I want to be saved but

Dr.J0sh · Jul 22, 2015

What just happened

Larniavc · Jul 22, 2015

What I would suggest is that if you feel that you are a sinner and the sacrifice of Jesus is meaningful to you that learning more about Christianity and Jesus' sacrifice may be fulfilling for you.

If you don't feel like you are a sinner I would give it a miss as your heart won't be in it.

bling · Jul 22, 2015

I could possibly be an agnostic if they could answer scientifically (I am a Chemist) how: life could spontaneously start from just nonliving chemicals, how I could be so lucky as to be in the “one” universe that did produce life, how an infinite number of universes could come about, and why everything that has happened, is happening and will happen fits the purpose of helping willing individuals to humbly accept Godly type Love and grow that Love?

You have to “believe” in something even if it yourself, so you could turn that ability to trust toward a benevolent Creator.

It is alright to be scared and to want to believe, but believing is not the same as having unquestionable “proof” (knowledge). Trusting in the existence of a benevolent Creator is something the lowliest person on earth can do, so for you to do trust in the Christian God, is an act of humility. We need humility in order to humbly accept God’s pure charity, since no one really likes to ask for “charity”.

There are tons of historic activities in scripture (like the Garden situation) that just do not have quick easy answers and I do not just want for you to have “my” answer, but be able to develop your own answer to these questions.

paul1149 · Jul 22, 2015

Josh,

Only God is good. And His standard is absolute perfection. If you can meet His standard you are not a sinner and don't need a Savior. But if you're like the rest of us you do. Being Saved entails entering into relationship with Jesus on the basis of Him doing for you what you cannot do for yourself.

Faithfulandtrue · Jul 26, 2015

Hello there Dr. Josh. I wanted to see if I can be of some help to you. I prayed for you through this struggle to believe before I started typing and my heart sincerely went out to you. First I'll go back to the garden of Eden after Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit, sin entered every human being and now everyone(except Jesus because He never sinned) are all sinners by birth. Although we try to be "good" people, though trying to do good things is not at all wrong, we still fall short to make up for our sins on our own. Let me also explain what sins are. Sins are the things we as humans do that offend God; murder,lying,stealing, lust ect. God knowing that we can't save ourselves, lovingly came to save us by coming in the form of a human Jesus Christ to show us the way and willingly die for our sins on the cross and came back to life three days later and then departed back to His throne in heaven. Jesus' death on the cross was significant because Jews usually had to sacrifice pure animals to cover their sins but Jesus used His own blood, the blood of the only one who never sinned to pay for ALL the sins of all who believe Jesus is God/the son of God and That He is the only way to be saved and go to heaven.

Now with all that said to be a Christian is both easy and difficult for some people to decide but it truly is the one way to God and eternal peace and a truly blessed way of living with fellowship with our Creator and Lord who loves us more than we can imagine. To become a Christian is deciding to put your faith in Jesus Christ,making Him the Lord of our life, repent of your sins( repentance is simply turning away from them and seeking God's forgiveness) and admitting we believe in Him and want to change our lives for Him. His blood is more than enough to cover our sins.
something else I want to add is that as humans we as Christians will still struggle with sins from time to time BUT the difference between a saved person and an unsaved person is that we are sorry for our sins and we get back up and ask for forgiveness and repent because we Love God. I hope this helped you and wasn't confusing at all.
Another thing I want to add in response to your first post ,I feel as though you are struggling to believe in God's miracles in the bible due to the fact that it seems so out of the ordinary. But the key point of a miracle is that it is something that normally doesn't happen on it's own Unless God makes it happen thus being a miracle.

I will pray for you more and I wanted to share a Bible verse and a video which I think will really help you. Feel free to sent me a message if you need prayer or someone to talk to. God loves you very much!!

:
Hebrews 11:1

11 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

tonnerkiller · Aug 13, 2015

What do you mean by you want to be a Christian? Do you want to be part of some church community? Then go there, attend their services, take part in their social activities etc. Dress like them, talk like them...

