I guess all of my life I have believed in God. When it came to looking at certain parts of my life, especially growing up I encountered a great deal of evil and it affected me on a very core level.
This is a very good reason to cry out to God.
So I always looked at the world through the lens of good and evil and I attempted to look at the world through a spiritual type of perspective because in my search for meaning about my own life I had to determine what was the purpose of that suffering.
Jesus saw evil as evil - John 7:7. He did not downplay it, not one bit, He exposed the Pharisees, which rallied enough angry Jews to vote to crucify Him. Most of the Jews that knew Jesus wanted Him dead than to follow Him.
This world is evil because it is not of God - 1 John 5:19
The purpose of evil is to test His children, but make no mistake, you should have no part in it, not one bit.
Most Christians does not know the society and its unfathomable greed is ultimately responsible for all the evil in this world. It's difficult to see with all the brainwashing done by the mass media but if you try to connect the dots, the financial, mental, psychological, spiritual, physical connections, they are one huge evil enterprise.
Do not make yourself useful in this world, be useful to God, and His sheep, but not this world. If you are useful to this world then you have a part in the evil in this word, just like in James 4:4.
So when I encountered all of these atheists they were so prevalent in their insistence that there was no meaning to suffering, there was no meaning in life, that there was no meaning to God.
What about the atheists who serve in Greenpeace? What about those who volunteer for relief missions in quite inhospitable conditions around the world? What about those who left their good life in the west only to risk their life for the poor and live as poor in many poor countries?
We can't generalize them either. They are still as divided in their beliefs and convictions as we are. Ironically, some of them seem to live closer to the way Jesus lived than many Christians I know, especially the atheists who left their good lives so that they can help other people in great distress. Being there to for someone.
Some people, even Christians might think that is stupid but they are forgetting the parable of the Poor Widow. Money isn't everything! Giving out of poverty - giving out of distress because you left your good life for example, is far better to Jesus than giving out of abundance..... ....It's absolutely worthless and in vain to try to make more money so you can give more.... ....You can either want to see my relatively complex analysis of world economics that support the view of Jesus or just believe Jesus in what He says. For often what He says, the world does and believes the opposite out of ignorance.
So one day, and it really took one day, I was literally ready to end my life, my career, everything, as I knew it. I had I guess what you would call an epiphany and that is when I completely turned over my life to God, to Christ and since that time I've never doubted, I've never doubted the existence of Jesus Christ our God since that time.
Been there, but I literally ended my career. I still have a job but nowadays, I only seek after lowly jobs. I'm not doing it out of religious dedication or sacrifice but after I realized our society is evil, I no longer wanted to be useful in it. I no longer wish to be useful in a society that oppresses the poor. I don't wish to be a part of something which God hates the most.
There is nearly nothing that I do for the sake of religious observance. I simply avoid doing evil and avoid being accessory to evil by living in austerity and an honest way of living.
I also try my best to minimize my impact to other living things so I often recycle, like reuse discarded boxes. To prove what Jesus teaches is sound logic, even mainstream science have concluded, austere living is the only way to live sustainably in our planet. As it is, our society is headed for self-destruction through complete collapse of social order simply due to extravagance and greed which widening the gap between rich and poor.
And although I don't have all the answers to life's problems, I feel that I have a pretty firm foundation on the nature of Good and Evil and why things happen the way they do
Never stop evaluating even what you already know!
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