Where is my faith

[Boobaby103]

I grew up Christian but fell away in my teens. I had been speaking to the “universe” asking for three things and found them all. 2 of which were a husband and Christianity. Unfortunately I am having a hard time with Christianity. I don’t know how to start. I don’t know how to give myself to god and I keep messing up and acting in ways that I am trying to stop.
I have been reading the Bible, listening to sermons and podcasts. I don’t know what to do. Sometimes I feel like I hear God but other times I am just so selfish it’s ridiculous.
I’m not asking for sympathy I actually don’t want that, I need help finding God I know that’s a personal journey for everyone, but I feel like having someone who’s not super advanced to talk to would be helpful.
God bless

 

[Who Me]

I am having a hard time with Christianity. I don’t know how to start. I don’t know how to give myself to god and I keep messing up and acting in ways that I am trying to stop.

May I suggest two things.
1. That you and your husband start attending church regularly.
2. If you are struggling with finding a church and with christianity, that you investigate the christianityexplored Web site for a church in your area that runs this course and sign up for the course.

 

[Vinny37]

I grew up Christian but fell away in my teens. I had been speaking to the “universe” asking for three things and found them all. 2 of which were a husband and Christianity. Unfortunately I am having a hard time with Christianity. I don’t know how to start. I don’t know how to give myself to god and I keep messing up and acting in ways that I am trying to stop.
I have been reading the Bible, listening to sermons and podcasts. I don’t know what to do. Sometimes I feel like I hear God but other times I am just so selfish it’s ridiculous.
I’m not asking for sympathy I actually don’t want that, I need help finding God I know that’s a personal journey for everyone, but I feel like having someone who’s not super advanced to talk to would be helpful.
God bless

Christianity can be a hard journey (as can marriage and parenting!), but it is the best of journeys and worth going deeper in and higher up, as the Narnian Chronicles say, knowing that God gave himself to us. I know I’m firing blind, but if you like reading, a free-access book on Archive covering prayer, might just help kickstart your Christian journey: https://archive.org/details/prayers-gone-global-exploring-biblical-prayer/mode/2up. All the best.

 

[Boobaby103]

Christianity can be a hard journey (as can marriage and parenting!), but it is the best of journeys and worth going deeper in and higher up, as the Narnian Chronicles say, knowing that God gave himself to us. I know I’m firing blind, but if you like reading, a free-access book on Archive covering prayer, might just help kickstart your Christian journey: https://archive.org/details/prayers-gone-global-exploring-biblical-prayer/mode/2up. All the best.

 

[Boobaby103]

Thank you so much. I don’t even know what the Narnian Chronicles are, that i will find out. I checked out the website. Thank you!

 

[Boobaby103]

May I suggest two things.
1. That you and your husband start attending church regularly.
2. If you are struggling with finding a church and with christianity, that you investigate the christianityexplored Web site for a church in your area that runs this course and sign up for the course.

I’ve been thinking about that, God could’ve put that in my heart. He’s very hard to fathom, but I really appreciate your insight. I will definitely check out that website to find a church! Thank you so much!!

 

[Tenchi]

I grew up Christian but fell away in my teens. I had been speaking to the “universe” asking for three things and found them all. 2 of which were a husband and Christianity. Unfortunately I am having a hard time with Christianity. I don’t know how to start. I don’t know how to give myself to god and I keep messing up and acting in ways that I am trying to stop.
I have been reading the Bible, listening to sermons and podcasts. I don’t know what to do. Sometimes I feel like I hear God but other times I am just so selfish it’s ridiculous.
I’m not asking for sympathy I actually don’t want that, I need help finding God I know that’s a personal journey for everyone, but I feel like having someone who’s not super advanced to talk to would be helpful.
God bless

You can't change yourself; you can only ever produce more of you. Like begets like, you see: A cat begets a cat, a dog begets a dog, and you just beget more of yourself. If you want to be godly, then, if you want to be walking in daily fellowship with God, you will need God to bring such a thing to pass.

The condition in which you approach God, though, isn't just afflicted with the like-unto-like problem but with the sinful rebellion that's natural to all human beings. We all want our own way as much as possible. We want to be our own boss, to set our own agendas, to chart our own course through life. We want our life to be about us to the greatest degree that it can be. But this leads us straight into living that God calls sinful, wicked, evil.

