How close are Christians to their god?

Welcome to EVC. My experience with different Christians, and how they approach their faith differently has shown just how subjective faith can be. But is it really subjective?"If" there is a God, and an enemy of your soul, then there is a real battle going on. No 2 humans go through the same exact set of circumstance, and are each "attacked" individually. By "attacked" I mean what they go through in life that hinders them from being close to God. All our paths are different, but our destinations are the same. Having gotten more into "religion" the last 2 years, has shown me, the more you seek God, the less the lines are blurred in our subjectiveness, and the more we become like Him. Still we face our battles, and growing pains.For the most part, there are a few here that do agree mostly on the core belief's of our faith, even though it may not seem like it. I tend to agree with most of the Christians, and what they say, whether I debate with them or not. I am sure people like Phat, jar, and many others will agree that the core of our faith is Loving God, and loving others. How we go about it, may be different. I feel my relationship with God, is a very realistic one, although people who do not have faith, will not understand it. I have come to realise that everything in my life, the good and the bad, has been a journey that led me to God. He has created me with many gifts, and it is my desire to honor Him with using those gifts towards His purposes. It gives me great satisfaction to be exactly who I am, as He created me, and not something different that some church has changed me into.I feel my biggest duty/struggle in fulfilling this, is always focusing on him, and leading a life of prayer. Worshipping Him in spirit and truth, by being who I am. Not having preconceived notions about how to go about it, and just keep on learning. Also not being judgemental, or passing judgement, that I wouldn't want passed to me.My relationship with God, involves the Holy Spirit, and I thank Him for blessing me with it. Coming into contact with the Holy Spirit, has changed everything for me, regarding my faith, and I would not say that my belief in God is just purely faith, and that I can feel Him everyday. Even with this, I can still screw up, and just be my plain ol idiot self.

Are you confusing judging with trying to figure someone out for your own self? Or judging with facts?Passing judgment would be like me telling jar that you have stinky breath because you don't take care of yourself, when I really don't know why you have stinky breath.

"If" God exists, and He created us, and what Jesus taught is true, then we all have God's laws written on our minds and hearts. However these laws get blurred by the world, and all that it is. Whether this is training to be with God, or whatever, we are built with a desire to know God. Even yourself, you are asking questions, because you seek truth.The one common thing I find with everyone here in this forum is that we all seek the truth. Jesus tried to teach us about the truth. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth. I read about it for years, and never really understood it until I felt it.Do a search on all the bible verses with the word truth in it, and try to understand what is meant by what was written.
BibleGateway.com: A searchable online Bible in over 150 versions and 50 languages.
John 14:6
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.What does He mean, the truth?Would you agree we all seek the truth?Is that a necessity? If not, then why do we all seek it? I have heard this discussion before. I can share with you two perspectives I currently believe on this.First, is that, if we were created in His image, then I can totally understand why He would create us, and many more things. I share the same joy in making stuff from His creation.Second is (and here is where many people would call me crazy, including myself about a few years back) that one day, my Pastor said that God has a name for all of us, and if we wanted to know what that name was, we should pray together and find out. I was curious, so I stood and prayed. I was saying "Lord?" as if to call out to Him, over and over in my head. All I kept hearing was an echo back. Now we all tend to put God in a box. I have always imagined God as being infinite, and to big for my head to box Him, so I never bothered to try to understand Him too much. But there was that echo, I must have repeated it 25 times. Finally I said, I must be a goof ball, and I am hearing my own voice echoing inside my empty head. All of a sudden a thought said, thats it, your going to give up? I was like, well I don't hear my name, so I guess I will give up for now. Then it dawned on me that it was the Lord, calling me lord. That He is Lord of lords, and we are His buddies, and He created us to walk with Him, and share the joy of eternal life. All of a sudden that huge infinate box that I had God in, got really small, and I felt God put His arm around me, just like He will put His arm around you, and walk with us.If you think this all sounds kooky, then I understand, but it is what happened, and I am not ashamed of it. If it is God, and not me cracking up, then I can't go wrong by sharing it, even if people would make fun of it. Do they emanate from within our selves? Even the person who thinks he is napoleon dynomite?I am sure the majority of thoughts emanate from our minds. I have found that when trying to communicate with God, the first thought is usually Him, not me. After the first thought, it will be me trying to rationalize away the first thought. I know it's Him now, because I am doing things completely different now. So, I am either one step away from the funny farm, or I feel God. I'll take the second guess, and stay in a state of denial, until the day I die.You know exactly what I am talking about. You have lied on your bed staring at the light bulb in the ceiling and wondering why, and you start a conversation in your head. It is then, that you desire to communicate with God. When you start asking all the why questions. Then you stop, because you start to feel uncomfortable, and don't want to fell like a crazy person.I think that if you start praying once and a while, and asking God to reveal the relavent things your life, that will lead you to Him, He will answer, and then you can be nutz like me Or just yourself, tweaked a little.

