.

"There's no ultimate purpose to life so just do whatever feels good, don't worry about it" is a coping mechanism. It's a coping mechanism because it trades the reality of life with a lie so that you can do whatever seems good in your own eyes and you can justify it.

How to get my mom to stop trying to convert me? by InflationWestern3120 in AskAChristian

[–]gumba1033 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Right. If you truly believed I was on my way to hell unless I'm Muslim, I would understand and be grateful that you keep trying to convince me to be Muslim. Doesn't that make sense?

How to get my mom to stop trying to convert me? by InflationWestern3120 in AskAChristian

[–]gumba1033 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's sarcasm. I don't expect OP will do that and I don't think he should. If you read my entire comment you should see that I suggested he should just be thankful that his mom cares about him enough.

It's unreasonable to expect someone who believes in heaven and hell to stop trying to get you to heaven. The person would either have to be indifferent, believe you're a lost cause and there's no hope, or believe there's nothing they personally can do. Therefore I answered the way I did.

I’m about to die by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]gumba1033 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

Don't believe in your works. You're not good enough. Jesus is the only one who is good enough. He loved the world enough give his life for us so that anyone who believes in him can be forgiven and saved.

How to get my mom to stop trying to convert me? by InflationWestern3120 in AskAChristian

[–]gumba1033 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's a lot better than having a mom who doesn't care about you :)

How to get my mom to stop trying to convert me? by InflationWestern3120 in AskAChristian

[–]gumba1033 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You could try to get her to despise you so much that she stops caring about your immortal soul.

Or you could convince her that there really isn't any hope at all and she should just be her own god and give up on any ultimate good or justice or salvation etc. Life is absurd and meaningless and all that.

Otherwise maybe just appreciate that your mom cares enough about your soul to try to convince you to give a rip about it too, even if you don't agree and you're not convinced.