Homer27 said in post 1:
I'm feeling confused as a Christian.
Any feeling of confusion isn't from God (1 Cor. 14:33).
I pray every day, but a lot of the time I don't feel God's presence. What am I doing wrong?
If we don't feel any relationship with God, even though we consider ourselves to be Christians, it could be because we've subconsciously hardened our hearts against him because of something bad that happened in our life (e.g. the death of a loved one). We could be subconsciously blaming him for letting that bad thing happen, instead of using his power to keep it from happening. If that's the case, we need to pray & ask him to bring to our mind whatever is coming between us (Ps. 139:23-24), & to help us not to harden our heart against him (Heb. 3:15).
We should also fellowship with other Christians every day (Heb. 3:13, 10:25), at least in some fashion (Mt. 18:20), such as on this forum, being exhorted by them and exhorting them in turn (Heb. 3:13).
We also need to examine ourselves to make sure that we're truly in the faith (2 Cor. 13:5, Prov. 28:26, 14:12). The way to do this is to read every word of the Bible (Heb. 4:12, Mt. 4:4) and see if we accept everything it teaches as having come from God (Jn. 8:47, 2 Tim. 3:16). For just as a true faith will initially come from reading (or hearing) what the Bible teaches (Rom. 10:17, 2 Tim. 3:15), so we can know that we're remaining in the true faith if we continue to believe everything that the Bible teaches came from God (Jn. 8:31b, 2 Tim. 4:2-4, 1 Tim. 4:1, Mk. 8:35-38).
In order to have any real relationship with Jesus and God the Father and the Holy Spirit (Mt. 28:19), most importantly we must believe the right things about Jesus (Jn. 14:6-7): that he's God the Word made flesh (Jn. 1:1,14), that he's the Christ (1 Jn. 5:1, 2:22), and that he's the only begotten (only born) Son of God (Jn. 3:16,36, 1 Jn. 2:23), meaning that he's the only person ever born without any human father (Lk. 1:34-35). And we must believe that Jesus lived a perfectly sinless life (Heb. 4:15, 2 Cor. 5:21) and so he could die on the Cross for our sins and rise from the dead on the third day (1 Cor. 15:1-4). He rose and will remain forever in an immortal flesh and bones human body (Lk. 24:39, 2 Jn. 1:7) as our eternally-human high priest/mediator (1 Tim. 2:5, Heb. 2:16-17, 7:24-26).
Once we come into faith in Jesus, we must obey him and God the Father and the Holy Spirit by repenting from all of our sins and getting water-immersion (burial) baptized into Jesus (Acts 2:38, Rom. 6:3-5, Gal. 3:27). And we must partake of the divine flesh and blood of the bread and wine of communion (Jn. 6:53, Mt. 26:26-28, 1 Cor. 10:16, 11:27-30). And we can get hands laid on us to receive Holy Spirit baptism (Acts 8:17) and one or more of the Holy Spirit's wonderful gifts (Acts 19:6, 1 Cor. 12:8-10). Then, washed from our sins by water baptism (Acts 22:16) and empowered by the Holy Spirit within us (Acts 1:8, Eph. 3:16), we must each and every day for the rest of our lives deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Jesus (Lk. 9:23, 2 Cor. 5:15), by continuing in the faith to the end (Heb. 3:6,12,14, 6:4-8, Jn. 15:6, 2 Tim. 2:12), by repenting from every sin we might commit to the end (Heb. 10:26-29, 1 Cor. 9:27, Lk. 12:45-46), and by doing the particular spiritual works which he has given us as individuals to do to the end (Mk. 13:34, Rom. 12:6-8, Titus 3:8).
But if we as believers wrongly employ our free will to refuse to do these things, we can't expect to have any continued real relationship with Jesus & God the Father & the Holy Spirit. For a continued real relationship with them requires that we not only continue to believe in them but also continue to obey them (Jn. 15:10, 14:21,23). Faith without works is dead (Jas. 2:20) & cannot ultimately save us (Jas. 2:14-26, Rom. 2:6-8, Mt. 7:21, Heb. 5:9).
I say all these things not as a way to "bash" God or that, but I feel pain over it, since I've been looking for a way to better understand, but I haven't yet. Any helpful advice?
The best way to understand God is to study his Word the Bible (2 Timothy 3:15-4:4).
The best way to study the Bible, as a whole, is simply to read every word of it (Matthew 4:4) over and over again. It ends up explaining itself once every word of it has become completely engrained in your memory, and you see all the connections between verses regarding something in one place in the Bible and other verses regarding that same thing in other places in the Bible. It's by comparing and combining related verses from different places in the Bible that we arrive at correct doctrine (Isaiah 28:9-10, 1 Corinthians 2:13).
It's also a good practice to always end each reading session with a prayer for understanding and remembrance of the entire Bible.
One way to read the Bible is to think of it as seven volumes:
1. Genesis to Deuteronomy
2. Joshua to Esther
3. Job to Song of Solomon
4. Isaiah to Malachi
5. Matthew to Acts
6. Romans to Philemon
7. Hebrews to Revelation
You can read a chapter in each volume every day. This will keep you current in every part of the Bible. After a while, there won't be any part you haven't read recently enough to remember what it says. When you reach the end of a volume, simply start again at the first chapter of that volume. In this way, you will be cycling through smaller volumes like #6 and #7 much more often than larger volumes like #2, but the smaller volumes are so much more dense with doctrine that it can be profitable to read them over and over more often.
Also, you can listen to recordings of people reading the Bible, whenever you need to keep your eyes on something else while you listen (such as keeping your eyes on the road while you drive, or on a cutting board while you're preparing food, or on your clippers while you're trimming a hedge). In this way, you can listen to the Bible throughout the day, whenever you don't need to be thinking about something else (such as at your workplace). Also, you can listen to the Bible even while you're going to sleep, so that it will become part of even your subconscious mind.
I feel better now, I'll check out what you guys said in the other posts. 
