Anyone else have this problem?

[Akira Takahashi]

My family is mostly fundamentalists, with the exception of one brother, who's an atheist.  Anyway, I also go to a church that is extremely fundamentalist, and I was wondering if anyone feels that this kind of doctrine hurts their faith more than helps it.

For example, last Sunday, I got to sit in church and listen to our guest speaker tell us all about our wrathful God, and the lake of fire He intends to toss everyone into.  The sermon was little more than a revamped "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" as he talked about how God was like a strong river, ready to destroy everything in its path, but his love was like a dam to hold it back.  The warnings are there that the dam will break and the Wrathful God will utterly destroy all nonbelievers.  It was insanely depressing, and I walked away feeling like I'd taken a few steps back in my faith.  It also made me ponder how God can have such a split personality.  It would be like me saying, "My left hand wants to strangle you, but I love you so much that my right hand keeps it in check.  Better watch out or I might let go and throttle you!"  Pretty sad when your default is to destroy...

Anyway, there's also my mom, who has not helped in bringing my brother back to the Lord at all.  She's pretty excited over the current political turmoil in the world, and is pretty sure that we'll be raptured away before things get scary here on Earth.  The Rapture will come before the economy collapses, etc.  However, she says she wants to stay long enough to watch Russia get wiped off the map.  She hates Russians and wants to see them suffer, apparently.  She also thinks Israel should bomb the living daylights out of everyone else.  Ugh...  I have no doubt that she trusts the Lord completely and with everything, but complete lack of regard for the people of certain nations has a tendency to not help my brother's opinion that Christians just hate everybody.

So, do any of you attend a church or have a family member who makes you feel like you're not progressing in your faith?

[Paul Hazelwood]

My family is mostly fundamentalists, with the exception of one brother, who's an atheist.  Anyway, I also go to a church that is extremely fundamentalist, and I was wondering if anyone feels that this kind of doctrine hurts their faith more than helps it.

Well, quite literally I had to leave fundamental Christianity to keep from killing myself.

[Molly]

Pretty sad when your default is to destroy...

LOL!  I just love the way you write.

I hope you keep writing because it seems to me your heart is speaking everything you need to know.

It might look to you like you are not progressing but from where I sit, you are already there--and nothing can separate us from the love of God--


..neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,..

--Rom 8

[sparrow]

I found I did much better when I put everyone else's opinions about my spirituality OUT of my mind.


Some people do not believe that God will save all... because they do not WANT God to save all.
Your mother doesn't like Russians? Her idea of Heaven wouldn't be as good if God were to save Russians, I imagine?

There are many reasons why people don't believe the gospel, the good news.. that God is the saviour of all mankind. One of those reasons is they cannot get past their OWN hatred/fear of another human being or group of human beings. They refuse to love. As long as they can keep imagining their enemies suffering.... they feel vindicated and happy. But they are really not happy, because those types of thoughts can only bring misery. The longer they hold onto their hatred and fear, the more miserable and lost they become. Some hold onto it like grim death... and that's exactly what it is... DEATH.

LOVE YOUR ENEMIES.

You may as well start loving them NOW... because one day they will no longer be your enemies at all...
One day you will rejoice together and bow down TOGETHER before our wonderful, unbelievably loving God.
Better to LOVE now... and let that love transform your life.

LOVE is the most powerful thing in this universe.
LOVE overcomes all.
Fear overcomes nothing.
Hatred overcomes nothing.

LOVE OVERCOMES EVERYTHING.

Those are not just mere words...
It is the purest truth there is...

GOD IS LOVE.
LOVE OVERCOMES ALL.
This is WHY WE ARE HERE!
God is in the process of showing us that LOVE is the most powerful thing.
There is NOTHING that we can do that LOVE will not fix.
Nothing.
We are here to LEARN that thinking we can do ANYTHING to ESCAPE His love....it's a lesson in futility.
Maybe we are here, because deep down we all questioned God... "Is your love real? How real is your love? Is there anything we can do for you to stop loving us??  :dontknow:" Maybe that is why we got put on earth. So we could finally just stop questioning God....  :happy3: He is showing us once and for all... the POWER of His Love. (just a thought.)

