The Bible NETWork ~ Impacting the World for Christ one post at a time!

How do I have a relationship with God? I have trouble enough with human relationships, how much more difficult is it with a being who is not present physically (I can't give God a hug), does not respond to me verbally (Hi God, how are you today?), and whose ways and thoughts are higher than mine own?

How do I love God? How do I understand God's love for me? How do I understand what love is? How do I fear God without hating him?

Is it wrong to be a Christian, because I don't want to go to hell and because I want all of the "cool stuff" God is going to give me in heaven? Isn't that like being friends with a rich and powerful prince, because he will kill me if I am not a member of his political party and will reward me if I am? Where is the love in that, how can that possibly be the foundation of a true relationship? Shouldn't I love God for who he is and his personality?

Jesus says that if I love him I will obey his commandments. So if God loves me, does that mean he obeys my commandments? Does God get to play by different rules when it comes to love?

People say that the proof of God's love for us is by sacrificing his son Jesus on the cross. Does love = sacrifice? Therefore, the greater the sacrifice the greater the love? No greater love... than a man lay down his life for his friend, right? But how much did God really sacrifice? Jesus is alive in heaven today. He was only dead for 3 days. Compared to a God who is eternal, that is smaller than a tiny drop of water in the whole ocean. People point to the torture of Jesus by the Romans, but again, that was only for a few days. John McCain was a POW for years! Does John McCain have greater love because he suffered (sacrificed) more?

When a mortal sacrifices something, it is gone, and lost for (potentially) ever. He cannot recover it. It is gone and the accountant records a negative number in the books. When God sacrifices something, he gets it back, and he always has the option of getting it back, because he is omnipotent. Does that cheapen God's love for us, since it is so inexpensive for him and requires no real effort on his part?

I have never really understood Jesus' "sacrifice", our "relationship" with God, or what "love" really means. I am hoping that someone can lend some of their own insight on the matter and not by simply quoting 1 Corinthians 13 (besides which, Charity is not the same thing as Love. I can have Charity towards a homeless man and give him money, but not necessarily love him).

There is an obvious disconnect between what people say love is, what the Bible seems to say love is, and what love really is.

Wayfarer

Firstly ... You have compressed so many serious and important questions into your one post that it is difficult to even begin to answer you .... it may be helpful to split your post up into separate questions.

Secondly ... there is no simple answer ... you have asked questions that sometimes take a lifetime to answer.

The first requirement for any kind of relationship or interaction with God from our side is - hunger!

This can range from a vague, constant feeling that something is missing, to a raging desire for God Himself. This feeling of 'hunger' can range from low to moderate to high to extreme. But without some form of 'hunger', in my opinion, it is impossible to begin.

The second requirement is a certain humbleness of heart and mind. What I mean by this is an understanding that if God exists, and He is Who and What He says He is ..... then any relationship or interaction with Him has to be on His terms. It has to be what and how He says, and it has to be by the ways and means God has both commanded and also necessarily provided.

That means, we can't put restrictions on what we will or wont' do. It also means us not laying down any stipulations about how God must communicate with us.

You have said that you don't want people just to quote Bible verses at you .... and to some extent I can understand that. But have you considered why we do that?

Have you considered, that we know, both from our own lives and from what we know of the lives of other Christians, that this is the means God has provided for us to know Him. It is not the only means God uses by any means, God is sovereign. But personal experiences usually do, and in fact should, drive us back to the written word as the means of both learning about God's character and ways, and also often the means of a 'two-way' means of communication.

But again, you have to be hungry enough to use any means, and humble enough to use the means God has provided, however difficult and slow you may find it to be at first.

That is the thing ... it is "at first" .... most growing Christians will tell you that what begins as a slow and difficult means of communication becomes over time a rich, deep and intimate form of interaction.

If you want to explore your questions at depth, I would be more than happy to share with you any answers I have or I have found. And I am sure there are others on this forum who would also be prepared to do so.

Is it all real? .... yes it is, but there is usually not any 'magic wand', rather the hard work of spiritual formation.

But is it worth it? ..... Oh yes ! .... being in a growing relationship with God is the greatest treasure this world, or any other for that matter, can offer to anyone.

Dinah

_________________
Forum Code of Conduct
Forum Statement of Beliefs

First of all, thank you for taking the time to respond to my post.

