I need help

[The_Lords_Froggy]

I think I need help. I became a Christian around Christmas, or a little before, maybe a month or two before, I can't really remember. I had a lot of happiness with it at first, and then it sort of started to fade once I found out that there were a lot of trials and troubles. It seems as if they make me weaker, and now I feel so far away from Jesus that I just want to cry sometimes. Nothing makes me more depressed than thinking those thoughts, and I might actually be condemned to Hell because of this. I know that Jesus Christ died for my sins and rose three days later to not only overcome death, but also sin. He rose and resides in Heaven now, where I know that He'll stay until the time to judge us. I know that I need a personal relationship with him, or I'm going to die the second death, so please, help me. I want to get back the fire that I once had for Him. God bless all!

 

[Knight]

Have you repented of your sins and placed faith in Jesus Christ?

If so, I would recomend reading Romans 8. There is much encouragement here. Actually, come to think of it, reading the whole book of Romans is a good idea for a new Christian.

We all feel beat up by trials and troubles from time to time. God's word has answers for any issue that you can face in your Christian walk.

If there are specific things you are struggling with let us know.

 

[The_Lords_Froggy]

I'm struggling specifically with treating others with respect (especially my parents when they press my buttons too much and a certain atheist at school that tends to unnerve me.) I'm also having a lot of trouble with my faith, since I tend to think a lot about how I'm not doing as Jesus would want me to. I had a little trouble understanding the Trinity, and I still do. I don't know what else right offhand, but I do know that I need help. If I invite Jesus into my life once more, will He help me to fill in the gaps? I really need answers, will He help me?

 

[Knight]

I know of very few people your age who do not have some trouble with their parents..... Not that that's an excuse to dishonor them but you're not alone either.

Who told you that Christians never sinned? We still struggle with sin issues. I have been a believer for 15-20 years and I still have struggles. We are not instantly made perfect. Rather we are being perfected. Faith and repentance are demonstrated by a lifestyle change over time. Don't try and force it or expect an overnight shift. We all grow spiritually at different rates. Read Romans and I think you'll be helped with many of these things.

As for the Trinity doctrine......
People much wiser than you or I have had trouble understanding this. The idea that there is one God who exists in three distinct persons IS a difficult thing to grasp. Do I completely understand it? No, but I accept on faith based on what the Bible teaches.

 

[choceo]

what up froggy..it's a little lengtht...take alook at this when you get a chance and know that when you feel the furthest away from God he is close to you than your very soul..beckoning you to reach out and talk to him..there is no place that you can go that God is not..

God bless you fam..

The Universal Presence by A.W. Tozer

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
Ps. 139:7

In all Christian teaching certain basic truths are found, hidden at times, and rather assumed than asserted, but necessary to all truth as the primary colors are found inane necessary to the finished painting. Such a truth is the divine immanence.
God dwells in His creation and is everywhere indivisibly present in all His works. This is boldly taught by prophet and apostle and is accepted by Christian theology generally. That is, it appears in the books, but for some reason it has not sunk into the average Christian's heart so as to become a part of his believing self. Christian teachers shy away from its full implications, and, if they mention it at all, mute it down till it has little meaning. I would guess the reason for this to be the fear of being charged with pantheism; but the doctrine of the divine Presence is definitely not pantheism. Pantheism's error is too palpable to deceive anyone. It is that God is the sum of all created things. Nature and God are one, so that whoever touches a leaf or a stone touches God. That is of course to degrade the glory of the incorruptible Deity and, in an effort to make all things divine, banish all divinity from the world entirely. The truth is that while God dwells in His world He is separated from it by a gulf forever impassable. However closely He may be identified with the work of His hands They are and must eternally be other than He, and He is and must be antecedent to and independent of them. He is transcendent above all His works even while He is immanent within them.

What now does the divine immanence mean in direct Christian experience? It means simply that God is here. Wherever we are, God is here. There is no place, there can be no place, where He is not. Ten million intelligences standing at as many points in space and separated by incomprehensible distances can each one say with equal truth, God is here. No point is nearer to God than any other point. It is exactly as near to God from any place as it is from any other place. No one is in mere distance any further from or any nearer to God than any other person is.

