[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]Severiano wrote:<<< lamenting together in defeat… It’s pathetic![/quote]I’m not lamenting anything and can never be defeated. My future does not depend on any nation of sinful men or a pathetic political party that where it really matters is not much better than the other. I’m rejoicing that the God I serve is showing Himself always faithful to His Word AND his true church bride in bringing low those who mock His name and scorn His blessing.
It will soon actually cost people something real and significant to call themselves by the name of Jesus in this country. Then we’ll see who’s who. A great purifying work wherein the refiner’s fire of oppression and eventual persecution will burn off the dross of those who honor Him, not even really with their lips anymore, but whose hearts are far from Him.
I’m reminded of a story (loosely told here) of a congregation of believers in another part of the world where being a Christian was very strongly frowned upon and on a particularly bad day might even get you killed. Two armed soldiers burst through the door of the building where they were gathered. They told the people that they would kill whoever did not renounce this Jesus and leave, never to return. They went through the group allowing many to go. The ones who were left sang praises to their Lord in preparation for meeting Him face to face.
The soldiers put down their weapons and told the people that they had risked their livelihood, their careers and the lives of themselves and their families for their beloved Jesus. They acknowledged that their days were very probably numbered because of their now open declaration of saving faith in Christ their Lord and Savior and said they wanted to spend them worshiping with other believers, but would not do it in a group polluted with shallow hypocrites who knew not their Lord nor the power of his blood.
We are not there, but it will take far less to weed out the chaff over here where any bible butchering, foul mouthed, immoral, post modernist heretic, who wouldn’t know the real Jesus if He walked up and kissed them in the face, is allowed to call themselves a Christian because nobody’s supposed to judge. Where once mighty denominations who preached the gospel in purity and truth are now embracing evolution and abortion, it’s natural consequence, while calling the abominable sin of homosexuality a life choice and even ordaining them to so called “ministry”.
Yes. I rejoice that we are finally moving off the fence as a nation and openly embracing the debauched path we long ago started down AND the inevitable financial collapse it will bring with it. I can’t wait. It will be a time when untold multitudes will finally and mercifully stop their pretense of Christianity and many others of the elect of the Father will be finally redeemed in the Son and filled the Holy Spirit.
HAHA!! Lamenting he says LOL!! There has never been a better time to be a Christian than now in what’s left of the United States. The church, while certainly in for a serious downsizing, WILL be the purest ever here. My citizenship is not of this world and my treasure is in heaven. Compounding daily as I serve Him with everything I am and everything I have. Which though it ain’t much. IS everything. I fear NOTHING and NOBODY.
I sleep like a baby and awaken with a smile on my face wondering what new move of the Lord I’ll see today as He vindicates His name, executing His judgement upon a blasphemous nation that once said they honored it. I am drawing ever closer to learning the purpose for which I was put on this earth and adopted into the family of the living God.
As with every one of His sons, He has something for me to do for Him. My entire life has been training for that purpose. It may be a 20 year work or a five minute conversation with one person. I don’t now. I DO know that when it’s done, then it will be time for me to die. Ya know what’s saddest of all? Most people will read this post as the unhinged mutterings of a wild eyed religious lunatic who should be looked after lest he possibly harm himself.
A self righteous self deluded pharisee who fancies himself better than others. I declare to you a most emphatic nay. I am just a Christian who loves Jesus. This is what it looks like. The church used to know that. She doesn’t any more and so no longer being the salt and light as she has been commanded, her preserving and illuminating power is all but gone. We all are and will continue to be witnesses of the tragic result. A result that is not shocking or perplexing to anybody who actually takes their bible seriously.
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The Church, by that you mean your congregation who’s moral interpretation are dictated by a book which has been re-written and recomposed multiple times, who’s interpretation is dictated by the Vatican. The Vatican is famous for it’s corruption and moral duplicity through the scope of time, and because of this I can’t take them seriously as a moral authority.
I used to read that book. It has some of the greatest moral advice I have ever read, but ultimately it spins back onto itself and demands you do right or go to hell for eternity.
You talk about being fearless, but you fear God. I know because I used to believe in God and I was afraid as fuck I was going to hell growing up. I went to Catholic schools and sort of obsessed over it. Really, your religion for many people is driven by fear of eternal hell and the promise of eternal life if you follow the rules. This is a moral ad baculum, do as I command and treat what I say as right, or I send you to the bad man to beat your soul for eternity… I can’t beat your soul for eternity because if I did, I wouldn’t be all good, loving God.
I recognized it on my Grandfather, before he passed he would always ask people if he was going to make it to heaven or not when he was in his last weeks. In his demented state after the stroke and diabetes, he was very faithful, but still very afraid, even somewhat terrified in his final days… I wondered why God would take his mobility and clarity with the stroke, why God would take away his sight with the diabetes. Why a good God would do this to such a great guy like my grandfather is a big mystery according to the Church! Part of the bigger mystery of Faith! Awful things happen to great people!! Great things happen to awful people!! Go figure, crazy God and his mysterious but always right and good ways!
I don’t know if you remember my story of how I lost my faith, but it has to do with feeling continuing to feel badly when you do wrong, even if you are already resigned to the belief that you are going to hell. (I believed I was going to hell, but felt awful when I attempted to intentionally take part in things I knew/ felt were wrong). So for me, I’ve already gone through feelings of existentialism and still I have found good, and motivation to do good and aversion to bad. If it turns out there is a God and I’m going to hell for this, it’s a heaven that isn’t all good anyhow.
I’m not going to go about life with a ubiquitous fear of God, or a ubiquitous God that leaches into everything I do (I wont live life like I believe this happens at least). I’ll do the best I can in earnest… I’ll do right whether I feel God is looking or not, even independent of God if that is possible, and I won’t be compelled to do right because I’m afraid of the consequences of doing wrong. I will do right, for rights sake thank you. It’s like a Cartesian sense of duty, but without God attached.
I’m not saying this is a better way. I’m simply explaining that there are other methods of doing right and being good that jive very well with your own beliefs with convictions about right that are every bit as strong as your own, but without trying to scare the shit out of you to be or act a certain way. Another thing, are you really BEING a good person if you are driven by fear? Or are you BEING good if you are driven by love?