The problem with breaking up the questions into different posts is that everything is interconnected. We can talk about each subject separately, but lose focus on the greater picture. Essentially, my subject of my questions can be broken up into 3 parts:

1. God's love/loving God,
2. Was Jesus' sacrifice really sacrifice and a demonstration of love,
3. and the almost impossible feat of having a relationship with a being who is greater than us, whose thoughts are above our own, and doesn't reciprocate our methods of communication (hugs and verbal speech).

If you like, I can probably make 3 different posts on those topics or just allow people to number their responses.

I never said I didn't want people to respond with scripture, I just didn't want people to respond with 1 Corinthians 13 as if that would magically answer all of my questions and as if I was blissfully unawares of that verse. That chapter has been quoted to death my entire life and it does not add any further understanding of how to love God, what love is, and what exactly God's love is for us. If you are going to quote that chapter, at least add your own words and thoughts. I would be happy to see other verses in the Bible that you think are relevant, but understand that I grew up reading the Bible and going to church. Many verses are not necessarily "new" to me, although your unique perspective, understanding, and perspective will be, which is what I am looking for. For the past couple of months I have been trying to read my Bible, rereading the same verses and the same parables again, and I give up in frustration, throwing my Bible down, because I am not getting anything new out of it. If anything, I am becoming more confused and disheartened. My mind is working too hard trying to understand and process all of the conflicting things I read. It is just easier to give up, not think about it, and go about my life. I am tired of all the complexity and wonder why God just can't speak plainly to me like he did with Abraham.

I like your response about the relationship being on His terms. I expected a response like that, to be honest. It reminds me of the current relationship I have with a certain "friend" who always wants us to do the things which he chooses, on the days which are most convenient for him. Whenever I suggest a different activity he declines, says it is "not his thing" and when I suggest alternative days that better fit my schedule he declines again. It has been like this for years and frankly, after several years of this I am fed up. We don't have a real friendship or a "relationship." It is always about him and what he wants to do. I'm tired of it and want to move on. Is this the type of relationship you are proposing I have with God/Jesus? When Jesus calls me "friend" what is his definition of friendship? Is it lopsided like that of my earthly "friend?"

I do have a desire to learn more about God. Like Ecclesiastes mentions, without God everything else is meaningless, because all things whither and die and God is the source of all that is good. I can thank God for comedy, art, good food, fast cars, and beautiful women. I have a lot of conflicting emotions towards God, but the one thing I must fixate on is that He is the source of all that is good, fun, and enjoyable in life and that He also loves me like a son, even if I doubt it at times and think he is working against me. I understand that the error must be in me, but it is difficult to work through. A conceptual understanding and a true understanding are two very different things.

I'll end my post with that. I look forward to (and appreciate) the responses.

I'd like to ask a few questions of you, if I may, Wayfarer. First of all, have you undergone a conversion experience? By that, I mean, can you recall when and how and where you suddenly "got" the reality of Christ, who he is and what he did on the cross? Was it something that hit you all at once? Or was it a progressive revelation that occurred over time until you finally reached an "aha" moment about God? And when that moment came, did you confess and repent of your sins, pledge allegiance to him and then embark in a new direction with your life? Were you filled with the Holy Spirit? Could you sense his presence in your life? When you pray, do you ever get impressions in your spirit that you know are from God?

The reason I ask all of these question is this: Getting to know God and building an intimate relationship with him must begin with a true conversion experience and a commitment to him and the in-filling of the Holy Spirit. It involves not just the head, but the heart. Some people only function with one or the other when it comes to their spiritual lives and that means they don't grow correctly or fully. As you noted, a conceptual understanding and a true understanding are two very different things. For me, there have been some Scripture passages that I have understood intellectually, but it wasn't until my understanding of them made that 12-inch drop from my head to my heart that I grasped them fully, internalized them, and was able to live them out practically in my life. I think that may be what you're talking about.

Therefore, I'm interested in going right back to the beginning of your knowledge of God and how you progressed beyond that point. Where and how we begin can dictate how our journey goes. If you have not been filled with the Holy Spirit, you will have difficulty establishing a relationship with God and getting to know him because it's the Holy Spirit who helps us with that.

