Christians, what is it like to have a personal relationship with Jesus?

[chimp3]

Years ago at a low point in my life I tried to give this personal relationship thing a go. I sat on my fence in the front yard and sincerely asked God for guidance. A Mockingbird shit on my head. Thanks. Thanks a lot! Last time I tried that.

[purplepurpose]

Years ago at a low point in my life I tried to give this personal relationship thing a go. I sat on my fence in the front yard and sincerely asked God for guidance. A Mockingbird shit on my head. Thanks. Thanks a lot! Last time I tried that.

This couldn't have been a coincidence! How can you follow God if you can even take humbly shit on the head?

[Drich]

 

This is both a blessing and a curse. as sometimes people who have spent most of their lives trying to serve God in a way that comes naturally to me tend to over look the simplicity but solid answers I've been given. At the same time I also find myself struggling to remind myself it is not me that produces these answers but the access I've been given to God's "google."
 

Yes I now see your problem .... having Google at your fingertips  can make you feel like you have all knowledge ... 

A bit of advice ...  depending on Google to acquire or maintain a faith is not the action of a well balanced person as you can find anything in there to support any delusion ....

If you will accept a bit of friendly advice ... stay off Google or even Bing one the the Devils search engines and just read the "Bible" and I am sure you will join us in the light after shedding the shackles of indoctrination 

....oh bother....

God's google is a metaphor for the access to God's wisdom I have been given. It not an actual search engine...

I likened my spiritual gift to a search engine because the wisdom I derive from it does not come from me but this external source. It was my way of giving credit to God as He is the source of my gift and I am one who has simply been given access to it.

[Drich]

. . . I would point to the dozens of messianic prophecies in the OT that were all fulfilled by Christ.  It's really quite telling when all taken together.

Well . . . . . . .


You can thank (or curse) the Mormons (yes, the Mormons again) for showing how that little bit of religious chicanery is accomplished:


* say they did when some/most/all didn't

* rewrite the prophecies, a little or a lot, and repeat as necessary

* rewrite the records of the supposed 'fulfillments' to make them closer

* make up more 'fulfillments' if the existing provenance seems inadequate

* rely on the pew warmers to not look at any of the pesky details too closely

* lock away in old musty filing cabinets anything that might upset the apple cart

* claim inconsistencies or problems are due to imperfections in translations that are unavoidable

* divert, deflect, obfuscate

* excommunicate any of the pew warmers that seems to be catching on to the chicanery


So, that's how that bit of sausage is made. I suppose for the rest of the religious folks it's a real kick in the shins the fucking Mormons published the play book, but here we are, and as even the highest muckety mucks in Salt Lake City have come to realize, it's DAMN hard to get that kind of shit back in the can.

I'm thinking the True Christians of the 1820s on might have tried a bit harder to exterminate the Mormon menace had they but realized the peril LDS would put all their religions in.

Well, you still have the whole book of revelation to look forward to.

[Drich]

It's not the people I hate... it's their stupid ideologies and religious thinking. It causes them to do some really fucked up things.  I have plenty of friends who are christian. If I hated christians so much, I wouldn't have those people as friends.

Can you give one example from your life, where religion caused harm?

9-11-01

[Drich]

What do you mean by fucked? Did it really get that bad?

My mother is a Christian and my dad is an atheist. It's always been so. She started going to a new church when I was 14 years old, and the pastor there began immediately showing my mother all of the scriptures about why she shouldn't be married to a non-believer. After about a year of this she left my dad. I was torn between two homes and a horribly heartbroken father and a brainwashed mother - it continues to this day. That's what I mean by "fucked".

Our home was sober, well kept, and non-violent. My dad never berated my mother for her faith. There was no reason for our family to be dismantled because some old-fashioned myth says so.

Then she should have consulted her bible first... Or she just wanted to leave all along and this moron's sermon gave her an easy out.

If she wanted to follow biblical Christianity This is what the bible says about being married to unbelievers:
1 cor 7:
12 The advice I have for the others is from me. The Lord did not give us any teaching about this. If you have a wife who is not a believer, you should not divorce her if she will continue to live with you. 13 And if you have a husband who is not a believer, you should not divorce him if he will continue to live with you. 14 The husband who is not a believer is set apart for God through his believing wife. And the wife who is not a believer is set apart for God through her believing husband. If this were not true, your children would be unfit for God’s use. But now they are set apart for him.

15 But if the husband or wife who is not a believer decides to leave, let them leave. When this happens, the brother or sister in Christ is free. God chose you to have a life of peace. 16 Wives, maybe you will save your husband; and husbands, maybe you will save your wife. You don’t know now what will happen later.

[Drich]

...The Holy Spirit actually..

Jesus, is in Heaven. He went back so the Father would sent us the Holy Spirit. This is what Jesus said we should A/S/K for. In that the Holy Spirit of God is what we have been offered/have access to.