These are truths believed by every instructed Christian. It remains for us to think on them and pray over them until they begin to glow within us. `In the beginning God.' (Gen 1:1) Not matter, for matter is not self-causing. It requires an antecedent cause, and God is that Cause. Not law, for law is but a name for the course which all creation follows. That course had to be planned,and the Planner is God. Not mind, for mind also is a created thing and must have a Creator back of it. In the beginning God, the uncaused Cause of matter, mind and law. There we must begin.

Adam sinned and, in his panic, frantically tried to do the impossible: he tried to hide from the Presence of God. David also must have had wild thoughts of trying to escape from the Presence, for he wrote, `Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?' (Ps 139:7) Then he proceeded through one of his most beautiful psalms to celebrate the glory of the divine immanence. `If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.' (Ps 139:8-10) And he knew that God's being and God's seeing are the same, that the seeing Presence had been with him even before he was born, watching the mystery of unfolding life. Solomon exclaimed, `But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee: how much less this house which I have builded.' (1 Kings 8:27) Paul assured the Athenians that `God is not far from any one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being.' (Acts 17:27-28)

If God is present at every point in space, if we cannot go where He is not, cannot even conceive of a place where He is not, why then has not that Presence become the one universally celebrated fact of the world? The patriarch Jacob, `in the waste howling wilderness,' gave the answer to that question. He saw a vision of God and cried out in wonder, `Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.' (Gen 28:16) Jacob had never been for one small division of a moment outside the circle of that all-pervading Presence. But he knew it not. That was his trouble, and it is ours. Men do not know that God is here. What a difference it would make if they knew.

The Presence and the manifestation of the Presence are not the same. There can be the one without the other. God is here when we are wholly unaware of it. He is manifest only when and as we are aware of His Presence. On our part there must be surrender to the Spirit of God, for His work it is to show us the Father and the Son. If we co-operate with Him in loving obedience God will manifest Himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life and a life radiant with the light of His face.

Always, everywhere God is present, and always He seeks to discover [uncover] Himself. To each one he would reveal not only that He is, but what He is as well. He did not have to be persuaded to discover Himself to Moses. `And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord.' He not only made a verbal proclamation of His nature but He revealed His very Self to Moses so that the skin of Moses' face shone with the supernatural light. It will be a great moment for some of us when we begin to believe that God's promise of self-revelation is literally true: that He promised much, but promised no more than He intends to fulfill.

Our pursuit of God is successful just because He is forever seeking to manifest Himself to us. the revelation of God to any man is not God coming from a distance upon a time to pay a brief and momentous visit to the man's soul. Thus to think of it is to misunderstand it all. The approach of God to the soul or of the soul to God is not to be thought of in spatial terms at all. There is no idea of physical distance involved in the concept. It is not a matter of miles but of experience.

To speak of being near to or far from God is to use language in a sense always understood when applied to our ordinary human relationships. A man may say, `I feel that my son is coming nearer to me as he gets older,' and yet that son has lived by his father's side since he was born and has never been away from home more than a day or so in his entire life. What then can the father mean? Obviously he is speaking of experiece. He means that the boy is coming to know him more intimately and with deeper understanding, that the barriers of thought and feeling between the two are disappearing, that father and son are becoming more closely united in mind and heart.

So when we sing, `Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,' we are not thinking of the nearness of place, but of the nearness of relationship. It is for increasing degrees of awareness that we pray, for a more perfect consciousness of the divine Presence. We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts.

Why do some persons `find' God in a way that others do not? Why does God manifest His Presence to some and let multitudes of others struggle along in the half-light of imperfect Christian experience? Of course the will of God is the same for all. He has no favorites within His household. All He has ever done for any of His children He will do for all of His children. The difference lies not with God but with us.

Pick at random a score of great saints whose lives and testimonies are widely known. Let them be Bible characters or well known Christians of post-Biblical times. You will be struck instantly with the fact that the saints were not alike. Sometimes the unlikenesses were so great as to be positively glaring. How different for example was Moses from Isaiah; how different was Elijah from David; how unlike each other were John and Paul, St. Francis and Luther, Finney and Thomas à Kempis. The differences are as wide as human life itself: differences of race, nationality, education, temperament, habit and personal qualities. Yet they all walked, each in his day, upon a high road of spiritual living far above the common way. Their differences must have been incidental and in the eyes of God of no significance. In some vital quality they must have been alike. What was it?