However, if you don't feel comfortable sharing all of that here, that's all right. I hope that you would consider these questions on your own and do some real soul-searching and praying about it and ask the Lord to fill you with the Holy Spirit to guide you if that hasn't happened already. Some people are automatically filled with the Holy Spirit at conversion. Some people receive him later. Some people receive him and aren't really aware of what that means and never grow in their relationship with God because they don't understand what it involves.

I should add that conversion experiences are as unique as the individuals who have them. Paul, of course, was blinded by a light, dropped to his knees and saw the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. John Wesley recalled his "aha" moment as a "slight warming of the heart". Those are two vastly different examples.

I hope I have given you some food for thought, Wayfarer. You have asked extremely important questions and I, too, look forward to the responses people post.

Overcomer, in Ecclesiastes it says that there is nothing new under the sun and yet again these very personal and difficult conversations usually end with someone questioning my salvation. Neither you or any other person knows my heart, the private conversations I have had with God over the years, and the things that I have been through. Because of doubt and false teachers over the years, there has been many times when I feared I was unsaved and that I had missed some critical piece of scripture, but when I read the Bible for myself I see that salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ and I merely have to believe on him, just as when Moses raised the serpent in the wilderness, just as the people who met Jesus were cured (or loved ones were cured) through their faith in Jesus alone. No longer will I doubt or allow others to cause me to doubt my own salvation. I may be a "bad" son or a wayward son at times, yet I remain a son of God. I know that the Holy Spirit is in me and works in my life. I would not be here, where I am today, if it were not for the grace of God. If there is any success or accomplishments in my life, it is because of God.

God gave me a brain and sometimes I hated him for that, because my thoughts are not the same as other people's and very few people in my life have ever truly understood me or the thoughts I have had. Yet, I can only use the tools which God has provided me and I cannot stop my brain from asking the questions and seeing the inconsistencies between church doctrine, scripture, and empirical knowledge. That is not to say that I doubt the existence of God or the truth of the Bible. Only a fool says in his heart that there is no God. Instead, I find myself doubting the things which are commonly accepted as truth. There is something inside of that I cannot explain very well, that is more than a feeling, but a certainty that most Christians are missing the true understanding of the Word of God, the Christian life, and God's nature. I number myself amongst them, but because I know there is something missing, I continue to search for it. I seek to truly understand God, His plan, who we are, why we are here, and the true nature of things, which dcljoy may call "hunger."

In this process, I test and question the inconsistencies, always assuming that the flaw must be within my own understanding. I am honest with God and myself, if not necessarily with other people. I tell Him exactly what I think, even if I end up apologizing later. I struggle with doing my own will and submitting to God's will. It is hardest thing in my life that I have never fully succeeded at, which is why I can relate to Jonah so well.

I cannot give you the answer you seek, Overcomer. I was taught the Bible while I was still an infant and raised in a Christian household. I was reading the King James Bible for myself at about 6 or 7 and understanding it better than most adults today. I have been praying to God my entire life and always seeking answers. Unlike many Christians, I cannot look back to a time in my life where God and the Bible have not been an intrinsic part of my life and thoughts. In the lowest points of my life, I have been on my face before him, in tears, surrendering myself to him. At other points in my life I cursed him, hated him, and went my own way... only to return soon after in terror, afraid of burning for eternity in the fires of hell. But through it all I never stopped looking, listening, and searching for understanding and I know that He has never given up on me.

And so we come back to my questions. These questions may seem esoteric to you, but they are actually quite central to Christianity and everything else stems out from there. If Jesus' greatest commandment to us was to love God with all our heart, our mind, and our strength, then shouldn't that be the subject of our greatest focus? If we are to love God, don't we first need to answer the question of what love is so that we can "do" it correctly? Lastly, In arriving at the correct definition and understanding of love, we should make sure it "fits" all of the Biblical examples of love (Jesus' sacrifice and obeying commandments, to name an important few). If the hypothesis does not fit the evidence, then we must modify our conclusion.

I'm in blue

How do I have a relationship with God? I have trouble enough with human relationships, how much more difficult is it with a being who is not present physically (I can't give God a hug), does not respond to me verbally (Hi God, how are you today?), and whose ways and thoughts are higher than mine own?

Should we understand physical presence as having a relationship? People sit in front of a tv and watch entertainment at the same time, how much of a relationship is that? The last survey I saw said the average husband and wife talk to eat other 7 minutes a day. That's relationship talk, not pass the mustard talk. One advantage with a relationship with God is we don't change it just by moving somewhere or whatever, we can always have it.

