I ask this, mainly because I grew up as a Christian, left the faith, and was an atheist up until very recently. Like last week recently. Something happened and I honestly felt the presence of Jesus. Not just words in a book, but His presence. Like the presence of the Holy Spirit was before me or something, I've never had such a thing happen.
So, here I am...and it's hard for me to see God turning his back on people who are lost, maybe. When people reject the Bible, it's not out of malice, it's often because they have never experienced God in their lives, so a book seems flat and uninviting. I have a hard time with the concepts of heaven and hell, personally, but you're right, the Bible says certain things that separate believers from non believers.
May I ask, do you preach the Gospel in your everyday life? I believe we should let our actual lives of joy and peace be a good ''witness,'' too.
I'm glad to hear that you've turned back to Him again.
God does not turn His back on people who are lost. On the contrary, Jesus is constantly yelling in their ear, "WAKE UP!". He is right there beside each and every one of us, you, me, Christians, Unbelievers, Atheists, Buddhists, etc. There's one thing that Jesus refuses to do: break our free will.
He will not do anything that would deny us of our free will; we must choose to turn towards Him, and His heart aches day after day when He sees an unrepentant or unbelieving person continuing day after day in their sins. He wants to save them, but He can't, because He must follow the rules too.
So, a Gay person who is continuing to practice homosexuality is not saved due to several passages that have already been linked in this thread. Jesus is right there, Jesus has not forsaken these people, He's waiting for them to turn away from their sin.
Unbelief is tragic enough... what is even more tragic is to believe in Him, but yet for someone to claim they love Him, but yet not do the things He says to do (Repentance and making an effort turning away from sin). Nobody is going to be perfect... however if you choose to continue in a sinful lifestyle (such as homosexuality, but it is far from the only sinful habit that people have) without even trying to turn away from it, then you are in disobedience to His commands.
If you love Him, you will do the things He says to do. He gave us 3 commands:
1). Love God
2). Love everyone else as yourself
3). Repent
Everything else falls into those things. You can't claim you're repentant while willfully continuing in something you know is a habitual sin. There's a difference between continuing in a habitual sin and occasionally falling to temptation and repenting afterward, though.
He's standing/sitting/hovering right next to you. He sees everything you do, yes, He's standing nearby when you commit sin and it must grieve Him greatly when someone is a believer but yet has unrepentant sin in their lives, because He knows He can't do anything until they turn away from their sin, or at least try to, or at the very least, feel sorry that they're sinning.
Upvote
0