I'm really concerned my Dad might split up with his wife?

[LanaPodesta]

Don't know if you are still here, but I went thru a divorce (mom and dad) when I was 7 and it was bad.

I will certainly pray for you.

Thank you. Kyrie Eleison.

 

[LanaPodesta]

So, in all that you wrote, you didn't say anything about God and how He figures into your life. Why is that? As a Christian, a disciple of Jesus Christ, I'd give you spiritual advice because it is the best, the deepest, and the most lasting sort of advice I could give you. But if God isn't your heavenly Father, if you haven't trusted in Jesus as your Savior from your sin, and submitted yourself to him as your Lord and God, then the spiritual advice I would give you isn't going to be of any value to you. In order to really understand such advice, you have to be made "alive" spiritually which only happens when you've become a child of God, a Christian.

Being a Christian isn't something that happens because you go to church, or know a priest or pastor, or own a Bible. Standing in a car-repair shop, or knowing the mechanic, or owning a few tools doesn't make you a car mechanic, right? Oddly, a lot of people think that being a Christian is about a location (church), and knowing a religious person (priest), and doing religious things (praying, communion, tithing, etc.), but in reality the Bible says that being a Christian is knowing a Person (God), it's being related to Him as one of His adopted children.

Revelation 3:20
20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

1 John 5:11-12
11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

John 14:6
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

This adoption happens as a result of trusting that Jesus is God, that he died in payment of your sin-debt, that he rose from the dead and ascended to heaven where he sits at God's right hand as your Advocate with God, that you are the terrible sinner He says you are and that you need desperately to be saved from yourself and from God's just wrath that your sin deserves. Is this you? Do you believe these things and live in them as Truth every day?

Romans 3:10
10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one;

Romans 3:23
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

1 John 1:9-10
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

John 3:16-19
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

Romans 10:9-10
9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

When you become a child of God through trusting in Jesus as your Savior and Lord and giving your life over to him to rule as he sees fit, a whole realm of spiritual living opens up to you. This is because the Holy Spirit of God, in response to your trust in Christ, has come to dwell within you. He gives to you in himself "new life," a spiritual life you didn't have before, that enables you to understand spiritual truth.

Titus 3:5-6
5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,

1 John 4:13
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

John 14:16-17
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,
17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

Because the Holy Spirit is inside of you, giving to you new, spiritual life in himself, you can understand the "things of God" in a way that is impossible without the Holy Spirit. And so, I ask you if you're a "born-again" child of God, a person in whom the Holy Spirit is dwelling. Are you? If you are, I can offer to you God's advice to all of His children about how to navigate life and its various difficulties, tragedies and suffering with unshakable joy, peace and contentment. If you aren't God's child yet, then my first bit of advice would be to remedy this condition immediately and begin to live with God in the way He created you to do, which is in daily, life-changing communion with Himself.

Proverbs 3:5-8
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
7 Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.

With all due respect, church isn't a 'location'. It's where the rite takes place, that I might better commune with God, where heaven and earth converge, and one enjoys the presence of saints and angels.

Comparing attending church, and experiencing the mystery of church to 'standing in a car-repair shop' is bordering on blasphemous. How can I know Him if I am not experiencing his energies as profoundly and directly as I would in church? What did you expect me to say?

 

[Tenchi]

With all due respect, church isn't a 'location'.

Well, there's the "big C" Church, which is the Body of Christ constituted of born-again children of God (John 3:3-7). This Church isn't a location but a collection of people. But then, there are the buildings in which these people meet that are also called "churches." My point was that many people feel that, having sat in the building called a church, they are made "Christian" by doing so. This is nowhere stated in the Bible.

It's where the rite takes place, that I might better commune with God, where heaven and earth converge, and one enjoys the presence of saints and angels.

It's nowhere stated in the Bible that the building in which born-again children of God meet to worship and learn God's Truth is a convergence point for heaven and earth. Instead, each born-again person is a "temple of the Holy Spirit," God the Spirit dwelling within them, as close as thought.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20
19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

John 14:16-17
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,
17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

In fact, the Bible says that if a person is not indwelt by the Holy Spirit, they are not God's children.

Romans 8:9
9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

1 John 4:13
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

Is this you? Does the Spirit "bear witness with your spirit" that you are God's child (Romans 8:16) by doing to you the things the Bible says he will do to all of those in whom he actually dwells? Or are you thinking that just being in a church building is enough to make you a "Christian"?

Comparing attending church, and experiencing the mystery of church to 'standing in a car-repair shop' is bordering on blasphemous.

See above. There is nothing particularly special or spiritual about a church building. It's the people who are the "temples" of the Holy Spirit who meet in the building who are important. Every single church building, in the end, will be destroyed by divine fire, but God's own, His Spirit-indwelt children, will endure for all eternity. Be careful, then, not to make a structure of wood, stone and metal that God will one day burn to ash as important as the Church, the people of God who are eternal "temples" of the Holy Spirit.

How can I know Him if I am not experiencing his energies as profoundly and directly as I would in church? What did you expect me to say?

I don't know what you mean by "experiencing His energies in church." The Holy Spirit is not mere energy; he is a Person, as the Bible plainly indicates. And it is the Holy Spirit a believer experiences when they experience God. Inasmuch as the Holy Spirit is always inside the born-again person (Hebrews 13:5), he may be experienced at any time, not only when the born-again person is in a church meeting. In fact, if the person who thinks they are a Christian has no persistent, concrete, daily experience of the life and work of the Holy Spirit within them, it is very doubtful that s/he is actually one of God's children.

Do you know what the life and work of the Holy Spirit is?

Bible Study - How Do I Know It's the Holy Spirit?

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. A few years ago now, I was talking with a young man...

christianforums.net

Bible Study - The Work of the Holy Spirit: Divine Strengthening.

Philippians 2:12-13 12 ...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Perhaps in no other area, spiritually, is there more confusion than in the area of how the born-again person "works out their...

christianforums.net

Bible Study - The work of the Holy Spirit: Transformation.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who...

christianforums.net

Bible Study - The Work of the Holy Spirit: Comfort.

John 14:16-17 16 And I will pray to the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him: but you know him; for he dwells with you, and shall be in...

christianforums.net

 

[LanaPodesta]

This Church isn't a location but a collection of people. But then, there are the buildings in which these people meet that are also called "churches."

Is that all church is to you? A 'building' where 'people meet'? As I've said, I attend to church to experience His energies directly.

This is nowhere stated in the Bible.

Okay? Doesn't make it untrue. A lot of things aren't explicitly stated in the Bible (the Trinity, for example), but you wouldn't be a Christian if you didn't believe in the mystery of the Trinity.

It's nowhere stated in the Bible that the building in which born-again children of God meet to worship and learn God's Truth is a convergence point for heaven and earth

Okay? Doesn't make it untrue. And it's not about 'the building' it's about the rite that occurs therein, where earth and heaven converge and one is in the presence of saints and angels and one can experience His energies, profoundly and directly.

I don't know what you mean by "experiencing His energies in church."

Okay? So why do you go to church?