How do I love God? How do I understand God's love for me? How do I understand what love is? How do I fear God without hating him?

Many fear a policeman without hating him. Many have a fear of their parents without hating them. Many fear their coach without hating him. I think it's certainly possible. One may both fear and hate, I suppose that Satan's relationship with God would be something like that.

Is it wrong to be a Christian, because I don't want to go to hell and because I want all of the "cool stuff" God is going to give me in heaven? Isn't that like being friends with a rich and powerful prince, because he will kill me if I am not a member of his political party and will reward me if I am? Where is the love in that, how can that possibly be the foundation of a true relationship? Shouldn't I love God for who he is and his personality?

I'm not sure, could one actually believe just for rewards/avoidance of punishment? Maybe it enters in at some point. I guess that would be like being a son who the only reason you have any relationship with your parents is to get their possessions when they die. It certainly wouldn't be that great I wouldn't think.

Jesus says that if I love him I will obey his commandments. So if God loves me, does that mean he obeys my commandments? Does God get to play by different rules when it comes to love?

I think you are kind of approaching that wrong. It's that our love produces in us behavior that obeys God. God is consistent with God also. The standard doesn't really change. If you love your children would you obey all their commands? It actually wouldn't be very loving. But all God's commands for us are to benefit us.

People say that the proof of God's love for us is by sacrificing his son Jesus on the cross. Does love = sacrifice? Therefore, the greater the sacrifice the greater the love? No greater love... than a man lay down his life for his friend, right? But how much did God really sacrifice? Jesus is alive in heaven today. He was only dead for 3 days. Compared to a God who is eternal, that is smaller than a tiny drop of water in the whole ocean. People point to the torture of Jesus by the Romans, but again, that was only for a few days. John McCain was a POW for years! Does John McCain have greater love because he suffered (sacrificed) more?

I don't know exactly what Jesus went through on the cross, I don't know what it's like to have the sins of the world. In any case, as a human, he did suffer a lot, but I think his suffering was likely more than another human would have. No, I can't give scripture for that, just an opinion. As for not that big of a deal because he's in heaven now. The man who gives his life doesn't cease to exist either. If some person runs across the street and saves a child but is killed instantly doing it, should the preacher in the sermon say how the person didn't really give up much. They died quickly, they can be in heaven now? I don't know, even though I look forward to heaven, it still seems to me that a person who gives their life for another has given up something pretty valuable.

When a mortal sacrifices something, it is gone, and lost for (potentially) ever. He cannot recover it. It is gone and the accountant records a negative number in the books. When God sacrifices something, he gets it back, and he always has the option of getting it back, because he is omnipotent. Does that cheapen God's love for us, since it is so inexpensive for him and requires no real effort on his part?

We don't really know what effort is involved, God hasn't told us. We tend to think of it like snap your fingers, but we don't know do we?

I have never really understood Jesus' "sacrifice", our "relationship" with God, or what "love" really means. I am hoping that someone can lend some of their own insight on the matter and not by simply quoting 1 Corinthians 13 (besides which, Charity is not the same thing as Love. I can have Charity towards a homeless man and give him money, but not necessarily love him).

There is an obvious disconnect between what people say love is, what the Bible seems to say love is, and what love really is.

I think the way you have a relationship is you have a relationship. You read, you talk, you are with other's of God's people. Hard to explain how God communicates back sometimes, but he does. Do you come from a tradition that has produced some aids to that relationship. I'm thinking for instance of the Book of Common Prayer, or do you come from one that is more reliant on some sort of infusion (poor word, sorry) to take place?

_________________
Marv
Forum Code of Conduct
The Bible NETWork Doctrinal Statement
The NeXt Bible Learning Environment
The Bible NETwork Blogs

BeneSHOP: Help support Bible.org at no additional cost to you when you shop!

