By Arthur ~
All love relationships have a beginning and end. When you fall in love, get divorced or cease to exist . To lose one's faith is not something that is planned or even foreseen. It is all new, wonderful and beautiful. At first you are on “fire” with emotion and feelings of being loved, belonging to a family, being forgiven from sins, being worthy and accepted in the beloved, etc. Wonderful. But when you stop believing all that is gone and you are on your way to spiritual emptiness, loneliness and separation from god.(Hell)
Falling away from relationship and sweet fellowship with the Creator/Savior/Father/ God is not one you would willing want for your life. Your Christian wife, family and friends reject you and wonder if you were ever saved. Did you ever have a love relationship with Jesus? The scornful words “You are rebellious” rings in your ears. “You do not want to be accountable for your sins” haunts you. You will spend eternity in hell being tortured by the devil himself for ever and ever and ever, separated from god and all your love ones, is your destiny. Who wants that?
I was raised as a Catholic and all that entails: Choir boy, confession, rosary, penance, mass, kneeling, praying, confirmation, apostles creed etc. At sixteen years old I received my first Bible. I read in the gospels that Jesus was at the door of my heart and was “knocking to come in”. I let him “come in” and learnt latter that was when I was “born again”. I had nowhere to fellowship and walked down a street in my Town and wondered into an Assemblies of God Church .
I was baptised in water as a sign of my death, burial and resurrection in newness of life as a symbolic gesture of what had happened when I was born again. Next I was baptised in the Holy Spirit and started speaking in tongues. At seventeen I was on fire and witnessed to people and handed out tracts of the “Good News’ that Jesus saves and sets sinners free. I started to minister part time in the mission field and in the Church at Bible studies and Gospel meetings.
After 2000 years we are entitled to ask, “Where are you Jesus?”Our AOG faction did not believe in Bible college but in divine revelation. So we did not scrutinize the Bible as one would do in a Theological college. (A pity as I would have seen then what I see now… fifty years later.) My life was spent with four meetings a week. Breaking of Bread (Communion), Gospel meeting (for the unsaved) Bible studies (for the saved). Prayer meetings. Going to Church, fellowship with Jesus and with Christians, worshipping, evangelizing and caring for new believers was most of my life. I now see that it was all a waste of time and effort.
If God is not real how could I have been that involved in his Kingdom. I still pray and speak in tongues occasionally, before I realise how pointless it is. I miss the comfort of grace and salvation and the feelings of being loved by god. Having a home in heaven for eternity. Who would not want that? Life with out Jesus is …well different . No salvation. No grace. But also no condemnation as there is no original sin and no hell waiting. To be free as a bird is better, than to think you are free, but you are actually a captive of what you believe. Reality is hard. Delusion is better. Not really.
Who does one blame for wasting years of your life? No one. You can not blame god …as he does not exist. You can not blame yourself …as you were young and easily influenced. You can not blame other Christians. They were sincere and thought they were on the right track. Preachers maybe? They should know better… no they are also human and subject to delusion as I was.
So what happened to my faith and belief in Christianity? What happen to all I held dear to me? What happen to what I lived in, moved in and had my being in? What happened to my addiction to Jesus. I ask myself this every day.
When I was preaching twice a week I had to study the Bible like never before. I did not want to repeat the same verse every week for the sake of the congregation. Not having been in Bible college I did not know the Bible backwards. So I studied. Read commentaries. Read books. Now I know why we were told to only read the Bible and the KJV only. It was to keep people ignorant. Ignorance is not bliss.
I began to fear and despise the OT god (Yahweh). I thought god was a loving god. Yet Yahweh kills every one who does not like him. Even followers, who prevent the Ark from falling are killed. Hell was an eye opener. So a loving god creates hell for the devil and unbelievers for them to be tortured day and night for ever. Really. Jesus tells us he is the way, the truth, the life, the gate, the door, no man comes to the Father but through him. Really.
What about those that do not know about Jesus and are still worshipping god as they perceive him to be. They will be judged… but ultimately they will go to hell. Why? Then rationalization begins in order to defend these statements. No …. god does not send anyone one to hell. You choose to go there by rejecting Christ. Oh really. So it is Christ or hell? Yes. Give me Christ. Who in his right mind wants to be tortured for ever. Every one will want to be in paradise for ever.
Bible creation. The earth is billions of years old... has fossils etc. The cosmos is so huge. Yet the Bible speaks of 6 thousand years old. Oh really. Where do all the variety of species come from? Where do all the stars, galaxies and planets come from? When god only needed one for us… not trillions of them. Only evolution can explain that. I grew tired of defending the indefensible. The only way to remain a Christian is to switch off your logic center in the brain god gave you. Even Jesus said so that we must become like children. Have you seen children run things?
The second coming of Jesus. Where is he? When is he coming back again? He tells the disciples that they will not die before he comes back again. OK. They die. Those alive say he came in the form of the holy ghost. Others say do not mock or scorn and say when is Jesus coming back again. OK. After 2000 years we are entitled to ask, “Where are you Jesus?” He must therefore not exist as god. Yahweh also does no exist. Therefore there can be no “son of god” if the father does not exist. They are all figments of primitive man kinds imagination to understand the world as they knew it then. There are many more points a could share.
