Hello everyone, I am a recent christian turned agnostic. (Please don't try to change my view points) but I would like to know why you believe what you believe? I personally let go of Christianity for many reasons, 1. because I am not intrested in following a god that has no business in helping me or trying to make me better, I have prayed,prayed, and prayed some more, but nothing not one speck of help from him. 2. I was happy when I was an unbeliever, and when I because a christian I was sad, depressed, anxiety ridden and ocd ridden all because if christianity, before this I was fine, but these past few months have been the worst of my life and after a year of faith, I am done. I have given up of the god of Christianity. 3. Too many rules, I have been troubled by soany rules in my life that I simply could not live without worrying about of I was sinning and I got sick of it ang gave it up. I still believe there could be a god, but that god is not knowable and not able to understand. I also do not believe in sin or salvation.
This is an honest and wonderful post!!
And this thread shows the problem I see with Christianity, but that is with Christianity and not the Lord.
Frankly, I am a Christian because Jesus Christ talks to me. It's that simple!
The first words He told me was "Read Your Bible". But I hear Him talk to me everyday and usually about a dozen times each day. The most common phrase I hear Him tell me is "I love you". Yet He will talk about anything with me. Sometimes it the littlest of seemingly unimportant things like what clothes to wear. And sometimes it is seemingly the biggest and most important things like who is going to be the next president of the United States of America. Like when Bush Jr, got elected President the first time in that weird election with the controversy in Florida, the Lord had told me he was going to be President from the beginning of the campaign. He teaches me and gives me wisdom like, "The best listeners make the best teachers". That makes sense doesn't it. If you want to know about God you would need to listen to Him, right?
Still, I had spent most of my life not knowing God. I was over 40 when I heard the words, "Read Your Bible". And before that, while I didn't think about it much, I felt like Logan. So Logan makes sense to me.
My parents to me to church as a kids, but when I listened to the Bible teachers they presented a story of a far off God who died a couple of thousand years ago. Oh, the say He rose from the grave and was alive and sometimes gave some testimony of God being in some far off place called heaven.
They would say something like:
I believe because I know Him.
I know Him like I know my son or my wife.
I have the Bible which is a book containing 66 books and letters, written by 40+ authors over a span of 1500 years and it agrees perfectly
I don't mean to get personal with JohnDB, but when I heard Christian say things like the above what can you make of it. There is something about knowing God like he knows his wife and kids but apparently he knows his wife and kids through books and letters. I mean, that is what JohnDB explained.
Of course I now know that JohnDB does probably know God like he knows his wife and kids. That is to say, JohnDB probably hears form God and God talks to him about all sorts of subjects, just like his wife and kids do. And God probably told JohnDB to read his Bible just like God told me to do. And because JohnDB hears God telling him to read his bible, he does so and learns more about God by reading the 66 books of which some are letters. So JohnDB doesn't believe in God because he reads the Bible but rather JohnDB reads the Bible because he believes in a God who tells him to do so. And that is what we find out when we take time to listen to God, and it is confirmed in the Bible.
It is written that faith comes from hearing.( Rm 10:17) So we hear God and believe. But then we have to take time to listen to God. And it is written that God is with us and talks to us, so if anyone will listen and open the door to God He will come into them. (Rev 3:20) And we are certainly not teaching a God that is in some faraway place called heaven or a God that died and is stuck in some placed called hell, but we are indeed preaching a God that is spirit so that you can pick up His words to you in your heart and even on your lips. (Rom 10: 6-10)
Still, we don't do a very good job of preaching that at times. We unintentionally wind up making God seem like some far of being who can't or won't some down from heaven to talk to and help people. He is not that, but we make Him seem like that. So Logan writes: " I am not intrested in following a god that has no business in helping me or trying to make me better,
We failed to make it clear that God is there and is fully interested in helping us to be better. That is what He does because He loves us. And it is not about a bunch of rules to be followed but a personal God to be known. We messed our message up!
The Holy Spirit once told me "Karl, we don't use the Lord to preach the preach the Scriptures, we use the Scriptures to preach the Lord."
If we get it backwards we start trying to turn people to the 66 books of the Bible instead of using the Bible to let them know that an understanding and loving God is really there to help them. Logan doesn't know that and we Christians did not make that clear. And so the devil and his hoard come in and make Logan's life miserable to make sure he doesn't think to consider going back to church incase that does become clear. We should have made it clear the first time.