Have you, Wayfarer, thought it out through cosmologically, that is the cosmologial argument? I say that not to change the focus off of Christ, but to let your mind go beyond the earthly realm and truly understand that God is, well creation in its self. I have struggled with the same issues. But I find how insignificant I am when looking out into the heavens, yet knowing there is a greater purpose for humanities destiny. I have too, know this for salvations' sake. There is nothing here on terra firma that can compare to the heavenly glory that awaits those who have accepted and believe. Its not a blind faith, a leap in the dark, but a promise that goes beyond the grave, brother. In him we have eternality. Don't focus on earthly things, but focus on heavenly things. Go outside this summer on a clear moonless night and gaze up, maybe take family or friend lay on the ground and let your mind go towards God. Of all the lights in the sky, this blue marlbe we live on is rare in the grand scheme of things, astromonically speaking. How precious we are to him, what unconditional love, it is amazing,

_________________
Kola,

Jeremiah 29:13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

Hi Marv, thanks for taking the time to respond to my original questions. I have read a lot of your other posts over time and I have a lot of respect for your insight and wisdom in Biblical matters. I will do my best to respond to your questions and comments as best I can, without using any fancy quoting or colored text.

1. I disagree with you that a relationship requires speech and by doing so, I think also answer part of my own question. While communication is certainly important, I don't necessarily think there needs to be a set amount of time that two people spend communicating that determines whether or not they have a good relationship or not. I would add this though, as someone who is used to expressing intimacy through touch, I wish that sometimes I could get a hug from my heavenly father, especially when I am at my lowest times and in need of comforting.

2. I disagree with your second point as well and I am not trying to be contrary or simply disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. From what I have seen in life, what I have learned, and experienced fear is an emotion that often leads to hate. Some may fear a policeman without hating them, but I think that is uncommon. Fear seems to be too deeply intertwined with hate, especially when people desire to destroy the source of their hate.

3. I agree that a relationship such as the one I mentioned is not much of a relationship at all. So let me ask then, why are most Christians... Christian? Does not the Gospel teach both law and grace, the rod and the carrot? Isn't the very basis of Christianity based upon rewards and punishment? How can people claim they really love and want to be with some alien and almost incomprehensible being? How many people can truly say they KNOW God? If you don't know someone, how can you love them? If I told you that I loved an actress I saw on TV and I had read everything about her, but never met her, would you really think that I loved her?

4. I am merely pointing out the apparent error in Jesus' logic by saying that if we truly love him, we will obey his commandments. Now, I say apparent error, because if Jesus is perfect and righteous, then the real error must be with my own understanding and not with his statement. Still, how can we apply a universal definition of love in which one party is required to do something and the other is not? This does not seem like love to me, instead I would call that loyalty. Does the definition of love include a superior and an inferior party (such as with your example of the child and the parents)?

5. I agree with you. I too think there is more that happened on the cross than any of us truly realize. I merely point out the error in logic that most Christians use to make me feel guilty about what Jesus did for me on the cross and to somehow "prove" God's love for me by Jesus Christ's physical suffering. As I have pointed out, there are many men in history who have suffered physically worse that Jesus did, but I think the true extent of his suffering was spiritual in nature, something most of us cannot truly comprehend. Still, it leaves the question unanswered, how much of a sacrifice can an omnipotent God really make? Especially, when God designed the world and the course of history before we were even created. Only a fool would say that God was too dumb to know that Adam would eat the apple and bring sin into the world. God planned to send Jesus to the cross before Adam was even born. To say anything else is to deny God's omnipotent and omniscient nature. In the end, should we truly feel guilty for the world God created and the script that He wrote? As above, I am sure there are plenty of errors in my understanding, but I am hoping that wiser men than myself can point out those errors, because this is certainly how I feel and how I see things.

5a. You say that if a person gives up their life here on earth, that it is something valuable. Our life here is only temporary and our time in heaven is for eternity. The world we live in here is full of sin, misery, death, and decay. Heaven is a perfect place. It is like a long line standing in the cold rain outside of a popular night club. The sooner we get into the club and out of the rain, the better we are, right? How can you say that a person who has left the line sooner, has somehow lost something valuable? I am honestly curious about your response.

6. I don't come from a tradition that produces any "aids" to my relationship with God and was taught, and adamantly believe that such devices are, if not blatant idolatry, then foolishness that only pagans do, as Jesus mentions in Matthew 6:7-8 "And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him." (NIV) Why would you think that Christians need a Book of Common Prayer if God already knows what we need if we ask him and that we can pray through the Spirit? Romans 8:26"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express."(NIV)

I like your response kolabok21, and I often dwell on these things, my brother and I am humbled by these thoughts and understandings. Still, I don't know how long I will be on this earth and I know that I don't want to be poor, cold, and hungry. I certainly struggle with my selfish and sinful nature, but I am learning and beginning to believe that God created us with passion, with wants, with creativity, and to build. I do not think humans can merely survive with food, water, oxygen, space, and shelter as science teaches us. We are different from animals and to deny us the ability to express, to create, and to build, will kill us just as surely as starvation,in the end. John Piper says that most Christians don't want enough. God created us to want... to want Him and every good thing which flows from Him. We error when we want the wrong things or want them apart from God. God does not want us to live like monks, that is aestheticism and the lie of the devil.

