My problem is

But again, we have the argument, that everyone is born with the desire to know their creator. It's one thing to know of God and try to live up to Gods standards, it's quite another thing to have faith on an individual you have never heard about because no one has told you or you've never found it despite searching.

We have all been giving the ability to understand God but we don't all have the understanding yet of Jesus. Many of us either don't understand, haven't found it, or haven't been told!

Or is that too much of a human viewpoint and God would have guided someone earnestly seeking to the truth?

Cya
Simon

Hello Simon,

I'm going to explain this a different way and I hope that my analogy will provide some clarity to your question.

I have sons of my own and while they were growing up it was my responsibility to teach them in every way that I could so that they would be ready to go out into the world to become productive citizens. I utilized my own knowledge from my parents, utilized the public school system to educated them and utilized any other teaching aid that was beneficial to their growth development.

Before I did this they had no knowledge of any of this but because of the love I have for them, inside my heart, I actively allowed that love to be shown to them by enlightening them and introducing them to everything that would give them the opportunity of knowledge through myself and others who had more knowledge than I.

Now God is much more loving that I am and has all knowledge. We are His children and He has ordained from the time of Adam's Sin a means for us to be redeemed from the law of sin and death. This one man Jesus Christ who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our sins has been seeded into the minds and hearts of all who has accepted Him as their savior. We are God's ministers and He has us all over the world. Why? For the purpose of spreading the Gospel, the Good news of Jesus Christ.

I assure you that we serve a God that will leave no stone unturned and no island unchartered in proclaiming the reality of the Son of God.

You have to understand that God's thoughts and ways of doing things far surpass our own and believe that He is capable of getting the message of Jesus Christ to everyone.

Listen to His words in Isaiah 55:8-11

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."


Know and understand that the God that we serve is Able to do all things.

In marriage, a man and woman unite and become a single being, one flesh, and yet remain two persons. The two are one, and yet still two. Both are fully human and equal to each other, and yet are not the same.

That's some of what God meant when he created us in His image.

__________________
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?"
Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you....For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink..."
As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him...
John, Ch. 6

Hello Everyone,
I am new to this forum...and I hate to hijack anyone's posts etc, but I think that I might be able to clarify a few things for I Want To Be A Christian. I am no expert, but I am currently working towards my degree in Religious Studies & Journalism. I am a Christian. I have studied Islam, Judaism, Christianity etc. There is a lot of information, so bear with me I Want To Be A Christian....
Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all Abrahamic religions. Meaning that we share common values and origins. All 3 religions started with Abraham. Abraham had a son Ishmael with his maid Hagar. See Genesis 16:3 (New International Version)
So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.
According to the Bible he lived 137 years. See:
Genesis 25:17 (New International Version)
Altogether, Ishmael lived a hundred and thirty-seven years. He breathed his last and died, and he was gathered to his people.
The Quran views him as a prophet. Muhammad was related to Ishmael.
Abraham was married to Sarah (Sariah) and had a son with her named Issac. Issac was the son that received Gods blessing, not Ishmael.

There was a problem (jealousy between Sarah & Hagaar) and Hagaar & Ishmael left Israel. Ishmael was given blessings by God. 1- To make his descendents one great nation. 2- That his descendents would live in hostility with all of his brothers. (Muslim,Jewish conflict) 3- That his descendents would live to East of all of his brothers. See:
Genesis 16:11-13 (New International Version)
The angel of the LORD also said to her:
"You are now with child"
and you will have a son.
You shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard of your misery.
He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone's hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers."
She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen the One who sees me."

See also:
Genesis 17:20 (New International Version)
And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation.
Also:
Genesis 21:8-21 (New International Version)
Hagar and Ishmael Sent Away
The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, and she said to Abraham, "Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac." The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. But God said to him, "Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring."
Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba.
When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she thought, "I cannot watch the boy die." And as she sat there nearby, she began to sob.
God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation."
Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.
To make a really long story short Ishmael was the “founding father” of Islam indirectly and Issac was the path that the Jews and Christians followed.
Judaism came first (around 2000 BC), then Christianity (around 5 BC) (Jesus was a Jew) and then @ 600 years AFTER the crucifixion of Jesus, Islam was established.
Judaism:
The true worship God started with Adam and Eve, of course. The Jewish religion started around 1500 BC.
as a nation, but it was practised first by Abraham around 2000 BC. The oldest preserved religious book is the Old Testament containing the 39 books from Genesis to Malachi. The first was written around 1450 BC, while the last one was written around 400 BC.
Christianity:
Christianity began as a Jewish sect in the mid-first century. The Christian Church had been in existence about 300 years before the Roman Catholic Church. They were the equivalent of today's Messianic Jews. The so called Roman Catholic Church started when the Bishop of Rome became prominent in the Council of Laodicea and became the head of all the Christian Churches. The Protestant Church came into existence in the 16 century or almost 500 years ago.
The New Testament containing 27 books from Matthew to Revelation was written from 50 AD to 96 AD.

Islam came on the scene in about 600 AD
Yes, the Bible is the word of GOD.
How do we know that Jesus was the promissed Messiah?? There are hundreds of prophesies about Jesus in the Old Testament. Too many to list here. Google "fulfilled prophecies of Jesus in the Old Testament" and have a read. There are different translations of the Bible, but they all mean the same thing (some people find King James Version hard to understand)
I hope this has helped in making a link between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I think that getting all of the facts is vital for someone trying to make such a huge decision as to which religion to choose (Christianity or Islam) so that all the doubts about Jesus are clarified etc.
I’ll shut up now! lol

The problem that I see with this theory is that the arab nations were originally christian nations. The largest church was in the east in an arab nation before they were slaughtered at the hand of Muslims. Just because they say they are related to Ishmael doesn't mean it's true. More likely that Ishmael's desendents were the great civilization of the eygptians.

Originally Posted by dizzychick70

Hello Everyone,
I am new to this forum...

Yes, the Bible is the word of GOD.
How do we know that Jesus was the promissed Messiah?? There are hundreds of prophesies about Jesus in the Old Testament. Too many to list here. Google "fulfilled prophecies of Jesus in the Old Testament" and have a read. There are different translations of the Bible, but they all mean the same thing (some people find King James Version hard to understand)
I hope this has helped in making a link between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I think that getting all of the facts is vital for someone trying to make such a huge decision as to which religion to choose (Christianity or Islam) so that all the doubts about Jesus are clarified etc.
I’ll shut up now! lol

You did well!

__________________
For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. (Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, W.W. Norton, New York, 1978, p. 116)

I think dizzychick did a great job too, except for the part about the descendents of Ishmael.

Originally Posted by LJSGM

I think dizzychick did a great job too, except for the part about the descendents of Ishmael.

Can you help us out with that part?

__________________
For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. (Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, W.W. Norton, New York, 1978, p. 116)

Oh, did you see my previous post about the arab nations history as being that of christians? Doesn't make sense. If his descendents are arabs then it doesn't matter their religion, it's by birth, not belief, otherwise they would always have been muslims, which they weren't.

I don't believe that Ishmael descendents are specifically arabs.

Thanks !

I am in the middle of a migraine at the moment..... I'll try to follow up in the next day or two. Like I said I'm no expert, but Genesis is very clear on Ishmael....and Isaac and the paths of Judaism, Christianity & what we now know as Islam. Head about to pop now so I'll have to come back to this later.
Hope everyone has a great day !