(December 6, 2010 at 4:29 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Shit...I have to go out right now. I hope you're still around when I get back.
For the meantime, perhaps you might explain how this "relationship" works. Aside from you talking to yourself, that is.
So, God created man. Man sinned. Sin comes from the Satan. Since man sins, Satan has power over this world, because we are controlled by sin. God obviously doesn't want us to be controlled by sin. When we die, we either go to heaven, or hell. Heaven is a pretty hard place to get accepted into, especially because to get in, you have to be completely and utterly perfect.
This means that the first time you even thought of calling someone a bad name, you were condemned to spend eternity in hell. Bummer, right? Well, God looked at that, and saw that he needed to change it. God loves each and every one of us, and so he really doesn't want to see any of us go to hell, or live our lives rejecting him. See, humans were created in God's image, but the thing is is that we were given free will.
That's why we sin and God doesn't just stop us, it's our choice. So, because admission to heaven is a little more than impossible, God changed things. He sent Jesus down to earth to teach people about God, and how to live the way we were made to. He then sacrificed himself. since the price of sin is death, and Jesus was absolutely perfect, he payed the price for an infinite number of sins. (its like this: if I sinned 342,834,003 times in my life, but Jesus payed the price for an infinite number of sins, try subtracting that number from infinity. that help?)
So now its all perfect, yeah? He payed the price for all of our sins, so now everyone goes to heaven, right? Not quite :/ If God was to force this free gift of grace onto us, it wouldn't exactly be a gift, more like a rule, or something like that. Also, it would be completely disregarding the fact that humans were made with free will. So what do we do to get this gift? It's as simple as this: Ask! All you have to do is ask God for this gift of eternal life, and he will give it to you! This is the teaching of the bible (the most historically verified and trustworthy piece of history in the world, as well as the words of god). So, as you can probably see, this is something which is completely between you and God! There is no one there telling you how many Hail Mary's to say.
I betcha I got like really off topic there haha, shows what only 5 hours of sleep does to a man haha
