No conviction of sin

Hi losthope, I just found this link that might help you to understand how the spirits interact with the mind:

Principalities and Powers « JACOB'S LADDER

Be sure to treat this guy with some respect, he's a very humble man with some great insight and a fantastic, genuine Christian attitude. I can't fault him on what he has said here, except that I believe the lies he speaks of are external entities, but they only ever expose themselves to us via the mind. So for describing the manifestation of spirits, what he says is very accurate.

I think Lost Hope's problem is more in nature and centers on doubt. If, because of his condition, he is unable to communicate with GOd in any way nor feel his presence, then perhaps the whole Christian religion is a fabric of beautiful lies woven by people who are self-deluded and highly suggestive.

Please understand that I am not saying this is true. I am just explaining what I think to be Lost Hope's main concern. It is not his lack of emotion that disturbs him, but, the implications of that lack of emotion.

saralynn said:

I think Lost Hope's problem is more in nature and centers on doubt. If, because of his condition, he is unable to communicate with GOd in any way nor feel his presence, then perhaps the whole Christian religion is a fabric of beautiful lies woven by people who are self-deluded and highly suggestive.

Please understand that I am not saying this is true. I am just explaining what I think to be Lost Hope's main concern. It is not his lack of emotion that disturbs him, but, the implications of that lack of emotion.

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Hi saralynn, nice to meet you here Welcome to CF! I expect losthope can speak for Himself, but I still have a concern with what you are suggesting here, you are putting thoughts into losthope's mind with the intention of having his agreement. That's not a problem itself, since that is what we are all striving for in our attempts to understand truth. What I have a problem with is you as an outsider to the Christian religion claiming to have an authoritative right to say it is a "fabric of beautiful lies woven by people who are self-deluded and highly suggestive". It's not only you who makes that mistake either, I was speaking to a flatmate yesterday and he started to dish out some disrespectful thoughts he had about the Hindu religion, obviously from the perspective he has as an outsider. I told him to stop it because he doesn't represent Hinduism, He doesn't understand it from the context of someone who does understand it, and that is why he has a problem with it. I would say the same to you, what you are doing by speaking negatively about a religion you don't know from the inside, is very disrespectful to those of us who have devoted our lives to understanding the truth of what happened in Jesus' time. I recommend you watch that 1.5 hour long video that joey_downunder posted, because you would benefit from knowing Dr White speaks of. It's a bit slow to get going but once he starts speaking of the facts it is very gripping.

Regardless if you watch that presentation or care to think fairly about Jesus, I must warn you that treading on Jesus' toes is a dangerous activity. How dangerous I can't be certain, but this is how He described it:

Matthew 18:6
New King James Version (NKJV)
Jesus Warns of Offenses

6 “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

The topic we are discussing is the matter of one's personal state of comfort with God. It is a topic of grave concern. You are coming up against Jesus in this post saralynn, and it could be that your thoughts are the actual fabric of lies. As I'm sure we could agree to, if there is an absolute truth then everything that contradicts it must be a lie.

As I said in my first sentence, it is nice to meet you here and I hope that we will have many opportunities to work together at uncovering truth and understanding God better.

I don't think it's true that our OP's condition makes it impossible for him to commune w/
G-d. I think it affects his experience of that, and like someone else alluded to, if we were all the same that would be BORING!

I fully expect each of us has a valid POV, and especially when we remain within the realm of our own experience, sharing that can benefit us all ...

losthope said:

If there is anyone who might believe this (although I would have worded it differently), it could only be me, not saralynn.

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Exactly! I merely told her to not put those words in your mind. I guess it would have been more proper to say "not put those words in your mouth", which I did say in the first sentence as "I'm sure losthope can speak for himself".

So losthope, if you agree with what she said (although you would have worded it differently), would you kindly show us the exact words you would have used?

losthope said:

However, it is only one of five possible reasons why my Christian experience was disappointing. In this thread I am addressing another of the five: the possibility that there was something wrong when I (thought I) became a Christian, specifically that because I did not have a conviction of sin I did not have a serious need for a saviour.