Religion started through fear caused by ignorance and is perpetuated by fear caused by ignorance. Today no one has an excuse to remain ignorant. The internet is there to open eyes so that all may see and bask in the light of Science. Fact plus evidence equals TRUTH (Science). Fact plus lack of evidence equals LIES (Religion).
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| From http://whereisjesus.com |
Falling away from relationship and sweet fellowship with the Creator/Savior/Father/ God is not one you would willing want for your life. Your Christian wife, family and friends reject you and wonder if you were ever saved. Did you ever have a love relationship with Jesus? The scornful words “You are rebellious” rings in your ears. “You do not want to be accountable for your sins” haunts you. You will spend eternity in hell being tortured by the devil himself for ever and ever and ever, separated from god and all your love ones, is your destiny. Who wants that?
I was raised as a Catholic and all that entails: Choir boy, confession, rosary, penance, mass, kneeling, praying, confirmation, apostles creed etc. At sixteen years old I received my first Bible. I read in the gospels that Jesus was at the door of my heart and was “knocking to come in”. I let him “come in” and learnt latter that was when I was “born again”. I had nowhere to fellowship and walked down a street in my Town and wondered into an Assemblies of God Church .
I was baptised in water as a sign of my death, burial and resurrection in newness of life as a symbolic gesture of what had happened when I was born again. Next I was baptised in the Holy Spirit and started speaking in tongues. At seventeen I was on fire and witnessed to people and handed out tracts of the “Good News’ that Jesus saves and sets sinners free. I started to minister part time in the mission field and in the Church at Bible studies and Gospel meetings.
After 2000 years we are entitled to ask, “Where are you Jesus?”Our AOG faction did not believe in Bible college but in divine revelation. So we did not scrutinize the Bible as one would do in a Theological college. (A pity as I would have seen then what I see now… fifty years later.) My life was spent with four meetings a week. Breaking of Bread (Communion), Gospel meeting (for the unsaved) Bible studies (for the saved). Prayer meetings. Going to Church, fellowship with Jesus and with Christians, worshipping, evangelizing and caring for new believers was most of my life. I now see that it was all a waste of time and effort.
If God is not real how could I have been that involved in his Kingdom. I still pray and speak in tongues occasionally, before I realise how pointless it is. I miss the comfort of grace and salvation and the feelings of being loved by god. Having a home in heaven for eternity. Who would not want that? Life with out Jesus is …well different . No salvation. No grace. But also no condemnation as there is no original sin and no hell waiting. To be free as a bird is better, than to think you are free, but you are actually a captive of what you believe. Reality is hard. Delusion is better. Not really.
Who does one blame for wasting years of your life? No one. You can not blame god …as he does not exist. You can not blame yourself …as you were young and easily influenced. You can not blame other Christians. They were sincere and thought they were on the right track. Preachers maybe? They should know better… no they are also human and subject to delusion as I was.
So what happened to my faith and belief in Christianity? What happen to all I held dear to me? What happen to what I lived in, moved in and had my being in? What happened to my addiction to Jesus. I ask myself this every day.
When I was preaching twice a week I had to study the Bible like never before. I did not want to repeat the same verse every week for the sake of the congregation. Not having been in Bible college I did not know the Bible backwards. So I studied. Read commentaries. Read books. Now I know why we were told to only read the Bible and the KJV only. It was to keep people ignorant. Ignorance is not bliss.
I began to fear and despise the OT god (Yahweh). I thought god was a loving god. Yet Yahweh kills every one who does not like him. Even followers, who prevent the Ark from falling are killed. Hell was an eye opener. So a loving god creates hell for the devil and unbelievers for them to be tortured day and night for ever. Really. Jesus tells us he is the way, the truth, the life, the gate, the door, no man comes to the Father but through him. Really.
What about those that do not know about Jesus and are still worshipping god as they perceive him to be. They will be judged… but ultimately they will go to hell. Why? Then rationalization begins in order to defend these statements. No …. god does not send anyone one to hell. You choose to go there by rejecting Christ. Oh really. So it is Christ or hell? Yes. Give me Christ. Who in his right mind wants to be tortured for ever. Every one will want to be in paradise for ever.
Bible creation. The earth is billions of years old... has fossils etc. The cosmos is so huge. Yet the Bible speaks of 6 thousand years old. Oh really. Where do all the variety of species come from? Where do all the stars, galaxies and planets come from? When god only needed one for us… not trillions of them. Only evolution can explain that. I grew tired of defending the indefensible. The only way to remain a Christian is to switch off your logic center in the brain god gave you. Even Jesus said so that we must become like children. Have you seen children run things?
The second coming of Jesus. Where is he? When is he coming back again? He tells the disciples that they will not die before he comes back again. OK. They die. Those alive say he came in the form of the holy ghost. Others say do not mock or scorn and say when is Jesus coming back again. OK. After 2000 years we are entitled to ask, “Where are you Jesus?” He must therefore not exist as god. Yahweh also does no exist. Therefore there can be no “son of god” if the father does not exist. They are all figments of primitive man kinds imagination to understand the world as they knew it then. There are many more points a could share.
Religion started through fear caused by ignorance and is perpetuated by fear caused by ignorance. Today no one has an excuse to remain ignorant. The internet is there to open eyes so that all may see and bask in the light of Science. Fact plus evidence equals TRUTH (Science). Fact plus lack of evidence equals LIES (Religion).
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