Maybe they will demand you to take the red sea and all that as historical fact, and if it is so and you cannot take this as historical facts, maybe you cannot be this kind of Christian.

Or what else do you mean by being Christian? Do you mean you want to be able to believe everything necessary to not go to hell after you die? Then I have a good and a bad message for you: The good is: You do not need to take everything in the bible literally to go to heaven. So the red sea is no really a problem. The bad message is: Christianity is no insurance agency, where you take part in order to avoid certain hassles. Faith doesn't work that way.

Of course you can still get all the community feeling from fundamentalist communities, once you can wrap your head around whatever they teach about the red sea.

Christianity is about you and your walk with God. So I guess the first thing to think about is whether there is a god or not, and what your relation to Him might be.

Do you believe in God? What does this believe look like on the inside? In how far does this believe influence your life?

Maybe these are questions to start from.

God bless
De Benny

ToBeLoved · Aug 13, 2015

If you believe that God is the creator of heaven and earth, than those other things are not hard for God at all. Science does like to think it has all the answers, but science cannot figure out where and how life originated from? Where the first atom originated from. There is an answer and it is not science.

I think God makes much more sense when you look at all that we know about earth, universe, plants, animals, and us. There is and was an intelligent designer. All is to fabulous to be random.

ToBeLoved · Aug 13, 2015

We are all lacking. That's why Jesus did it. Jesus came to earth as both God and man. Jesus lived a sinless life. Jesus died for the sins of ALL the world. Jesus gives us the gift of Salvation and the forgiveness of our sins, which reconcile us back to God. He gives us the gift. Because we would just mess it up. lol.

ViaCrucis · Aug 13, 2015

There will be some who will tell you that in order to be a Christian you have to interpret and read all of the Bible literally. Meaning that you have to believe that God created the universe in a six 24 hour days, that there literally was a talking snake in a garden called Eden, that there literally was a world-covering flood and that two of every animal was on a big boat.

These have never been the litmus test of Christian faith.

Let's look at some things we can find from the early centuries of the Christian Church:

Origen of Alexandria -

"For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? And that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? And again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally." - De Principiis IV.16

St. Augustine of Hippo -

"It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation." - Genesi ad Litteram 1:19-20

There are things which are to be taken literally in the Bible about which the Christian faith stands or falls. Namely the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Being a Christian does not mean believing that there was an historical Noah, a global flood, or talking snakes in Eden--it means believing the Gospel. And here is the Gospel according to St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthian church:

"Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the Gospel that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you--unless you have come to believe in vain.

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures," - 1 Corinthians 15:1-4

It is what Christ has done that saves you, not your assent to a series of propositions, but the historic Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, and the Son of God, who suffered death and who rose from the dead which saves you. It is this Gospel by which God comes to you and rescues you by bringing to you the life and righteousness of Christ as a gift. Received through trust--and this too is not of yourself, but is the gift of God. God grants faith, God grants us the life and justice of Christ--it is all from His overabundant grace.

It is the Gospel that makes us Christian, not how we interpret the first chapter of the book of Genesis.

-CryptoLutheran

Lukamu · Aug 13, 2015

Someone else might step in here if I am off the mark, but...
I don't think you start by believing in all the stories, or by abandoning what you already know.
There are some main things that all Christians believe, like how God is everlasting and how Jesus atoned for our sins. Don't ask about how the world was created, or how the sea was split. Rather, ask yourself the question: Do you think that it is possible for Jesus to have conquered death and sin?
Again, someone can call me on this but...
If you died and went to heaven, Jesus would let you in as long as you answered that last question the right way. All the other questions don't matter. When we get to heaven, that's when we'll "fully see" (12 For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known.) and some of us will be like, "oooooooh... now I get it!" Just get the main question answered Dr. Josh.
- Lukamu

Johnnz · Aug 13, 2015

The modern mindset automatically dismisses the spiritual realm and with that any 'miracles' as being against 'the laws of nature'. But that presupposes reason is adequate as the arbiter of all that we can experience and understand,which it clearly isn't. We don't fully understand ourselves let alone another person for example, yet we interact with them nevertheless.