No amount of evil will win.
Love overcomes ALL.


Do people really think that God (who is LOVE)  would be pleased about a human being hating another human being?  Or wishing for the suffering of another? OF course not.

WE all must walk our own path. Sometimes, on our path... we must walk slowly, humbly, patiently listening to Him... not to OTHERS, but to Him. Sometimes, it means not arguing with others and just letting words go by us like butterflies... just LET IT GO. Walk peacefully...and don't worry about where others are on their OWN path. Only worry about your own two feet walking on YOUR path... and have patience. There may be a storm of conflicting ideas swirling all around you... but concentrate on standing in the EYE of that storm, where there is nothing calmness and peace. Stand in the eye and HIS eye will be on you, guiding you. The storm of opinions is still swirling around you... but it's ok. He sees you. and will guide you. Have patience, quiet yourself within and listen to his whisper...remember that GOD.IS.LOVE and God is not the author of confusion. HE will never lead you astray. Mankind will... but not God. Remember the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance.

peace to you...

[reFORMer]

My dad was a pentecostal Pastor, so were his three brothers, as was mom's dad, my grandpa.  They were racial dispensationalists in eschatology but not pneumatology.  After I'd been away from home a couple of years, wandering through the "hippie" scene in Haight-Ashbury San Francisco and Minneapolis, God radically changed my life by putting the Holy Spirit in me, making me determine to continue following Jesus, if I fell down to get back up and go on, and He put a hunger in me to read His word.

Things written were different than what I'd been told.  Because my family, and those like them in many churches said, "We believe the Bible," I believed them.  I was overjoyed to have some knowledge that corrected my understanding more according to what was written, so I thought they'd love it too.  Wrong!  I was more rejected for offending their religious commitments than I had ever been for my sins.  It took me a long time to discover they had their religion, a network of social relationships and beliefs that were more important than what was written.  They would have lost a lot more than a certain idea about religious things if they recognized what was or was not written:  friends, job, home, social standing, reputation.  What I shared from Scripture was labeled by them as what I believed and they didn't agree with me.  It took me years to find out there's a lot more to it than showing Bible verses to people.

Something is holding them where they are.  While there may be evil spirits to pray against in some cases, it may actually be God keeping them from progressing on the path of life and out of His treasure house.  Look what a lot of them have done with the truth they already have.  They're exclusive, justifying ungodly attitudes toward the rest of the world, and making merchandise of the Word of God.  The God of their heart is wrathy, not full of tender pity.  For many, He never forgives and is never satisfied toward most of humanity.  The way to the tree of life is guarded from every direction that Adam cannot enter in.  The only Way is Jesus.

If they wanted Jesus they would seek after Him and obey Him.  When we do what Jesus says the traditions of men begin to stink.  But their meetings show they're only repeating a religious show.  They are part of an audience enabling some man's "ministry."  They don't even know their neighbors, much less help carry their burdens.  No repentance.  No travail in prayer.  No searching the Book of the Lord.  They're the same at home.  There must come a basic conviction of sin, humbling them before God and turning away from their own ways for them to benefit from more of the truth.  There are other foundational things wrong with many who name the name of Jesus than only a misunderstanding of near at hand or distant prophetic events.  Repentance is needed, not just improved knowledge.

I can say faithfulness to the Truth has cost me again and again.  It's scary to me.  God sends people a strong delusion to believe a lie because they don't receive a love of the truth.  This is how He cuts them off rather than saves them.  It isn't a game.  This isn't about some place in death or His ultimate ages in the future.  It's about here and now.  If God is going to entrust His Holy Spirit of truth as a gift to people they must qualify.  The Scripture says He gives His Spirit to those who obey Him.  The prizes are to the overcomers.  You must win to get the prize.  While we are saved by grace, not of works or of ourselves, we must be victorious to attain to the mark for the prize of being called into a higher place in Christ.  If we use the grace given we will receive more.