I venture to suggest that the one vital quality which they had in common was spirital receptivity. Something in them was open to heaven, something which urged them Godward. Without attempting anything like a profound analysis I shall say simply that they had spiritual awareness and that they went on to cultivate it until it became the biggest thing in their lives. They differed from the average person in that when they felt the inward longing they did something about it. They acquired the lifelong habit of spiritual response. They were not disobedient to the heavenly vision. As David put it neatly, `When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.' (Ps 27:8)

As with everything good in human life, back of this receptivity is God. The sovereignty of God is here, and is felt even by those who have not placed particular stress upon it theologically. The pious Michael Angelo confessed this in a sonnet:

My unassisted heart is barren clay,
That of its native self can nothing feed:
Of good and pious works Thou art the seed,
That quickens only where Thou sayest it may:
Unless Thou show to us Thine own true way
No man can find it: Father! Thou must lead.
These words will repay study as the deep and serious testimony of a great Christian. Important as it is that we recognize God working in us, I would yet warn against a too-great preoccupation with the thought. It is a sure road to sterile passivity. God will not hold us responsible to understand the mysteries of election, predestination and the divine sovereignty. The best and safest way to deal with these truths is to raise our eyes to God and in deepest reverence say, `O Lord, Thou knowest.' Those things belong to the deep and mysterious Profound of God's omniscience. Prying into them may make theologians, but it will never make saints.
Receptivity is not a single thing; it is a compound rather, a blending of several elements within the soul. It is an affinity for, a bent toward, a sympathetic response to, a desire to have. From this it may be gathered that it can be present in degrees, that we may have little or more or less, depending upon the individual. It may be increased by exercise or destroyed by neglect. It is not a sovereign and irresistible force which comes upon us as a seizure from above. It is a gift of God, indeed, but one which must be recognized and cultivated as any other gift if it is to realize the purpose for which it was given. Failure to see this is the cause of a very serious breakdown in modern evangelicalism. The idea of cultivation and exercise, so dear to the saints of old, has now no place in our total religious picture. It is too slow, too common. We now demand glamour and fast flowing dramatic action.

 

[choceo]

HERE'S THE REST....

A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar.

The tragic results of this spirit are all about us. Shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit: these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul.

For this great sickness that is upon us no one person is responsible, and no Christian is wholly free from blame.We have all contributed, directly or indirectly, to this sad state of affairs. We have been too blind to see, or too timid to speak out, or too self-satisfied to desire anything better than the poor average diet with which others appear satisfied. To put it differently, we have accepted one another's notions, copied one another's lives and made one another's experiences the model for our own. And for a generation the trend has been downward. Now we have reached a low place of sand and burnt wire grass and, worst of all, we have made the Word of Truth conform to our experience and accepted this low plane as the very pasture of the blessed.

It will require a determined heart and more than a little courage to wrench ourselves loose from the grip of our times and return to Biblical ways. But it can be done. Every now and then in the past Christians have had to do it. History has recorded several large- scale returns led by such men as St. Francis, Martin Luther and George Fox. Unfortunately there seems to be no Luther or Fox on the horizon at present. Whether or not another such return maybe expected before the coming of Christ is a question upon which Christians are not fully agreed, but that is not of too great importance to us now.

What God in His sovereignty may yet do on a world-scale I do not claim to know: but what He will do for the plain man or woman who seeks His face I believe I do know and can tell others. Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days. Any man who by repentance and a sincere return to God will break himself out of the mold in which he has been held, and will go to the Bible itself for his spiritual standards, will be delighted with what he finds there.

Let us say it again: The Universal Presence is a fact. God is here. The whole universe is alive with His life. And He is no strange or foreign God, but the familiar Father of our Lord Jesus Christ whose love has for these thousands of years enfolded the sinful race of men. And always He is trying to get our attention, to reveal Himself to us, to communicate with us. We have within us the ability to know Him if we will but respond to His overtures. (And this we call pursuing God!) We will know Him in increasing degree as our receptivity becomes more perfect by faith and love and practice. O God and Father, I repent of my sinful preoccupation with visible things. The world has been too much with me. Thou hast been here and I knew it not. I have been blind to Thy Presence. Open my eyes that I may behold Thee in and around me. For Christ's sake. Amen.

 

[JesusInMyHeart]

Father, Son and Holy Ghost:

Click Here:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/pentecostal/One-Ch6.htm

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Disobedience:

Why do we disobey our parents?

When we disobey our parents it is because we want to do what we want to do.