I don't know where you got the idea that something like the Book of Common Prayer or something like say a daily lectionary or such has anything in the world to do with babbling or vain repetitions.

Good day.

_________________
Marv
Forum Code of Conduct
The Bible NETWork Doctrinal Statement
The NeXt Bible Learning Environment
The Bible NETwork Blogs

BeneSHOP: Help support Bible.org at no additional cost to you when you shop!

The Wayfarer wrote:



I am sorry if you were insulted by what I wrote, Wayfarer. But I honestly think you misunderstood what I was saying. I was not suggesting you didn’t have your salvation. As you say, that’s between you and God. But you were asking about being in a relationship with Jesus, how to achieve that, how to grasp and know his love and THAT is what I was attempting to address, not your personal salvation. I have just completed a course in spiritual formation and the instructor encouraged us to go back to our moments of conversion to make sure that we grasped what it fully meant in terms of the Holy Spirit and our growth in the Lord. It was beneficial for me to do that and I hoped that it might be for you, too. That’s why I suggested it. Let me try to explain myself more clearly:

Like you, I grew up in a Christian home and attended church all my life. I had my salvation because I accepted Christ’s gift of it in faith. However, the denomination I was in taught NOTHING about the person of the Holy Spirit, about his infilling, about how he would lead and guide me in life and help me get to know Jesus on a personal, intimate level and feel his love for me. I had to leave that denomination and visit others to gain that all-important knowledge.

You say you think all the time. Like you, my brain never stops. But I have learned that, when it comes to Jesus, just approaching him and grasping what he says on an intellectual level isn’t all there is in a relationship with him. There is an experiential, affective side to it. When I read what you wrote, it struck me that your relationship with Jesus is a cerebral one only and that what you are missing is the mystical side of it. That’s why I asked if you ever felt the presence of God or got an impression in your spirit that you knew came from the Holy Spirit when you prayed. I wondered if you had felt Jesus in your spirit as well as comprehended him intellectually.

I have had encounters with Jesus where I have felt God’s love. Therefore, I have no problem understanding it. For example, when I was disabled in a car accident and left with chronic pain, I constantly begged God to heal me. One day, after returning from church, I asked the Lord, “Why don’t you heal me?” I would never have anticipated the answer he gave me. He didn’t explain why (not at that time, at least. He did do so eventually, but that was several years down the road). Instead, he made me feel what he feels at my living in constant pain. It was the deepest, most intense sorrow I have ever felt in my life and I just burst into tears. It was heart-breaking and gut-wrenching. And I realized that Jesus had felt every stabbing pain, every burning sensation, and every ache I had ever felt in my life and that he would continue to do so for however long I had them. I felt his profound love for me and I have felt it other times when I have communed with him in prayer.

Because of experiences like that, I don’t have to just accept God's love on an intellectual level, but have felt it emotionally, spiritually, powerfully, in a way that has transformed me and my life. I think that is what you are looking for and what you need. I don’t know what kind of church you were raised in, but if it isn’t teaching you about the Holy Spirit, and the necessary heart understanding of Christ and the mechanics of how to build an intimate relationship with him that involves real encounters with him so you can experience his love first-hand, then you need to find a church that does.

I realize that some people have a problem with the heart side of spirituality because they think it’s crazy or just plain emotionalism. People who err on the side of feelings and experiences with God and leave their brains out of it can go off-track. But people who err on the side of rationality and intellectualism and never engage in real experiences of God also go off-track. The head and the heart have to be kept in balance.

I have had long periods when I could not feel the presence of God or hear his voice. Those were important because they helped increase my faith. I had to learn to trust what the Bible says about God and his love even if I could not feel anything.