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: Yes, I've never met anyone who didn't, I don't think. It's all part of the territory. In my case, my mother's side of the family blamed me for getting her into a cult (Pentecostal church). I told them I had nothing to do with it, because I really didn't. She simply saw that I was a different person from the morning I woke up born from above, and knew she didn't have what I had. Thirty days later, the conviction of the HS won out, and she had what I had. Blessings....

[Sarah]

Akira,

I laughed when you wrote about your mom because I have many dear cousins who think exactly like this. Part of the problem is isolation. The anger is directed toward 'Russians' and 'Communists' without a clue of what they are talking about.

It took me a long time to discover they had their religion, a network of social relationships and beliefs that were more important than what was written.

well put!

[CHB]

Hi Sparrow,

You are absolutely right, my thoughts exactly.

I have a son who is a Baptist preacher. You have to love these people and realize that God hasn't opened their eyes to see certain things yet.  My son keeps telling me we have a choice, free will to chose God. We send ourselves to hell, he thinks. I have never believed this, so you wonder, how did he come to this understanding? It has to be, that is where God wants him to be in his understanding.

CHB

[Akira Takahashi]

I have a son who is a Baptist preacher. You have to love these people and realize that God hasn't opened their eyes to see certain things yet.  My son keeps telling me we have a choice, free will to chose God. We send ourselves to hell, he thinks. I have never believed this, so you wonder, how did he come to this understanding? It has to be, that is where God wants him to be in his understanding.

CHB

I thought like that for a long time.  But then I wondered, if God already knows that someone will choose Hell, then why let him be born?  Or, in the case of my brother, why torture me into forever trying to reach someone He knew didn't have a snowball's chance?

Things got even more complicated when I thought, "God is in command of all things, so is it not His fault that Hell is the default for nonbelievers?"  This led to a resentment of God, which, in turn, led me here.

[Nathan]

Life is but a never ending session of school that we are but students .. . the intent and purpose of these lessons of our schooling is to mature us into graduating into the next class.  We think it odd to judge a 7th grader for being a 7th grader . . .yet when it comes to spiritual matters . . .we become defensive, aggressive, bewildered, depressed, frustrated . .the list goes on . . . and we look at the establishments that these people are in that put us through these emotional roller coasters and blame the establishment . . .kind of like blaming the junior highschool for teaching my junior high student, junior high levels of understanding.

What I'm trying to say is . . .these religious churches do serve a purpose . . . they are still put there by God and he does move in them.  But we can't really blame the church for being what it was supposed to be, anymore than we can blame our flesh for being what it was born to be . . .flesh. 

The best we can tell these underclassmen is simply  . . ."Wait until you get into the kingdom of advanced Trigonometry  . . ."  to try to "teach" them Trigonometry before they're fully developed in the level they're currently in will only deform their ability to grasp what they do know.  Just plant the seed . . ."see" it in the heavens . . "call it out" in the flesh . . .and let God mature them in the process.

[Akira Takahashi]

Life is but a never ending session of school that we are but students

I like that!

[Kevin]

Forum,
Once again, I speak only for myself.
It is very hard to walk in with the general beliefs of mainstream Christianity. Earlier, for me It became impossible, that was
only for a season.
Stating my believes, UR and I did not know there was, is, a following, caused great turmoil, specifically within myself, and
my family. I learned the hard way to seek God's path, in the Spirit of Truth,
This was my season of, 23rd Psalms. This went on for 2 years.

During that time I did try to explain my believes to a few who seemed to want to know, only to find out they they only
wanted to justify their own believes, and if I got close to the Truth with them, they caught "fire", not the good kind.