The Bible tells us to respect our parents. This means that we are supposed to make what they teach us and tell us to do the most important things in our lives. Sometimes we may disagree with them. Sometimes we won’t like what they tell us to do. Sometimes we may be angry and want to tell them to go away.

But do you think that Jesus acted that way with His parents? I don’t either. So let’s try something important. Let’s try to do what our parents tell us to do because we know that they are a gift from God, because they know what is best for us, and because we want them to know we respect them.

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Ephesians 6:1-3—Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother"—which is the first commandment with a promise—"that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth" (NIV).

What does it mean to honor our parents? We honor our parents by respecting the role God has given them in our lives. The primary role of a parent is not to make their kids happy, but to equip them for a successful, meaningful life. This equipping has spiritual, social, economic, and educational dimensions. Because of this, a parent is a teacher, providing instruction about what it means to live life, how to succeed in school, how to be a friend, how to follow through on a responsibility and so forth. Unfortunately many parents today don’t do this.

As young adults we honor our parents by appreciating their contributions. When we hit the later teen years our temptation isn’t so much to rebel as it’s to dismiss our parents. We start to think they don’t know much, that they’re naïve, out of touch with the real world.

As we launch into adulthood, we honor our parents by carefully weighing their advice, by listening attentively to their ideas, even if we end up deciding otherwise. Some of the key areas here are picking a college, choosing a career direction, and choosing a spouse.

Finally, as mature adults we honor our parents by caring for their needs. Now there’s a biblical principle in 2 Corinthians 12:14 that children shouldn’t have to save up money to take care of their parents, but parents are to do that for their children. That principle simply says that wise parents should be good stewards of their resources, so they don’t have to financially burden their kids when they get older. That’s a biblical principle. But that principle is balanced by this one, that part of our honor for our parents is caring for their needs as they age.

We must only honor our parents in ways that also honor God. Christian author C. S. Lewis has suggested that when we learn to love God above all our human relationships, we learn to love those we care about the most even better; but when we put our love for those we care about before our love for God, we’ll eventually find ourselves no longer loving those we care about the most. "When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased".

Romans 13:7 tells us about how we should respond to authority in our lives: "Give everyone what you owe: if you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor." Followers of Jesus Christ owe respect and honor to those in various authority relationships to them. These include the government, church leaders, civil servants, church leaders, employers, and so forth.

So why is honoring our parents so important? Parental honor lays the foundation for our attitude toward all authority figures.

If we don’t learn the fifth commandment, then we’re going to have no foundation for the rest of the authority relationships in our lives. From the fifth commandment we learn how to relate to our boss, to our teachers, to our government, an so forth. We often think an authority figure has to earn the right to be honored, and if we find an authority figure who’s imperfect or makes mistakes, we think we’re off the hook. But according to the Bible that’s not true; we’re still bound to honor authority in our lives even when that authority is imperfect.

Without authority relationships our society would fall apart. The way we relate to pastors, police officers, our president, teachers and bosses is a natural outgrowth of the way we relate to our parents.

God Bless

 

[Radagast]

I think I need help. I became a Christian around Christmas, or a little before, maybe a month or two before, I can't really remember. I had a lot of happiness with it at first, and then it sort of started to fade once I found out that there were a lot of trials and troubles. It seems as if they make me weaker, and now I feel so far away from Jesus that I just want to cry sometimes. Nothing makes me more depressed than thinking those thoughts, and I might actually be condemned to Hell because of this. I know that Jesus Christ died for my sins and rose three days later to not only overcome death, but also sin.

And so your sins are forgiven. All of them! Even the ones you haven't done yet!

But you're not suddenly perfect! You need to ask God to help you one day at a time. Even the best Christians sin many times each day!

And you need to read more -- read the Bible, and read good Christian books.

One great perspective on Christian life is C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters -- a little strange, but full of wisdom.

God bless,

-- Radagast

 

[ShetlandRose]

Theologians have struggled to fully explain the Trinity as long as the history of the Christian Church. All three persons of the Godhead are eternal and they are one. The existence of the Holy Trinity is a mystery that one day we will understand clearly. But for now we accept that Jesus revealed it and the Bible teaches it.