The Holy Spirit if first manifest in us through Spiritual fruit. (As a grape vine can not produce figs, nor a weed produce olives, we each produce 'fruit' after our own nature. If we have the gift of the Holy Spirit then we will produce fruit that is consistant with the Holy Spirit.)

Gal5:22
22 But the fruit that the Spirit produces in a person’s life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control.

Then if we follow the Spirit (Are faith to these fruit we have been given) we may receive a spiritual gift. Everyone in the Spirit receives Spiritual fruit, but Spiritual gift are often different and unique.

1 cor 12 is a whole chapter dedicated to the different gifts and how we should use and view them.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...ersion=ERV

Personally speaking I have been given either wisdom or just a direct line to the Spirit, in that I have all of my questions answered. It's kinda like having access to a Godly version of google. I wouldn't call someone who knows how to use google wise.. just fortunate. I was given this gift some time ago and sought out to answer other people's questions as all of mine were answered. In short I was faithful to what god has given me, and He has blessed me by allowing this gift to spill over into all other aspects of my life.

This is both a blessing and a curse. as sometimes people who have spent most of their lives trying to serve God in a way that comes naturally to me tend to over look the simplicity but solid answers I've been given. At the same time I also find myself struggling to remind myself it is not me that produces these answers but the access I've been given to God's "google."

Despite my abrasive nature and low tolerance for people mocking what they do not fully understand I think I have found an acceptable balance, and I seek to share what God has given me.

Other ways this gift has affected me, is I have traded my 'faith' for understanding and belief. I planted my mustard seed and it grew into a large 'tree' of belief. In other words I do not have to have faith to know God's word is true I've seen it play out via promises kept. This translates into an iron clad system of belief.

Can you give some more specified details of how God provides you with answers? What are the exact dynamics that go on? And how do you really know it's God giving you true answers rather than just you having some epiphany and attributing it to God?

From what I read your asking two different questions... One how do you receive your message and two how do you vet it./How do you know it is from God and not you.

The second is easier to answer, in that I know my own personal limitations. Many older member have heard me speak about my past and all the different Learning disabilities I was saddled with growing up. Dyslexia, didn't learn to read and comprehend what I was reading till well after high school. (I could do one or the other but not both at the same time.) And I still struggle with grammar and spelling as a constant thorn/reminder of who I am/was. But, when it came to God, and understanding Scripture I was able to make connection most others couldn't. Even before I was able to read and understand/study the bible indepth I just 'knew' what the bible said.

I taught myself to read and comprehend with the help of comic books (I have to see things to process them, and before I taught myself how to read I never made the connection to picture what I was reading/all my effort was on deciphering the words.) then I started in on the bible with some taped readings/sermons and I followed along. Once I went through the bible I had a very strong understanding of it. could and still can recall little things that tie bigger points together.. (very hard to explain)  The funny thing this 'gift' initially seems to only work with bible stuff. So I went with it and doubble down in the religious works department (I was faithful to what gifts God gave me.) Most of it was teaching youth groups, and later on innercity ministries and even did a large singles/collage ministry.

In the collage ministry is where the answering questions started. alot of the members would have, at the time faith ending paradoxes or arguements that they could not work around. (all of which were extremely smart people) And this is the part that is hard to explain. When given a solution I/my consciousness self is almost unaware of what my spiritual side is going to say. alot of times I do not know where something is going and when it over i look back and am like wow that was profound. then I go back and double check everything...

I do this here. That is why it is very rare that any of you have ever been able to factually refute any of my points, numbers or factual based claims... (and whether you know it or not the same effort goes into being scripturally correct as well) I just write what is put on my heart, and am say given a number or a fact lets say about God or better yet about Islam (as this is the most recent example of this happening/we are talking about the islamic faith) and I write it all up, then i go back and double check everything, and when I post a citation 9/10 it was information I was given and I myself was unaware or unsure of, but as per the citation turns out to be 100% true.

Yes, even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and again... but I have been doing this almost every day (4 to 10 posts a day) for 9 years, and over 10,000 different posts between this website and one or two others.

I learn so much by answering questions. That is why I keep coming back. I've run out of things to ask, so I love it when one of you comes up with something new or a new topic.

So how am I given information? It's like being told what to say one word at a time just before I say or type it.

How do I know what I've been given is true? I go back and check everything.

[FatAndFaithless]

Can you give one example from your life, where religion caused harm?

9-11-01

Welp, there's another of the handful of times I have to agree with Drich.

[Spirian]

A pastor told my mother to divorce my father because he wasn't a Christian. She divorced my dad - life was fucked after that.

I am working on the assumption that you reject Christianity, is this experience the basis for that sir?

No. I had already decided by the age of about 12 that I didn't believe the bible and Christianity. This experience only served to strengthen my conviction.

[purplepurpose]

9-11-01

Welp, there's another of the handful of times I have to agree with Drich.