12valve@heart

Scott, I'm glad that context helped.

I find it interesting that many religions including many Native American religions have similar content - things like a supreme being, a point of creation, a fall from grace, a global flood, heaven, and hell to mention a few. It is important to be clear that not all paths lead to heaven. Many religions claim to be A way to heaven but Jesus said that there was only ONE way - through Him.

As you ponder these things, you first need to decide; Who is God?

irocpractice

To my fellow bright eyed and bushy tailed DTRonians.I'll fess up,when this post hit my in box I felt that it would be nice to pass on.However,I did not anticipate the level and erudite nature of the responses to the post.The quality and forthrightness of the responses are truly enlightening and and should be fondly remembered as we lead our daily lives.
Thanks for the responses and HAPPY NEW YEAR.

GIT-R-DONE

Although I am a firm believer in Jesus Christ and have been for years, sometimes its hard to see, as some of the previous posters have said, about people suffering in one way or another.

I believe that some of this we're not to understand, as in finding an answer in our human mentality, just isnt possible for us to understand. We dont know the future, but knowing myself Where I am going, gives me enough peace and contentment that is joyous in my heart....I just find myself sometimes wishing I could get there sooner. Obviously, there are plans that I am unaware of , but have the trust and faith in knowing that I am "taken care of" no matter what my life brings here on earth. Faith goes a very long way in life, as does forgiveness.

Bob, if you would, please tell us "The rest of the story". I am very interested to listen. If you dont want to post here, please pm me.

FiverBob

Oh boy, how can I do this and be brief. If you have not read my first post, do it before going on in this epistle. That explains what had happened to me with the heart attack and being in the rescue squad when I flat lined. I knew I was going out and told the paramed "I am leaving you - - see ya" never knowing how accurate my statement was. To this day I have no idea how long I was flat lined - - we were still some ways from the hospital and I had been in emergency some time before opening my eyes. The parameds were still there and a doctor was right in my face when I opened my eyes. I noted there were also 394 gorgeous nurses (seemed that way, anyhow) standing all around my bed - - then noted I was laying there stark naked. First words out of my mouth were "doesn't anyone have a flower to cover me up down there?" Everyone laughed except the doc - - he looked at me and thoughtfully said "oh good, he's back." Again, I did not realize the significance of that statement until later that day.

When I awoke, I realized something significant had happened - - almost like a dream, yet too real. Fearing losing the experience, I closed my eyes and locked in what had happened. I had found myself floating seemingly upward moving very fast yet with no feeling of movement. It was black all around me and ahead was a small bright light, but it was getting bigger very fast. I was not afraid, in fact, I was feeling a strange release, a sense of well being as if something I wanted very much was about to happen. I looked back behind me to see where I had left and find my wife and a very reassuring male voice said "Marian is not coming with you on this trip, she will be along later." I accepted that with not the first question and turned back to my goal with great anticipation and growing excitement. As I got closer to the light, the feeling I had was so strange - - one of contentment and peace - - I realized I was going where I had been planning and anticipating most of my life. I realized I was about to see my Savior and be entering heaven. The closer I got to the bright area, like coming out of a fog, trees started appearing with the brightest and most gorgeous green leaves I had ever seen. Suddenly I saw robed figures moving in pairs from left to right across my vision - - but I was a little frustrated - - I could not see around that corner to the right where they were going. I knew I would see what I wanted to lay my eyes on right around that corner. Yet, the feeling of peace and contentment just kept growing more intense - - I was going home.

Just as I was about to reach the point where I could join the others moving to the right and see around that corner, I woke up in the emergency room. Once I realized where I was, I was immediately disapointed I had not made it around that corner. Yet, something inside me said "I was not ready for you to come - - I have more work for you to do." At that time I still did not realize I had flat lined so all this was still more like a dream. It was not until 3pm that afternoon the nurse told me I had flat lined. Suddenly it all became clear what had happened and I completely went to pieces. To think I had almost made it, but that God was not quite thru with me here just overwhelmed me. I felt so unworthy to have been to that point, yet it made me realize I was worthy thru the work of Jesus Christ. I have never been the same since that point. I have no more fear of dying. I have looked at what I do here for others with a different point of view. My motives and values have changed. My zeal to let others know of God's love and the peace one attains with allowing God to enter your life and change you hopefully into the image He has for you has a new meaning. Oh I'm not perfect, but sure trying to let God do His work on me as I read His word and try to follow His will for my life. I am a work in progress. I love spending my time with Him and have Him direct me as best as I can understand it.

Oh man, I could go on with many more details but I will quit - - that is the main jist of what happened. I must take the time to completely document the event with all the little details - - it was an amazing experience from the moment I hit the ground in my yard unable to stand up from the heart attack to that evening when things sort of settled back down so I could really reflect on the events of the day. I am so glad I heard the story of who Jesus is and what He wants to do for all of us when I was quite young. It has been an amazing journey thru this life. I have been blest - - I am grateful. Thank you, God, for forgiving me and accepting me into your kingdom.

