Cinjin sorry to hear that things did not go so well with your father. I faced a situation with my dad, not about my christian life, but with the success my half brother was having in his life and compared to him I was always struggling. Dad would even build me up to be someone successful in life so that others would not know I was not coming up to his standards and this hurt alot but I never told him. I keep on living my life as me and became very active in my church, I was very happy with what God was doing in my life and then He called me to be a deacon of His church, boy was I suprised. Well when I was ordained my family was present and I guess that some of the people of my church talked to dad about me because right before he left my home after the service he told me that he loved me and I had not heard that since I was a boy. By the expression on his face I knew that he believed that my success in life was defind differently than my brothers and I knew that he believed that I had the greater success in life, of coarse I give God the credit for this and so did dad. Now the reason I'm saying this is to say do not give up on your dad and I bet he has not written you off, that is not the way a christian man believes, he probably is hurt and very frightened to think that his son may not be in heaven with him, this is only a natural reaction to this situation. Of coarse just like the others that have responded we were not there nor have we been throughout your life so we can only guess as to how things really are. I will be honest I agree with the last quoted statement you have him saying, that is up to the point that "God is my only concern." I hope that was a statement made out of fear and not true belief, if it was from true belief I think I know how he may have arrived at it, what he needs to consider is that when Jesus makes a statement from His divine nature man should not assume that he can also make that same statement. I want go into what Christ said because this is not the time to have an argument started with the others. Again I'm sorry the way things were left between you and your dad, do not give up though, I really believe he loves you, please also understand I'm not trying to defend another christian, because if he meant what he said it's indefensible, God never intended for one man to treat another in such a way especially a father toward a son.
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.
