can a non-christian please God?

red77 · Apr 23, 2006

Emmy said:
Dear bunnysfriend, every time when we are doing God`s Will, it will please Him, but He wants our love freely given to all we meet, God wants us to BE His children, to love Him and love each other. God in Jesus, gave His life on the cross, to reconcile us to Him, He paid the price for our transgressions, He made it possible to be God`s Own again. If we repent, exchange our selfish, unloving and unkind natures, into selflessly loving and caring ones, we will become as God wants us to be. Jesus will help and guide us, if we ask Him, and He has kept that promise to many men and women. And when you know Jesus as your loving friend, you will gladly follow, and become His friend. I say this humbly and kindly, bunnysfriend, and send greetings. Emmy, sister in Christ.

Erm.............this seems to infer that before people repent they have selfish and unkind natures........apologies if I've misinterpreted this post but people are capable of kindness and selfless acts regardless of faith or otherwise,

personally I dont think that we're born with selfish or uncaring natures either,i think we're all a mixture of 'good' and 'bad' in a basic sense and we can choose, for the most part, to act on what we feel to be right and show kindness and respect to other people........

Sometimes religion seems to want to pigeonhole people into making them feel worthless and inadequate and deserving of misery - be it in the afterlife or in the here and now and I've never really got that........a doctrine of telling people that they're just 'wretched sinners' incapable of any worthwhile good in God's eyes if they dont have faith is just destructive IMO and causes yet more disillusionment.........kindness and compassion are selfless regardless of faith IMO

SoC · Apr 24, 2006

Hebrews 11:6 said:
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Unfortunately, without faith, it is impossible to please God. Without faith, kind acts are merely kind acts. Yes, those who are not saved can do selfless acts and such, but they do not please God.

Why? Because they are still ruled by their sin nature. They have not been forgiven of their sins and are still separated from God by them.

Clenay said:
it is believed strongly by many christianity that the idea of "works" that please god is very wrong, so they go to the other extreme and say that only faith can please god. this is of course a very extreme and black-and-white way of looking at things. but you can see why they think what they do.

it would be interesting to ask these people how, if they would obviously be touched by an act of kindness, how they would reason that somehow god wouldnt be. are they better than god? do they have the spirit of god in them?

Works do please God, when you have faith as well. As James says all through out his book, faith without works is dead, but works alone won't save you, or, in this case, please God. As for being touched by an act of kindness... I'm not going to say that I haven't been touched by a non-Christian's kindness. Does that mean that what they have done pleases God? Not neccessarily. It just means they are more selfless then others.

Of course, I'm merely a human with human understanding. I could very well be wrong on this subject. I'm just going off what I have found in the Bible.

SpaceMan · Apr 24, 2006

bunnysfriend said:
Can a non-Christian please God?

My question: what does it mean to "please God" in the first place...?

bunnysfriend · Apr 24, 2006

SpaceMan said:
My question: what does it mean to "please God" in the first place...?

i dunno, make him feel a little happy? please him like any parent would be pleases when their child does something good.

SpaceMan · Apr 24, 2006

bunnysfriend said:
i dunno, make him feel a little happy? please him like any parent would be pleases when their child does something good.

Fair enough. Then tell mespeaking only for yourself herehow do you know when you have done something that has made God happy, or otherwise given God a feeling of parental satisfaction?

bunnysfriend · Apr 24, 2006

i dont know, i can only guess. if i do a kind and selfless act to aid another being, it makes me feel good, and i hope it makes God feel good too coz thats the kinda thing God likes. i dont really know though, thats why i asked what other people thought.

SpaceMan · Apr 24, 2006

Bear with meI dont mean this as an attack on your, or as a criticism of this threadbutto methe main question (about what is pleasing to God) is irrelevant. Im indifferent to pleasing Godjust as I think God would be indifferent towards my efforts to give said pleasure. I am troubled by the whole concept of living ones life trying to guess at what is pleasing to God; to my mind, it is a recipe for frustration.

So, not surprisingly, I guess that puts me pretty squarely in the: be a good person, and thats all that God cares about camp.

bunnysfriend · Apr 24, 2006

SpaceMan said:
Bear with meI dont mean this as an attack on your, or as a criticism of this threadbutto methe main question (about what is pleasing to God) is irrelevant. Im indifferent to pleasing Godjust as I think God would be indifferent towards my efforts to give said pleasure. I am troubled by the whole concept of living ones life trying to guess at what is pleasing to God; to my mind, it is a recipe for frustration.

So, not surprisingly, I guess that puts me pretty squarely in the: be a good person, and thats all that God cares about camp.

so you have faith and thats enough?

SpaceMan · Apr 24, 2006

bunnysfriend said:
so you have faith and thats enough?

Really think about this before you answer: "enough" for what...?

bunnysfriend · Apr 24, 2006

please God. are you a christian? sorry i just couldnt tell what your beliefs were.