I didn't say jar has stinky breath, I said I was telling jar, that YOU had stinky breath, and the reason why.It may be a fact indeed that you have stinky breath, but I made up the reason why, because I judged you, then passed it along, by sharing it with jar.When the actual truth might be, that you were raised wrong, or can't afford good dental care, and you are ashamed of it, and I should be sensitive to your stinky breath, or perhaps reach into my pocket, and send you to the dentist on me, because thats what people do who care about other people.

I will address this staement, even though you missed my point, and how it was directed.First off, if jar had stinky breath, it's a fact, and I am not judging it.Second off, only a friend would try to help him correct it, and do it in a way as not to insult him, but build a relationship with him.If I had a booger hanging from my nose, would you tell me, or just let it hang there, and then go to your friends later and say, hey you know that guy Anthony, he had a booger hanging from his nose, and it was gross?

Exactly, and no matter what kind of judgement, I will not pass one along, unless I am willing to be judged the same way. It's called being hypocritical.For as I have judged, so will the father judge me. This does not mean we cannot judge. I believe that is a fine way to live.In other words, I don't want someone to say about me when I die, he sure could dish it out, but he could not take it. I was playing handball with a bunch of people, and this one guy had no palate. Whenever he got excited his boogers would freely flow out to his zz top like beard. All the other people would make fun of him, and not tell him. I am with you, and would hand the guy a tissue. But not everyone would.

So do you feel everything we observe and test is purely subjective, because we are viewing it through our limited subjective minds? You say you never thought about it, then present us with some possible explanantion, wierd. I find it hard to believe, that you have never thought about were we come from, and by the statement you just provided, obviously some thought has gone into it. Yes, I feel everyone pocesses this "secret" desire to believe in God. God put it there, and it is why we seek Him, and the truth. I am fine if you do not accept this, but it is what I have come to believe. ? But what if your wrong?
Being called a schizophrenic is really not that pleasing at all, and is more of an attack on a person, something we should stay away from in having a rational debate, and is also part of the forum rules. There is no proof what so ever that everyone who believes in God is a schizophrenic. Schizophrenia is a fairly easy condition to diagnose, and has measurable conditions that go along with it. This is not a new condition in life, and has been happening for ages. We are always at this fore front of what is real, and what is not, yet God stands the test of time. Nothing in life is new.Ecclesiastes 1:9
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. I agree with this, and is why religion is subjective. But you blur the lines between religion and God. My desire is to get back to way of thinking before all this religion. Religion should not be used as a measure as to whether God exists or not. Pure love will never change.

Sounds like searching for truth, if you ask me. Me either, whew. Neither would I. To me it's a combination of things. I will not ignore any of them, and take all things into consideration as I experience them. You mean, the religion we know.
God is God, no matter how we go about trying to seek Him, or honor Him. It is religion that is subjective. The only thing I can say is, that is why it is so important to understand what Jesus was saying, and what He tried to teach us. Only arming yourself with that knowledge, and them comparing to real life will give you the answer to that. At some point, God will speak to you, then you'll know. I agree. We are god's, with a little "g".
But we can only play with what is here.

You see, I tend to agree with this.

Duplicate postEdited by riVeRraT, : No reason given.

Tell me, what do you think of all what Jesus had to say about the Holy Spirit. And the truth. I do not need to tell you, you have read it already. You say you know the gospels. The bible has told, you, and I have told you, probably several times in this forum.One cannot explain the Holy Spirit to someone, and then expect for them to feel it. It comes in God's timing, not ours. Leading a life of prayer is a good start to experiencing it. Constant communication with God, by faith is how you get there, I believe. You have denied it all, so I don't know if God still has a plan for you to meet the Holy Spirit or not. Believe me, I am not trying to insult anyone's intelligence here. I was "in the dark" about many things, when it comes to God. Then one day God enlightened me. The only thing I was doing was casually seeking Him. I have no clue why I got to experience what I did, and do on a day to day bases, but one of the reasons might be that God knew I would be faithful and try to tell others about it like you.Jesus said we must be baptised in water, AND in the spirit, AND be born again.If you know the gospels so well, what is that supposed to mean then?Also, I want to say that I am humble about my experience, and there is no way to prove it to you, since you do not know me. I will freely admit that the day I felt the Holy Spirit is either the day I went crazy, or felt a small portion of God's love that changed my whole life. Many things make more sense now, however many questions remain.

Astronomy really interests me too. I own an 8" newtonian, on an equatorial mount, made by meade.I was interested in looking, ever since the birth of my daughter, it just amazes me. I was not interested in worshipping a God I could not see or feel either, until I felt Him, then it became a different story, so I understand completely. I am not caterorgizing you and me, just trying to share with you, what I went through, it's part of my testimony, and I believe it is important to share it.

Astronomy really interests me too. I own an 8" newtonian, on an equatorial mount, made by meade.I was interested in looking, ever since the birth of my daughter, it just amazes me. I was not interested in worshipping a God I could not see or feel either, until I felt Him, then it became a different story, so I understand completely. I am not caterorgizing you and me, just trying to share with you, what I went through, it's part of my testimony, and I believe it is important to share it.