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So is it time to look into how you might know you were/are one of the sheep? John 10:1-18

For information, I did watch the 90 minute long video that joey down under suggested. It was very interesting and does confirm that the Bible as we know it is a reasonably accurate representation of what was originally written in the early years of Christianity. However, that is not a particular concern of mine.

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That kind of information helped me a great deal. Since I saw all historical records of that time period agree with the New Testament, it gave me more confidence that I could rely on what it actually teaches about Jesus' miracles, faith and theology as well. i.e. the kind of material that actually requires faith that the Bible is completely trustworthy.

Hi Antz!
I think you are reading my reply to Lost Hope in a skewed way because you assume I am an atheist and distrust my motivations. I assure you that I am not an atheist, nor do I wish to intellectually or emotionally seduce anyone away from Christianity.

I suspect you distrust my motivations because you met me on another website which is composed primarily of atheists and is a

"nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. The foundation draws on the talents of prominent and creative thinkers in a wide range of disciplines to encourage critical thinking and erode the influence of dogmatism, superstition, and bigotry in our world".

However, I am not entrenched in atheism as most of them are and, I do, despite what you may assume, love Christianity. Yes, I am impatient with Fundamentalism, but this is primarily because, here in America, the Evangelicals decided to get involved in politics and influence public policy which, imo, has had unfortunate consequences.

losthope said:

I do recognise the possibility that what many Christians describe as something coming from God are in reality emotional experiences that are self-labelled as spiritual experiences. This is a possible explanation of the reason why I apparently received no response from God – because I am unable to have any emotional experiences that could possibly be labelled as spiritual experiences.

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Just as a quick aside, it's pretty easy to put that particular doubt to rest. Not only me, but MANY of us on this site have had countless experiences where our experience with G-d miraculously changed things physically. Now if you think emotions can do that, you over-rate them! I don't see the value in going on about such things, as many here have them recorded both on their own testimony in their profile, and in threads; but just as one example, emotions cannot cause a dog who is foaming at the mouth and attacking, to stop their attack, stop foaming at the mouth, and trot away wagging it's tail.

I'm not even sure a relationship with G-d can do that, or prayer. My G-d can, though!

It is very true that "experiencing a real need for a Savior," due to sin, is necessary for
G-d to become real in our lives. In fact, a great way to summarize the OT is that Israel called to G-d in their time of trouble, He answered them and delivered them from all their afflictions, Israel prospered and forgot G-d, got themselves into trouble ... rinse and repeat.

What strikes me as likely to be fruitful for you is exploring the difference between what many of us might think of as "experiencing a real need for a Savior," from what G-d means by "conviction of sin," etc. Hopefully someone else has already compared this to the Parable of the Sower? Those whose repentance is based on emotion could fit the description of the seed being sown along the path, while you might take longer to show even the first sign of growth, but you express interest in being "good soil," and actually bearing fruit unto G-d.

I humbly suggest to you that that is the harder part of the whole process ... not that you are home free by any means, but it is a good beginning point, and something not to lose sight of!

losthope said:

To oi antz, I will try to respond here to your posts #118, 121 and 126.

In #118 you wrote this:
This is the thing: your thoughts are the key to the spiritual realm. Even if you are not aware of it, does not make you immune to it. Read what Paul said:
2 Corinthians 4:4
Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.

Yet for two years I did believe, and still I was not aware of any spiritual influence of any kind. I describe myself as a believer, but whether or not I was saved is something that only God would know.

Not really. I mean to say that truth is objective and absolute. It is our fascination (some more than others) that propels us to understand the truth. Thus some people find various disciplines to be somewhat rewarding in this sense. The objective truth about Jesus is that He is the son of God who brings to earth the full revelation of the religion of Christ that earth has been told through prophets but has not fully understood. This revelation is still ongoing. It is the discipline of Christ's mindset that propels me to think and behave in the same manner that He thought and behaved, to become innocent and pure in the sight of God. That is what I mean when I speak about the "truth of God".
Of course, if you don't happen to believe that Jesus is who He is, then you will have some other belief about what truth is, and you have already indicated this is so. Not everyone is called to be Christ's disciple, but the offer is there.