--------------

Being a human, you are going to have ups and downs in your Christian life. In order to gain spiritual stability, people need regular nourishment. The food for our spirits and souls is God's Word and prayer, and we need that every day. If you will set aside time to read your Bible, meditate on the precepts of God, quote His promises, talk to Him, and listen to Him you will be on the road to Christian maturity. Remember to cleanse your heart of sins with confession to Him and be assured that you have received His forgiveness. You don't need to be saved over and over again. Begin to concentrate on how to act and think like Jesus--that is how you will grow.

 

[cyberwing]

I think I need help. I became a Christian around Christmas, or a little before, maybe a month or two before, I can't really remember. I had a lot of happiness with it at first, and then it sort of started to fade once I found out that there were a lot of trials and troubles. It seems as if they make me weaker, and now I feel so far away from Jesus that I just want to cry sometimes. Nothing makes me more depressed than thinking those thoughts, and I might actually be condemned to Hell because of this. I know that Jesus Christ died for my sins and rose three days later to not only overcome death, but also sin. He rose and resides in Heaven now, where I know that He'll stay until the time to judge us. I know that I need a personal relationship with him, or I'm going to die the second death, so please, help me. I want to get back the fire that I once had for Him. God bless all!

Precious one, you are no different than any of us! I will never forget one morning walking into church and the pastor walked up to the front so self-assured and began church by asking his wife to pray. Now picture this, she is there with four unruly children the one on her hip has slapped her in the face, one is picking on another child over the pew and two of them are tearing pages out of a hymnal... I will never forget her muttering under her breath, "PRAY?? HE WANTS ME TO PRAY?? I DON"T EVEN FEEL SAVED RIGHT NOW!!!"
Dear one, first of all, you have given your heart to Jesus. HE has paid the ransom cost for your heart and if you gave it to HIM it is HIS!!! HE is Holy and cannot live where there is sin so....YOUR HEART IS GOOD!!! Try to understand this, YOUR heart is good and belongs to HIM!! You still deal with the flesh though... as do we all. That was what the pastors wife was struggling with at that moment. She was stuggling with the flesh AND never forget you have a very REAL enemy. This enemy has 1/3 of the angels, now fallen angels to pester and torment your mind and your flesh. Know this about your enemy, he is a liar. They lie to you about your salvation, about your love for JESUS and about EVERYTHING they can!! What YOU must do is stop agreeing with them!!! Recognize their lies and answer them with God's Word.
Second, know that your enemy is out to steal from you! He wants to steal your faith, your joy, your very salvation if he can! (He can only do that IF you LET him by agreeing with him!) He is out to steal, kill and destroy you. YOU. Why?? Because you are His creation and Jesus has a purpose for you! The enemy does not want you to discover that purpose or that Jesus wants to be with you! These will thwart the enemies plan to build you into a tower of isolation that surrounds your heart!
Find someone to chat with about your faith and your struggles, someone that is a bit further down the path and can help you. We understand what you are feeling, but know that it is aimed at keeping you from becoming who JESUS made you to be!
If you would like, my PM box is always open.
{hugs}
~Cyberwing

 

[Ceris]

I think I need help. I became a Christian around Christmas, or a little before, maybe a month or two before, I can't really remember. I had a lot of happiness with it at first, and then it sort of started to fade once I found out that there were a lot of trials and troubles. It seems as if they make me weaker, and now I feel so far away from Jesus that I just want to cry sometimes. Nothing makes me more depressed than thinking those thoughts, and I might actually be condemned to Hell because of this. I know that Jesus Christ died for my sins and rose three days later to not only overcome death, but also sin. He rose and resides in Heaven now, where I know that He'll stay until the time to judge us. I know that I need a personal relationship with him, or I'm going to die the second death, so please, help me. I want to get back the fire that I once had for Him. God bless all!

What you felt, the original happiness or thrill (if you will) and then the fading of this. There is no need to become discouraged because of this. What you have been experincing was a change of emotions, not your commitment to God. Think about it this way with love for your parents: you love them, yet how offten would you say you feel a thrill of love towards them? Just like everyone else, not very often I would wager. Its the same way with our relationship with God. I'll let you in on something that is not shared that often: Even though I have been a Christian for my entire life, the cases in which I litteraly was fired up and felt God's love in a very tangible emotion has been not that often. Does this mean I love God any less? No, rather I am supported by my faith and dedication towards him.

So what am I trying to say in this really messy thought process? What you are feeling is normaly, we all stuggle with it for our entire lives, even the most devout Christians do. So don't fret about it, its alright.