I suspect you also need some better possibilities of what such stories are actually are about and teaching us. There is good material that can help you with that if you are prepared to do some serious thinking and research. Being a Christian does not mean turning our minds off.

John
NZ

doomsayer2 · Aug 18, 2015

To me the problem is simply that the average Atheist seems to have some kind of mental block,whether voluntary or not,that prevents them from seeing "connections" in the way a more open-minded person would. For instance,one person could step out one morning and suddenly hear a rumble of thunder. And the next day hear it again as soon as they go out,and the next day and so on. It won't take long for a believing type of person to say 'something strange is going on'. But the same events happening to an Atheist may only make them think the weather has been bad recently,because they've been hearing thunder every day now. The significance of it's timing would probably never even be taken into consideration,so they may not ever look at their watch to see it's been happening at almost the exact time,or that it's only been that one time every day.
My point is some people minds are shut off from the possibility of anything outside of mere "coincidences". This could be occurring subconsciously or more deliberately. Almost like when you go to sleep and your brain mostly takes over,and when you awake you gain full conscious control. In the more closed-mindset,it's almost as if a part of the brain that gives us our FULL awareness capabilities has remained "asleep". Of course with many it is more a deliberate decision to simply interpret things the way they want to see them,even when all available possibilities are known. Because again,there is simply not a word known to them to describe anything outside of the realm of coincidence. Or at least I am not sure what an Atheist would call that,other than psycho-something,or phenomena of some kind?
But I am no psychiatrist am am merely speculating on a lot of it and it's very hard to get in the mind of an unbeliever to see exactly what makes them tick. Maybe someone could better explain this in another more logical way?

fat wee robin · Aug 18, 2015

One of the reasons why many people are not christian is because they find so called christians unkind and ignorant . Go to Worthy Christian Forums to have answers met with kindness and knowledge

fat wee robin · Aug 18, 2015

Jesus loves you and wants to save you .You are probably a better person than some here who will be held accountable for their apalling negative attitude to your call for help .
I speak of the first poster .

ViaCrucis · Aug 19, 2015

Very often in popular imagination the idea of "sin" and being a "sinner" is in this idea of doing "really bad things". But that's not really what sin means. The word "sin" is a translation of a couple words in Hebrew and Greek. The most basic Hebrew word translated as "sin" is chata, and it quite literally means "to miss the mark", basically an archery term. In Greek we have the word harmatia, meaning "to err" or "to fail".

Sin is, fundamentally, the failure to do what we ought, and conversely doing what we ought not do. This can include malicious activity, generally being a jerk to people, being hateful, murder, theft, etc. But the chief meaning here isn't malice, but the failure to do righteousness, to live justly and rightly in accordance with God's commands. Not all sin is intentional sin, very often we sin unintentionally. We're not having a great mood that day, maybe we're just really hungry and now we're irritated, and so we snap or say something biting to someone, a friend, a family member, a coworker, or a stranger. We can be completely oblivious sometimes to our sins, our errors of judgment, unintentionally hurting others and not even aware that we have done it.

Sin, therefore, isn't whether or not we're trying to be nice or not; I suspect that most of us regardless of who we are try to generally be nice and decent people; the problem is that no matter who we are we falter, fail, make mistakes, and generally misstep. None of us are immune to bitterness, greed, jealousy, anger, spite, etc.

In Lutheranism we frequently speak of the problem of sin using the Latin phrase homo incurvatus in se, meaning, basically man curved (or bent) inward upon himself. Another term used (by more than just Lutherans) is what is known as concupiscience. Sin is borne out of concupiscience, or selfish desire, the so-called "lusts of the flesh" our self-directed desire to satisfy ourselves. We chiefly aim to please ourselves and so act to gratify ourselves, often then doing injury to others (and again, not necessarily intentionally, but very often unintentionally). The reality of God's Law--what God commands--is that it calls us not to look inward, but outward to see the needs of our neighbor, the sum of all God's Law is this:

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind; love your neighbor as yourself."