SpaceMan · Apr 24, 2006

Sorrythis conversation is going in circlesand I assure you that Im not doing that in order to frustrate you.

I cant tell you that my faith is enough (for one thing, I dont know what you mean by faith in the first place), because whether or not I please God just isnt a component of my personal spiritual beliefs (and, yes, I would hesitantly call myself a Christianalthough I very much doubt I have too much in common with other Christians on this forum! )

Am I making sense?

bunnysfriend · Apr 24, 2006

SpaceMan said:
Sorrythis conversation is going in circlesand I assure you that Im not doing that in order to frustrate you.
dont worry your not frustrating me!
I cant tell you that my faith is enough (for one thing, I dont know what you mean by faith in the first place), i mean the same as what others mean by 'faith', when they say 'faith' is the only thing that pleases God, you get me?because whether or not I please God just isnt a component of my personal spiritual beliefs (and, yes, I would hesitantly call myself a Christianalthough I very much doubt I have too much in common with other Christians on this forum! )

Am I making sense?

i think i undersatnd, wether or not you please God doesnt matter to you right?

SpaceMan · Apr 24, 2006

bunny&#8217 said:

I mean the same as what others mean by 'faith', when they say 'faith' is the only thing that pleases God, you get me?

Click to expand...

But, may I suggest a bit of caution in so quickly assuming that everyone intends the same thing. For example, on another forum, I just recently set this definition forth, for what “faith” means to me, personally:

Faith: The belief that there is something greater than the individual, that exists both ‘away’ as well as ‘near,’ which connects all beings, and invites us to continually re-discover it, in increasingly profound ways.

bunny&#8217 said:
wether or not you please God doesnt matter to you right?

In a general sense, yes—you are following me.

Cleany · Apr 25, 2006

SoC said:
but works alone won't save you, or, in this case, please God. As for being touched by an act of kindness... I'm not going to say that I haven't been touched by a non-Christian's kindness. Does that mean that what they have done pleases God? Not neccessarily. It just means they are more selfless then others.

so would you say that god, looking down on a person without faith, who is performing an act of great kindness for another, would be unimpressed or indifferent to that act or person?

would you perhaps say the because an act isnt done with some acknowledgement of god in the big picture of things, or isnt done to impress god, then that act is somehow invalidated in gods eyes?

elman · Apr 25, 2006

I think the correct definition of Christian is one who pleases God. It is also by defintion one who loves his neighbor, because loving your neighbor pleases God. Matt 25:31 and following.

BigRed11 · Apr 25, 2006

elman said:
I think the correct definition of Christian is one who pleases God. It is also by defintion one who loves his neighbor, because loving your neighbor pleases God. Matt 25:31 and following.

So those who love their neighbors are Christians? I love my neighbor, but I don't believe in God.

elman · Apr 25, 2006

BigRed11 said:
So those who love their neighbors are Christians? I love my neighbor, but I don't believe in God.

I don't see believe in God as intellectual assent to exitance. The Bible talks about the demons believe in that sense. The sense that we believe in God in the Christian context is doing what we are commanded by Jesus. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor. If we do that, I think the argument can be made we are Christians. I don't see the Bible teaching, especially in Matt 25:31 and following that we connected to God or please God or receive grace and forgiveness from God by passing some sort of mental test. Failing to believe in the existence of God it seems to me means we lose a lot of hope and confort in this life we could have had, but I am not convinced it is the determining factor on being admitted into the presence of God in the next life. God will of course decide that, and probably won't ask me what I think.

traviscatholic12 · Apr 25, 2006

bunnysfriend said:
hi, i asked this same question in the 'outreach' section and got some pretty negative responses, that nothing a person does without faith pleases God, that all our good deeds mean nothing to him if we are not believers. i was just wondering what you guys thought, so if a non-believer does a completely selfless act, and shows kindness and compashion to another person, can it please God?

Of course. I don't think God puts too much stock in religions. Also being a Christian is a way of life, not some sort of abstract moment of being "born again." I know some atheists who are the best Christians I know.

traviscatholic12 · Apr 25, 2006

elman said:
I don't see believe in God as intellectual assent to exitance. The Bible talks about the demons believe in that sense. The sense that we believe in God in the Christian context is doing what we are commanded by Jesus. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor. If we do that, I think the argument can be made we are Christians. I don't see the Bible teaching, especially in Matt 25:31 and following that we connected to God or please God or receive grace and forgiveness from God by passing some sort of mental test. Failing to believe in the existence of God it seems to me means we lose a lot of hope and confort in this life we could have had, but I am not convinced it is the determining factor on being admitted into the presence of God in the next life. God will of course decide that, and probably won't ask me what I think.

Agreed, excellent post.

Chrysalis Kat · Apr 25, 2006

traviscatholic12 said:
Of course. I don't think God puts too much stock in religions. Also being a Christian is a way of life, not some sort of abstract moment of being "born again." I know some atheists who are the best Christians I know.

Amen to that!

can a non-christian please God?

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