Hope this was not too long. God bless.

Bob

chaikwa

'Erudite'? I am NOT an erudite! I was polite and respectful and so were all the others! If anything I was a polite-ite!

Bob, anything you write could not possibly be too long. And when/if you write again, please don't make it brief. You will never know the profound effect your writings have had on me, just today alone. It just may be the job God had in mind for you, the reason He was not done with you yet. You should think about that! And I pray to God that there are more people like me out there that you can contact and influence, I don't wanna lose you yet!

FiverBob

This is quite amazing. I teach the adult Sunday School class in our church (about 40 -60 members pending the time of the year - - you know, the snow birds coming to Florida) and yesterday I was asked why do bad things happen to good people, even those that are dedicated to God? We had quite a discussion on this very subject, and here it is happening on the forum. I had shared with them previously, in fact the whole church, my experience of the heart attack. That is what prompted the question in class. I do believe God allows some things to happen to give us some metal, deepen our faith in Him and also make us aware of what things others go thru. This allows us to relate to them and help them thru their rough times. I pray most every day to use me for His service. I appreciate your thought and your prayers that very thing happens. Is there something more important than our position with our creator? I promise I will try and stick around a while longer. I don't think he is thru with me yet.

GIT-R-DONE

How true. In many ways, this could be part of a reason that God had intended.

A close friend of mine had a similar experience, in being brain dead from medical problems. He was in the ICU for 6 weeks. The preacher man that went down with his wife 3 different times....docs wanted to "pull the plug" on him.......and the last and third time, as the doctor was in explaining to the family why, what they felt was going on with him......his favorite song from a gospel group came on, and so did all the lights showing now there was brain activity. There is sooo much more to the story, much of which I dont know. He did write it all down though.

Bob, Dont be afraid to tell it all as it may be just that one piece that you think isnt important, or think that no one would believe you, that might be the difference for one person being lead to God.

After going thru rehab, he came out with no memory loss and is back to work! He is now a fill in preacher in my local area. I could send you a copy of everything that happened from him if you wish, just pm me with the info to send it.

God works in mysterious ways, and maybe, just maybe this is one of them !

Mexstan

Finally managed to get back on here and play catch up on all the posts. WOW, I am truly amazed at everything that has been said. The quality, sincerity and depth of the posts really are amazing. All of you dun gud, real gud. So good in fact that I hesitate to attempt to add my 2 cents. After everything that has been said, my 2 cents may only come out a 1 cent. Anyhow, will see if I can add anything worthwhile.

Scott, thank you for being so open with your thoughts, feelings, doubts etc. It takes a man to do that. Never fear or worry about questioning God. In fact, there is clear scripture that tells us to "test the spirits" to make sure that we are following the right path. Don't stop looking and asking God what His plan is for your life. I believe that He does have a Divine Plan for each of us, but it is up to us individually to actively seek that plan through prayer and reading the Word. I will not use the word meditation, because that can imply emptying the mind, which is wrong. Prayer is the key.

I have heard over and over again from different folks making excuses for not reading the Bible or becoming a Christian that the reason they do not do that or believe is because the Bible is 'full of contradictions'. When challenged they back away because they can't show any proof of contradictions and are in fact only repeating what they have heard from other unbelievers. Never found one yet that says this and has actually read the Bible. Bob is correct when he says that the apparent contradictions are caused thru interpretations of some words. Finding the correct interpretation is another subject and will not get into that here and now. If you want to know if the Bible contradicts itself, take a close look at prophecy. There are dozens of Biblical prophecies and every one of them have been fulfilled 100% of the time with 100% accuracy. Not 99.9 % - 100% accuracy. That's good enough for me to believe that the rest of the Bible is accurate. There are only a handful of prophecies left, so the end is near, very near. Are all of you ready to face God, your creator?

I agree with all of you who have trouble understanding why a loving God could allow a child to suffer. We are finite creatures, created by God, so consequently cannot understand an infinite God. However, I do believe that many tragedies that make us finite creatures question God's sanity or reason are in fact directly caused by human failures, so consequently God is NOT to blame. We are the ones to blame, but consistently are looking for a scapegoat. (as a side note, Jesus was sacrificed as our scapegoat) There is no way we can understand why so much suffering happens, but I do know that God does NOT cause suffering and has tried for years, centuries, to prevent it happening, but as stupid humans,we do not listen or obey, so bring it on ourselves.

We do need to make God our friend. That does NOT make us equals with Him. However, hard as this concept may be to grasp, God desires us to be such good friends with Him that we know him as Daddy.

Going to church does not not make you a Christian or a believer, but it can. Going to church brings you into an environment of fellow believers and is the scriptural thing to do.

