zephcom
Well-Known Member
- Jul 9, 2017
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This would be a major understatement. I am basically convinced that God has a raging hatred for me and is planning to burn my worthless hide forever.
So you would think that studying the scripture ought to be enough to realize how erroneous my view of God is? Here is where it gets complicated:
I have read many outstanding articles explaining the finer details of the Bible and read works from the finest apologists, priests, pastors, etc that I could find. Their arguments made perfect logical sense....yet I don't believe a single one of them.
No matter what I read, who I talk to, or how much I try to contemplate what God says in the Gospel I can't seem to shake the overwhelming sense that not a single word of it applies to me. God is talking to those wonderful special people who simply deserve to be saved because some part of them is worth saving.
Yet I am convinced that God is laughing at and mocking me just like every other person I've ever met. I have been a total joke to everyone since the day I was born. No matter how hard I try to be moral I'm just going to mess up and all the good things I did prior to that mistake will become entirely voided. Yet the Bible says the exact opposite of this...
There is something wrong inside my brain. All I see is the darkness all around me and the total absence of good in my life. I go from failure to failure and embarrassment to embarrassment. There is not a single sign anywhere that God has a plan for my life. If somehow God decides to arbitrarily let me into heaven because Jesus said "sure why not?" I'd still be in a panic. What if God decides at any given moment that this one guy is too disgusting to be covered by the cross? Yet I know this statement is absurd...
I sense from the replies to your post to this point that people truly want to reach out to you and help you. Such is the case with me. I have no authority to promise that what I suggest will work.
I have looked at the teachings of Jesus. I've done that in an exclusive manner. By that I mean I have excluded the entire Old Testament and the commentary of humans in the New Testament. I have focused only on the teaching of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament.
What I suggest is a bit radical. Stop focusing on yourself. For reasons that aren't important here, you are safe. God loves you with all the power and authority that comes with being God. Know that is true. God is the Good shepherd and all sheep are safe within His grasp.
I suggest that you do something nice for someone else. It can be something as simple as holding the door open at the post office so someone behind you can enter. I don't know what it is, but doing something as simple as that seems to make the world just a tiny bit more satisfied than it was before.
If the world is just a tiny bit more satisfied than it was before, then the world is a better place for all of us.
All Jesus ever asked of anyone is that we do for others what we would like done for us. Even if that is just holding the door open for us....
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