In court, people swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Even if the Bible contains the truth and nothing but the truth, there is no guarantee that it contains the whole truth. That is an assumption made by some Christians. But not by all Christians; even Paul realised it – see for example 1 Corinthians 13:9-12.

In#121 you gave a link to some teaching about lies and their effect on the mind. I do not know if he is right, or not. However I do recognise that lies can affect what people think, what they believe and how they act.

In #126 you asked me to put in my own words the idea that Christianity is a "fabric of beautiful lies woven by people who are self-deluded and highly suggestive". I have done that in my post #125. However, I am not suggesting that every type of manifestation of God acting is delusion. What I am speculating (because it is consistent both with the experience of most Christians and with my non-experience) is that the more common type of spiritual experience, the type that some Christians say has strengthened their faith, is self delusion by the mind and the emotions. There may well be other people who had real experience of God acting – but these are much fewer in number than the ones that could well be self-delusion.

My aim in starting this thread was to investigate the possibility that the apparent lack of response from God during the time that I was a believer, was due to me not having a real conviction of sin and therefore not experiencing a real need for a saviour. I would prefer to continue to investigate my lack of conviction of sin, and whether or not it is critical. In this thread I would prefer not to get sidetracked into discussing the idea of whether some types of spiritual experience are self-deception. I can always begin a new thread on that topic at a later date, if you would like me to.

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Ok, well I will leave you to do that then. All the best, I hope you can mend your faith one day. One of the thoughts I had to share with you before I read your post was Luke 21:33
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away." I thought that in context of Dr White's presentation should demonstrate to you the gravity of truth we are dealing with. It takes utmost honesty to be a saint, but when you've tapped into it all these verses will become real:

1 John 3:5
And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.

Romans 6:6
knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

Psalm 103:12
As far as the east is from the west,So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

Meanwhile, may the Lord be with you, teaching you, and please PM me if you think there is anything I can do to help.

losthope said:

I still wanted to find a way to do things of eternal worth, even though I was not expecting to be around to see eternity.

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Yes all of us -whether believer or non-believer - want to believe that we have made a difference in this world.

I could only speculate about what a genuine atheist might want to do in that situation – assuming that you could get a genuine atheist to an Alpha course.

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In theory I can imagine a genuine seeker trying to understand what Christianity means. Aren't Alpha courses meant for new christians? In practice I doubt that is very likely, especially the fervent disbelievers commonly called the New Atheists.

Was I happy about being able to help the pastor with a spiritual problem (not his teachings, as such)? No, I was quite surprised. At the same time I was disappointed that he was not able to help me with my spiritual problems.

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Well I am not surprised. You seem to have a very good understanding overall. Would you say that most of your spiritual problems are related to not hearing God via experience or getting sudden clear insight into scriptures as other christians seem to?

I will look at it when I have the opportunity.

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I half-expect it to merely remind you of what the 3 earlier gospels say. However that is what I want to happen because you need to be able to trust that the Bible is correct in what it says about Jesus. 2 Peter 1:16

I lack negative emotions just as I lack positive emotions, and there are many people who would love to be rid of their negative emotions.

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Yes I sure wish I could get rid of some of mine.

In some ways I agree with you. It would certainly make life much easier, and it would probably make having faith much easier as well. But you could say that God has made us the way we are for a reason, and who would argue with what God has done?

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Yes it can seem very unfair to us because we don't understand the whole situation. romans 9:20-21
I remember somewhere this description was used:
"Imagine an alien coming to a hospital and seeing a major operation being performed on someone. It may think that person was being tortured.... however health professionals who understand the patient's condition knows that operation must be done to save that patient's life." The same way God must sometimes use very painful and/or difficult circumstances to teach us lessons that will stay with us permanently. hebrews 12:3-17

The passage says that the sheep know the voice of the shepherd. I do not know the voice of the shepherd.

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Perhaps you need to learn what the shepherd consistently says to his flock then e.g. how God the Father talks to His children because they need his advice to grow in wisdom. proverbs 4 I had to do that to learn how to tell the difference between my own thoughts and/or planted thoughts from the Enemy, and what the Bible actually says.