I need to add that I take no pride in having personal encounters with God as if that makes me special or superior to the Christians who don’t. I expect there are a lot of Christians who have them, but they don’t talk about them unless they feel it would edify someone else which is precisely why I have shared one of my encounters with him here. I also expect there are Christians who don’t have them because they are in denominations that do not teach about them and may even speak disparagingly of them out of ignorance and fear.

As to fear being a motivation to accept Christ, I don’t think fear has anything to do with it. I am not in a relationship with Jesus because I fear going to hell. I’m in a relationship with Jesus because I love him! The whole goal of a Christian is this – to get to know Jesus, to experience his love tangibly, to return his love, and to live out that love in service to him and to others. But again, it takes a heart understanding of him as well as a head one to be able to live that authentically. It's that heart understanding that I think you are missing. I hope I have made myself a little more clear and have not offended you again, Wayfarer. That certainly was never my intention.

I just did 6 pages that jumped all around this topic for a group at my church.

My answer for the question is love the neighbor, love the brother, love the sister.

Period.

For whatever reason God chose to speak to us through others and through life. To be spoken to, you must be engaged in a relational way with someone. To experience God you need to love someone. That love requires demonstration.

If you do a loving act for a person, charitable act, that person feels God's love, You experience when they show their thanks, those that witness the act experience it, all from one transaction of God's love, 4 or 5 different sets of people are affected.

At this point God is past theory and into experiential proof. You have now experienced God.

Two ways to have a relationship with God.

One is service,
the other is persecution.

Both teach dependence on Him.

If I want to enhance that experience, it's much like a relationship with a person. To get to know YOU better, I need to spend time with you. I need to talk with you and get to know you. The hardest thing is I have to learn to listen. It's the same with a friend as it is with God.

How much time alone with God do we devote a day? Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote he started his day with Psalms, Prayer and devotion to God. If we are rewarded for tithing money, would we be rewarded for tithing time? 20 minutes a day with God? Is that really that much?

Those are my thoughts, I'll think quieter now!

bd

Wayfarer wrote:



To me, those words are the words of someone who has a real live faith. So many people just say what they know they should say to satisfy the tribe. There are few churches that can stand any REAL and honest questions. So many areas are 'taboo' in church and towing the party line is essential regardless of what one really believes.
Very refreshing Wayfarer. Thank you.

Here's what I pray for you, Wayfarer:

"I pray that you, being rooted and established by love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how long and high and wide and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge -- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God" (Eph. 4:17b - 19, NIV).

I want to start this post by saying thank to everyone who has taken time out from their busy lives to respond to my posts. I then want to apologize to anyone that I may have offended, such as Marv with my comments about the Prayer Book. For most of my life I have had difficulties in (mis)communicating with people. Often times I also lack tact in the things that I say. I know this is a problem for me and I consciously work at it, which is why in person I tend to be very quiet. I have learned the hard way that it is easy to say the wrong thing, so I decided long ago that it is easier to say nothing at all most of the time. Most people have no idea who I am on the inside or the thoughts that plague my mind. The only outlet I have in my life, other than prayer with God, is currently this message board. Some of you have the misfortune of seeing some of the chaos in my mind, the ups and downs, and my most intimate struggles. I want to say that this website and the users on this message board have had a huge impact on my life and especially in developing maturity as a Christian. Thank you.

Marv, if you think such a prayer book will be helpful, I will buy one that you recommend and take a look at it. I will not come between a man and his worship with God, but I will say that my reaction towards anything to help me communicate with God, such as a prayer book, lighting candles, saying the rosary, etc., is... well I can't find the right word to describe it, but it isn't good.

Overcomer, I was not offended. I'm not easily offended. I was a bit angry, but that is not the same thing. There are times when I am praying to God or reading the Bible that I "feel" great emotions and even a warmth. I believe it is the Holy Spirit and I have faith that it is, although my logical mind says it might just be psychological. There is a lot of things that I don't know or don't understand, but I choose to live my life in faith.

I think some things God doesn't want us to know right now, because he does want us to live in faith. I think I am beginning to accept that and am learning to obey what God and the Bible says and trust that God knows best, loves me as a perfect father, and wants the best for me, including developing my character, discipline, faith, and wisdom.

Ever since Marv quoted Ecclesiastes to me in the other thread, I have been reading (and rereading) from Ecclesiastes every night and I started Proverbs last night. It has been very helpful for me and I have been finding (and refinding) a lot of wisdom there.