The reality, then, of God's Law is that as it commands righteousness/justice we discover in ourselves just how incompetent we are at obeying it. Therefore the Law reveals our transgressions, it reveals our sin, it reveals to us that we are sinners. And it rightly and justly condemns us and it rightly and justly shows us our failure, our sin, the deep problem of our inwardly bent instincts and nature. And then there is a profound irony following: The more we try and obey God's commandments, to love Him, to love our neighbor, the more we see ourselves failing, the more sinful we realize we are. The harder we try to be righteous, the less righteous we discover we truly are.

This is why St. Paul tells us that God's Law cannot justify sinners, that is, it cannot make anyone righteous. The Law which demands justice is incapable of making anyone just. So the Apostle says this,

"For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." (Romans 8:3-4)

"The the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us" refers to the reality of the Gospel, that Christ who suffered death and has risen from the dead is the Righteous One of God, and God in His grace unites us to His Son (this is regeneration, new birth) thereby giving us the Holy Spirit who is the promise of Christ in us as we look forward to the future resurrection of the dead and eternal life in the age to come. It is Christ who has fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law by being Himself God's righteousness, and it is therefore His righteousness, in us, that renders us just and righteous. That is to say, justified.

God in His kindness has sent Jesus Christ who by His death and resurrection destroys the powers of sin and death, and grants to us, by the overwhelming mercies of God, the hope and promise that belongs to Christ--resurrection, life everlasting. Which is our hope both in this life and in the age to come. That is to say, in a word, salvation. That what God has done in Christ God will do for the whole world.

-CryptoLutheran

aiki · Aug 19, 2015

Well, I have to ask you why a supernatural Creator-God wouldn't act in miraculous, supernatural ways? It seems perfectly in keeping with such a God for Him to do incredible things like parting the Red Sea, and judging the wickedness of humanity as He did in the Great Flood. I would be very skeptical of a God who claimed to be powerful enough to have created time, space, matter and energy who never acted except within the limitations of His own Creation.

Selah.

JaapAap · Aug 31, 2015

I know a lot of christians who don't believe that and don't take it literal. They believe theistic evolution, a local flood, whatever. That's not the most important thing. Praying for you.

joshua 1 9 · Sep 9, 2015

More and more we are finding natural explanations for the work that God does and is doing. When He heals and restores the real challenge is to show that there was ever a problem in the first place. Because everything looks normal and the way it should be. At Jericho for example. One of the worlds oldest cities. There we learn about a time when the walls came tumbling down. Today archaeology can see those walls and see that they did indeed fall down just like the Bible says. Only now we can see there was an earthquake so we know that God used a very natural way to bring those walls down.

fat wee robin · Sep 10, 2015

can assure you that the God of the New Testament exists,not only in the bible,but in the laws of Creation,and also to be seen in the firmament .
People quote Paul and other figures ,but unless you have read the words of Jesus Himself ,and feel His Presence like Einstein could , although he was Jew, can never be a christian. A christian is someone who can hear God's voice within .
The Old Testament nothing to do with my belief in God,or at least is minimal.

hedrick · Sep 11, 2015

Let me be clear that i’m about to take a sentence out of context.

That’s what bothers me about this discussion. Christianity isn’t about me. It’s about God and Jesus and the Kingdom of God. Yes, Jesus has called me to be part of it, and I’ll be held accountable for how I respond. But still, it’s not about me, nor about figuring out just exactly what the minimum is that I have to do to be “saved.” The Good News is that God is in control, and he has sent Jesus to establish his rule (his kingdom).

For Dr. Josh: I think the real question is whether when you read the Gospels, you see Jesus as God present with us, and whether you are called to be his disciple. If you do, then issues like whether OT events happened as recorded are details. Many of us accept the conclusions of archaeologists that they didn’t. Jesus doesn’t demand that we reject science or archaeology. He demands that we repent (which in this context means that we change our hearts and minds) and follow him.

I want to be saved but

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