God didn't make us to live for ourselves, though, but for Him. The deepest meaning and fulfillment possible for us, then, can only be encountered in knowing and walking with God, in living according to God's design of us. Instead, though, we live like a hammer used to sew dresses, or a saxophone used to milk a cow. We aren't living "fit for purpose" and the result is everything God says it will be: frustration, unhappiness, confusion, delusion and darkness.

Anyway, the "universe" as a request-answering entity doesn't exist. But the Great Deceiver, the devil, does. He's delighted that you've taken up one of his popular deceptions and have replaced God with what He has made (the universe). If the devil can get you talking to his illusion of God - the universe - he can set you up for catastrophe very easily. And you can be sure that he will.

So, how do you start with God?

Well, deal with Him, approach Him, in the way that's demanded by who He is. You don't approach a police officer in the same way you approach your husband, right? You don't interact with your doctor in the same way that you do your parents. There's always a context within which you relate to other people that shapes how you do so. This is, of course, also true in our approach to God. He occupies a category all His own, which means that we'll deal with Him in a very unique way, a way that reflects how singular a Being He is.

Starting with God, then, requires knowing who you're dealing with:

He's the Almighty, infinite Creator, the Uncaused First Cause of everything; you're just a finite creature that He made.
He's the Source of all Truth, the Ground of All Reality; you're ignorant, contingent and impotent.
He's perfectly holy, without the slightest tinge of darkness or evil; you're soaked in sin, surrounded by sinners revelling in sin, so used to wickedness yourself that you don't see much of it for what it is, even loving things God despises.
He's omniscient and knows every single thing about you; before Him, you're totally exposed.
He's full of love, peace, wisdom and joy; you're full of...yourself (as we all are apart from God).

What do all these things mean for how you approach God and deal with Him?

Can you approach such a Being carelessly, or casually, thinking to dictate the dynamics of your interaction in some measure? Can you make demands, requiring He jump through certain hoops before you'll believe in Him and trust yourself to Him? Can you think such a God will turn a blind eye to your deep sinfulness, accepting your self-will and sin, content to be your divine Assistant rather than your God?

I hope "No" is your answer to all of the above; but it's not for a great many people who want to interact with God. And when it's not, they find God very...silent. It's His way or the highway, you see; He's God Almighty, Ruler of Heaven and Earth, right? Not some silly, super-powered perv like Zeus, or one-eyed Odin, or some other very human-like "god." And so, He tells us in His word, the Bible, the terms, or dynamics, of our approach to Him, how we are to start with Him.

1.) We must be holy as God is holy.

Psalm 5:4-6
4 For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with You.
5 The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity.
6 You destroy those who speak falsehood; The LORD abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit.

1 Peter 3:12
12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

Matthew 5:48
48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

We can't be holy as God is holy on our own. (Romans 3:10, 23; Ephesians 2:1-3; Titus 3:3-5) And so, God has made a way through Jesus for us to be made perfect.

2 Corinthians 5:21
21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Romans 5:6-10
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

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.

John 3:36
36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

2.) We must believe God.

Hebrews 11:6
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

2 Corinthians 5:7
7 for we walk by faith, not by sight.

3.) We must love God.

Matthew 22:36-38
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
38 This is the great and first commandment.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4.) We must submit to God.

Romans 6:13
13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

Romans 12:1
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

James 4:6-10
6 ...“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

5.) We must live to God's glory.

1 Corinthians 10:31
31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

1 Peter 4:11
11 Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

If any person thinks to approach God and to walk with Him separate from these things, or in neglect of them, they will find God does not go along. He has told us what line we must walk in our approach to Him and if we won't follow that line, we will not encounter Him.

This can be a very hard thing to swallow in our modern era where we are so constantly urged to be our own god, to make ourselves the Final Arbiter of what is real, and true, and morally right or wrong.

So, will you make God your Master? Or will you try to make Him a mirror in which you just see yourself, ultimately?

At the following link you will find helpful articles on walking with God. I'd urge you to check it out!

The Deeper Faith Monologue | Jonathan Hay | Substack

Daily fellowship with God. Click to read The Deeper Faith Monologue, by Jonathan Hay, a Substack publication. Launched 2 years ago.

jonathanhay.substack.com

Also: www.ttb.org