Hello, let me introduce myself first before I get into the reason why I am on here. My name is Alex. I have married to my wonderful wife for 6 years and we have a 3 year old. All that I have and all that I am is because of God. To make my testimony short, I went to prison over 10 years ago for about 10 months. That is where I fell in love with Christ and decided to follow after Him. Throughout my Christian life I have had my struggles with lust, alcohol, depression, and learning how to navigate the Bible and how to apply it to my life. It amazes me as I look back over those years and how God has helped me overcome sin and has turned my eyes to focus on Jesus. And even now I am still hungry to know Him more.
The reason I found this forum is to get some feedback from others who are new to the faith, hungry to know more, or those who remember what it was like to need guidance in the Bible. I am creating a podcast for Christians in need of guidance and to provide some tools to help them learn how to navigate, interpret, and apply the Bible to their own lives.
Welcome to the forums, Alexander.
It is amazing to see that Jesus changed your life.
Unfortunately, most do not understand salvation these days and they are seeking to justify sin on some level by having a belief alone on Jesus. Some go down the opposite wrong extreme and do not recognize God's grace.
Here are two thread topics on salvation that I would recommend that most do not understand these days.
The Four Aspects of Salvation.
Is The Sinner’s Prayer Biblical?
You said:
Here are my questions:
1) How did you get into Christianity?
I would prefer to look at your question like this: How did Christ come into my life?
Well, to answer: In the early 90's, I accepted Jesus as my Savior via a tract called "This Was Your Life."
Chick.com: This Was Your Life
You said:
2)What's your biggest struggle to reading the Bible?
While I will not answer this one personally (because the question implies something that may not exactly be true to my life as the Lord sees it), I think there are several reasons why I think some people may find the Bible difficult to read.
#1. The Bible does not always read like an edge of your seat novel always.
#2. The Bible may appear to have contradictions and or inconsistent morality (But time and study and prayer needs to be applied to resolve these things).
#3. The Bible is really a large book (Which makes reading it a daunting task for some).
#4. The Bible has many layers of depth and understanding to just even one verse. It is a spiritually rich book because it is the divinely inspired Word of God.
We have to pray and seek God for help in order to read His Word daily. Our desire alone is not going to cut it. We need God's help. We are in a spiritual battle. The enemy does not want us to be in His Word.
This spiritual battle that we are in reminds me of a Christian movie.
If you are interested, you can check out the trailer here:
And if the movie seems like your cup of tea, you can rent it via by Amazon Video:
Watch Heaven's War | Prime Video
Anyways, staying in the Word by at least discussion on the forums is a helpful way to memorize important key verses, and so as to apply them to our lives. Believers should be reading the Word. It may be difficult because the Bible is a big book and there are many layers of depth and understanding to just one verse, but with God, all things are possible. The most important thing we can do is apply to our lives what we do know.
You said:
3)What's your biggest struggle in living out the Christian life?
While I will not answer this one personally (because the question implies something that may not exactly be true to my life as the Lord sees it), I think there are levels of living out the Christian life. We can serve the Lord in small ways now by speaking about the Lord at work, or spreading gospel tracts, and helping the poor. This can lead into going to other nations and making disciples of other nations in time when we have grown stronger in the Lord and in obeying His commands (After being saved by His grace of course). The biggest struggle I believe for Christians wanting to follow Jesus is that most today want to justify sin on some level or they want to follow their own life and path.
You said:
4)What is it that your looking yo get out of the Christian life?
To hug Jesus in His physical body and to hear the words, "Well done good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord."
You said:
5)What do you love the most about this forum site?
It helps me to stay in God's Word. For my opponents in God's Word help me to dig deeper in what His Word says.
Side Note:
When I speak of opponents, I am referring to self professing Christians. I don't argue or debate with atheists anymore. I just give them the gospel and move on (Otherwise I am casting pearls before them). They will not regard the beauty of the truth of God's Word. I can pray for them, and do good towards them, but to continually give them a Word that they are going to keep rejecting is not going to help the atheist.