Hi losthope, from visiting one of the discernment blogs I sometimes visit I found this link for you The Spirit of the Age | Defending. Contending.

"Many people have been misled by folk about how to find out the will of God – as if He’s hidden it from us and left us to our own devices. Throughout human history, folks have neglected the Word of God and relied on human wisdom to determine “god’s will” for things that the Bible tells us nothing about – where to live, where to work, whether to be a missionary to the Marshall Islands, and on and on...."

I just found that sermon via search on www.sermonaudio.com so you don't have to sign up.

Modern Spirituality and Your Mind - SermonAudio.com

losthope said:

Alpha courses are both for seekers and for new Christians, teaching about the basics of the Christian faith. There was a mixture of both seekers and new Christians on the last Alpha course I attended, in 2007.

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I didn't know that. Did you find the course helpful?

In a sense, my spiritual problem is that I appear to have no spiritual awareness of any kind. No Christian spiritual awareness and no secular or other type of spiritual awareness either. That may or may not be the reason why I have not heard God via experience and do not get sudden clear insight into scriptures in the way that many Christians describe.

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I think that any christian in your pretty unusual situation would need to be incredibly strong in their faith. They would need to trust that despite never getting sudden insight or experiences like others describe that God still loves them and understands them as the unique individual they are. Psalm 139

I principle I agree with you. But if God was going to teach me some special lesson, I would not expect it to take so many years for God to do this. I sill have not learned the lesson, whatever it was, and the process began more than 37 years ago – which is longer than Abraham had to wait as described in Hebrews 11, and Abraham had been given information by an angel – an advantage that I never had.

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How long was Moses in your situation? Moses and 40 Long Years What good came from that long period in isolation? Psalm 25:9 , Proverbs 3:34 , Numbers 12:3 , Matthew 5:5, hebrews 11:23-29

For me, lacking spiritual insight into the spiritual meaning of Bible passages, there must inevitably be the risk that I would fail to grasp the deeper meaning of a passage. And if I ask a Christian for help, who knows what strange ideas they might have?

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You have a vey genuine reason for concern there. Even the most learned christians can go off the rails. History has many tragic examples. That is how many cults get their weird doctrines too by building whole doctrines on isolated verses (and ignoring many verses that contradict those doctrines). That is why it is so important for every christian to learn what the Bible actually says so they can keep it all in context.

I know that many Christians have told me that I will not really understand the Bible unless I am guided by the Holy Spirit – which leaves me unable to benefit from this.

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Being guided by the Holy spirit does not mean feeling guided by the Holy Spirit. What is a christian supposed to grow in? 2 Peter 3:18 , Ephesians 4:10-16. Is there any mention of feelings there? Hint: love is more than a feeling..... I know those thoughtless words have wounded you. Can you mentally take a step back and remember that these people feel things unlike yourself?

I listened with interest to the two broadcasts that you recommended, about depression in the Bible and about modern spirituality and your mind. Both made some good points but the first was for people who are not in my situation.

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I thought that your feeling (seeming?) separated from God and the resulting depression from that fitted the message of that sermon perfectly. I was inwardly smiling while listening to it, thinking of yours and my situation and how much I wanted you to be helped by it too - all at the same time. But then I do have my feeling side, even though it can be my own worst enemy at times.

The second made some unjustified statements and assumptions which undermined the value of the arguments.

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Can you tell me what points you disagreed with?

For your interest's sake that sermon was just what I needed to hear although I was just thinking of you when I listened to it. I learnt today that my husband's job interview seemed successful and they are going to be contacting his referees. If he does get that job then in distance that is moving from one side of Europe to the other. Back to the tropics, back to a mining town (and I loathed the mining town I was in before), leaving the army culture and all its support and so on.

In previous times I would have been worrying and trying to find out what God's will was and trying to find everything out whether by information, looking for signs or by feeling God's annointing etc. Exactly what that preacher condemned because christians are supposed to be trusting in God. If christians seek to learn more than God wants us to we really are rebelling against Him. 1 Samuel 15:23
Right now I am trying to do what the Israelites did to comfort themselves. They remembered what God had done for them and how He always kept His promises. Exodus 15 Psalm 136 It is really hard though.