I was going to address each post separately, but decided to just be general for now. In any case, if I did that, would run out of space. in any case have run out of time and need to run, but will be back later and see what other great posts have popped up. Keep 'em coming. This is all good stuff and vitally important to each of us.

FiverBob

Now this is cool - - again something is said on here that we covered in our Sunday School class last Sunday. The statement in class was I saw one of the people who attends our church every Sunday do __________???? How can they call themselves a follower of Christ and do that? My answer was similar to Stans and went like this: Going to church every Sunday and sitting in the pew and watching what goes on does not make you a Christian any more that going to a bowling alley every Sunday, sitting in the gallery and watch what goes on make you a bowler. You have to grasp what the name of the game is all about, make a decision you want to be a bowler, pick up the ball and throw it. Once the decision is made, you learn everything you can about the game, do all the things you can to learn more about it, practise and get help from those that know that game, and then practise somemore. We must make the DECISION that this is what is best for me, what I want to do in my life. Then, pick up the ball - - seek God to seek forgiveness. Then throw the ball down the alley - - ooppss, gutter ball. That's OK, ask for help, seek out counsel from others and God, then throw another one. This process with help you grow into a mature and happy believer. Good point, Stan.

Ah, such is our Sunday School lesson for today. .....

Bob

Hvytrkmech

Do you worship your "friends"? Do you worship your Daddy? By making God your friend strips him of his Godliness and brings Him to the human level. The only purpose for doing that is to satisfy an innate lack of understanding of the order of things. Our Loving God the Creator can NEVER be our friend because in your words, "He is infinite", "we are finite". God has instructed all of us to worship him and him alone. We have created Cathedrals around the globe for one reason, to worship God.

I believe this is the biggest problem; we as humans forgot our place in the order of life. Love God, Fear God, worship God. We have systematically dismantled the very simple and easy rules that he gave us to live by and manipulated them into something to make us feel better about ourselves.

Sorry fella's, never going to capitulate on this.

I am very happy to see that ALL of us can and have expressed our opinions in this thread civilly and respectfully, please keep it up.

chaikwa

There's another thing I don't understand that SEEMS like a contradiction to me; 'Fear God'. Why do we need to fear something that supposedly loves us and we love in return? (or vica-versa, that may not be worded correctly, but you get my drift) To my way of thinking it's like saying, "I know you love me, I love you, I worship you... PLEASE DON'T HURT ME!" Fear Him if you do something you know to be wrong, certainly. But a blanket statement to fear Him doesn't make sense to me. Yet!

Hvytrkmech

In my humble opinion the meaning for the word "fear" is not to actually fear God himself but to fear the consequences of leading an unrighteous life absent of God.

Clear as mud??

12valve@heart

I want to jump back in here to add a comment about the question that Bob addressed about "How can they call themselves a follower of Christ and do that?"

As I've heard it stated, don't judge a religion by it's heretics. There are those who have committed horrible atrocities in the name of Christianity who believers would not consider Christians but who non-believers point to and say "If that's how Christians act, I want no part of it." The example of Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple and the resulting murder/suicides in Guyana is one that comes to mind. Keep in mind that Christians are sinners who have been forgiven and, while they are/should be striving to be more like Jesus every day, we are still human and will sin and make mistakes for which we need to ask forgiveness. Rather, focus on Jesus who never sinned and who will never let you down. As I see it, the answer to the question that Bob brought up is either 1) They're not truly Christians or 2) They are Christians who have fallen and need to repent and be forgiven.

Hope that didn't muddy the water but it's important that we focus on the right individual - Jesus.

chaikwa

That makes sense, yes.

12valve@heart

Wow, lots of good questions and answers here.

I'm going to take a little bit different viewpoint from Tim and say that it's a relationship perspective. If I'm driving down the road and see a highway patrol car behind me, I go through a mental checklist to make sure that I'm all legal and continue on to my destination but with some tension and caution in my mind; however, if I realize that my insurance has expired, I'm on pins and needles wondering if I'm going to get busted. I "fear" the LEO not in the sense that I'm afraid of him but I respect the authority that he has. On the other side of the coin, if I all of a sudden recognize that LEO is my father, the tension suddenly is gone because I have a relationship with that person. I'll smile and wave at him. His authority hasn't changed any but my relationship to him has.

That's an imperfect example but it shows that yes, we need to fear and respect the power and authority that God has over us. He has the ability to condemn us to an eternity in hell if we choose not to accept His gift of eternal life with Him in heaven. If however, we have repented of our sins and accepted Jesus as the only way to God, we then have a relationship with Him and because our relationship has changed, we still will be in awe and respect of Him but there will not be terror of God.

As before, I understand that there will be others who may interpret this differently and I respect that. There are many aspects of the Christian life that we can debate and discuss without having to divide over as long as we are focused on a relationship with Jesus.