I do walk in the World, and discern through Grace when it is profitable to step into UR with the World, I don't always
hit the mark. So I am careful not to destroy a person's believe that don't line up with mine.
God's in management, I am in service.

Kevin,

My family is mostly fundamentalists, with the exception of one brother, who's an atheist.  Anyway, I also go to a church that is extremely fundamentalist, and I was wondering if anyone feels that this kind of doctrine hurts their faith more than helps it.

For example, last Sunday, I got to sit in church and listen to our guest speaker tell us all about our wrathful God, and the lake of fire He intends to toss everyone into.  The sermon was little more than a revamped "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" as he talked about how God was like a strong river, ready to destroy everything in its path, but his love was like a dam to hold it back.  The warnings are there that the dam will break and the Wrathful God will utterly destroy all nonbelievers.  It was insanely depressing, and I walked away feeling like I'd taken a few steps back in my faith.  It also made me ponder how God can have such a split personality.  It would be like me saying, "My left hand wants to strangle you, but I love you so much that my right hand keeps it in check.  Better watch out or I might let go and throttle you!"  Pretty sad when your default is to destroy...

Anyway, there's also my mom, who has not helped in bringing my brother back to the Lord at all.  She's pretty excited over the current political turmoil in the world, and is pretty sure that we'll be raptured away before things get scary here on Earth.  The Rapture will come before the economy collapses, etc.  However, she says she wants to stay long enough to watch Russia get wiped off the map.  She hates Russians and wants to see them suffer, apparently.  She also thinks Israel should bomb the living daylights out of everyone else.  Ugh...  I have no doubt that she trusts the Lord completely and with everything, but complete lack of regard for the people of certain nations has a tendency to not help my brother's opinion that Christians just hate everybody.

So, do any of you attend a church or have a family member who makes you feel like you're not progressing in your faith?

[Akira Takahashi]

Your mother doesn't like Russians? Her idea of Heaven wouldn't be as good if God were to save Russians, I imagine?

It's not so much that she doesn't like Russians, or believe that God won't save them, but more of the fact that she believes that America should stand behind Isreal at all costs, endorse her is whatever she may be doing (even if Isreal is playing the antagonist), and blow anyone out of the water who disagrees.  In that sense, she has come to the conclusion that Russia hates Isreal, and can't wait for God to destroy Russia and everyone in it.  She says it's in Revelations, and the fullfillment of prophesy means that she's one step closer to being raptured away from the world.

For her, it's less about holding a grudge, and more about wanting the Rapture to come.  She spends most of her time on the Rapture Ready forums, so that could be where she gets these ideas.  Needless to say, if entire peoples must be destroyed so that the Rapture can take place, then so be it.  She also can't wait until Isreal lays waste to Damascus, Gaza-style.

[reFORMer]

How about that, "strong delusion to believe a lie" that God sends on those "who receive not a love of the truth that they may be saved?"  If those in possession of present day Jerusalem perhaps claim to have the real ark of the covenant, but certainly can "call fire down out of heaven" (even if it is lasers) in the sight of the nations, maybe even have a prophet or two that'll work with them (and no, I don't think it will be Bunny Hinder, author of The Annoying -- he does preach the gospel you know,) what do you think so many evangelicals will follow?

Jerusalem which now is sits on seven hills:  Zion, Ophel, Moriah (the three peaks of Zion,and) Bezetha, Acra, Gareb, and Goath.  She is called, "spiritually, Sodom and Egypt" and is clearly identified by Isaiah.  From the futurist's "literal" perspective, this Mother that gave birth to so-called "christian" daughters of whoredoms is going to be swiftly destroyed as the smoke of her burning is observed from afar. (cp., Rv 18)  We could speculate in the manner of Hel Lamesay that a nuclear bomb or bombs will destroy Jerusalem.  At any rate, how suprised will be those many who have not understood that, "She is in slavery with her children." (Ga 4:25)

[Akira Takahashi]

reFORMer, you have officially warped my mind.  Time to go study.