I feel special–I’ve got my own blog now. Also, thanks for the Yoda picture, Matthew. I didn’t like that monkey.
After pondering things Matthew said about coercion and also about my approach he said was a sales tactic and also some comments about honesty, I feel I need to say the following:
Everything I’ve said in my previous posts is true, honest, and sincere. But I’m informing everyone now that I only logged onto this web site for one reason. I’m here to talk about God, I’m here to talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I’m here to do battle on a spiritual plane–God and his believers against secularism and the worldy things it embraces (I include godlessness in that).
I feel special–I’ve got my own blog now. Also, thanks for the Yoda picture, Matthew. I didn’t like that monkey.
After pondering things Matthew said about coercion and also about my approach he said was a sales tactic and also some comments about honesty, I feel I need to say the following:
Everything I’ve said in my previous posts is true, honest, and sincere. But I’m informing everyone now that I only logged onto this web site for one reason. I’m here to talk about God, I’m here to talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I’m here to do battle on a spiritual plane–God and his believers against secularism and the worldy things it embraces (I include godlessness in that).
Are you up to the battle? If you (those who embrace secularism) win, you’ve lost nothing. If I (or we who trust in God) win, you’ll gain even more.
As with any civilized battle, we need rules of engagement. I propose the following.
– we take the time needed to research or develop our responses – we each take whatever time we need to recover from the blows – we can always refer back to older posts and add more information, as needed – if a post makes us angry, we contain the anger to our own home and keep successive posts respectable – no personal attacks, such as, “you are so …” or “how can you be so …” etc. – no bad language – no silly bantering (this is serious business, so if you don’t have anything useful to post, please refrain)
do you have anything to add or remove? do you accept the list as it is?
(This isn’t a personal battle i.e. person against person; it’s a battle of truth against lies. The question is what is the truth? Kind of like in a physical war, both sides fight believing they are right or fighting for the better cause. I don’t suppose we would truly be able to establish a total, complete, all-encompassing truth, but hopefully we might open up a larger view of the truth than we now have.)
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Matthew, I want to tell you about another sign that, to me, points to God–and you and I are in the middle of it.
Sorry if I paraphrase here. You said for the past seven years you have been interested in studying religion and I assume also the question of God’s existence. During that same time I’ve been recovering from my godless time, gaining strength of faith. For me that started in the 1998-1999 time frame. It seems perhaps I was being prepared to “face” you while you were being led to seek.
You said you are better at written debate. I hope you don’t doubt my truthfulness, but so am I.
You said you used to be quite belligerant toward believers or religious discussions (something like that). So now I arrive from Texas after you’ve softened your stance toward people like me.
The first time I met you, we had a religious discussion (brief as it was) that put in my mind the urge to talk to you about these things. I couldn’t ever quite bring myself to go over to your house to discuss them. Then, surely by the hand of God, I was told about your web site. I had to check it out and now here we are.
Is it just me looking through my God-based filter? I don’t think so. Although without such a filter, one could never see God’s influence. That filter, of course, is connected with the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit.
I have felt the difference without the Spirit and with the Spirit in my life and I’d never want to go back there again (without the Spirit).
– the God I believe in In some of the posts I’ve read here, I’ve seen references to God, talking of a cosmic vending machine and a supreme warden and who knows what else. Somewhere someone has really twisted who God is.
I’d like to paint a verbal picture of the God I believe in. No one can find out all the doings of God, but this gives a basic overview of my understanding of him. My understanding of God, of course, draws from LDS teachings. I know that as I read the following later, I will probably think of things I forgot to mention, so please realize this isn’t the whole picture. I’m sure I haven’t explained everything I believe about God.
Envision God, all-powerful, and full of love and caring. He creates a multitude of spirit-children, whom he loves. He desires for them to experience the joy and wonder that he experiences. In time, a particular one of these spirits desires to take the power and glory of God for himself. This particular spirit convinces about a third of the other spirits to follow him in rebellion against God. After a war in heaven (See New Testament | Revelation 12:7 – 9), the rebellious spirits are cast down to earth–the Sons of Perdition, led by Satan.
God, our Heavenly Father, still desires for those remaining spirits to enjoy all that he enjoys. But first he has to prove them. Will they choose to follow him or, if given the chance, will they follow the deceiver, the father of lies–Satan? He places the spirits on earth (in their appointed times), in physical bodies with limitations that challenge them. Satan and his followers are still on the earth able to tempt the embodied spirits.
Heavenly Father places within our reach (we are those spirits in these bodies of flesh) enough knowledge and guidance to discover him and follow his ways. He will not force us, though. We can walk away, we can follow the master of lies if we choose. He also put within each of us the “light of Christ” or a portion of the Holy Spirit to lighten our minds to desire to seek good. But we can push that out if we so choose.
We are here to be tested and also to learn to be more like our Heavenly Father. If we pass the test, and learn to be more like him, we can, after being judged worthy, gain fellowship with God, but not only that. As children of God, we can become like him with powers, abilities, and glory like his. He is refered to as our father for a reason in the scriptures.
God loves us enough that, since he knew we would stumble and fall, with this challenged body, he prepared a way to be redeemed from those falls (i.e. not meeting his standards). He prepared to send a Savior to atone for us.
God is a being of great love, of perfect goodness and righteousness. Two aspects of his love are justice and mercy.
His justice must be perfect. Justice is a part of love in that we get what we deserve. Surely, though, we might not always like what we deserve.
That’s where mercy comes in. God, in his perfect justice, could not just excuse our wrongs without a penalty. So in his perfect mercy, he prepared a way that the penalty might be paid by another, whom we know as Jesus Christ–one who could endure it.
When I talk of following God, and doing as he asks, it’s because I honor him, I am thankful for what he has given me. It is also because I do desire the rewards in this life and the life after. It is also because I see the light (goodness) in following his ways.
I must also say, that all of you who say you are godless, I don’t think you’re as godless as you think. The things you have said in various posts lead me to believe that the light of Christ is still in you and a portion of his Spirit is still there.
On the vending machine issue (above), how many of you are fathers, I mean vending-daddies? Your kid does what he’s expected to do and he’s rewarded. If he decides to ignore what he knows you’ve asked him to do, aren’t there consequences? Would it be surprising if God teaches us in a similar manner?
I’d like to say more, but it’ll have to be later. I must sleep. Goodnight. emilt