Recovering a pure faith

[therebelprophet]

How do you do it? After you have been steeped in sin, surrounded by darkness, awash with devastation and destruction and disappointment...

I am not despondent or unhopeful, but I struggle to find what I feel is a proper expression of my faith in the Most High God and His Son. What is it to be a Christian? "Love God and love people." Those are the greatest two commandments, but I see so many things in Scripture that are so complicated. Even the most basic tenets of Christianity I see have been skewed. I won't go into details about what and how...it's some very complicated theological stuff even though it's simple at it's heart.

I don't know if I want to go back to "innocence" or to sheer naivety. How do you keep your faith pure when so many things past and present are trying to corrupt it, dishearten it, neutralize it? I am searching for that and finding that I have to keep going even though I walk with a limp along the narrow path.

So to sum up, for those who have progressed further than I, how do you keep a pure faith? Or how do you recover a pure faith?

 

[JadedSword]

Hard advice:

You are thinking too much. Be like a child. Children play. They don't take their games seriously, and if they are, they are just pretending. Adults get stuck in their roles when they get good ones and addicted. We aren't roles, we aren't any of that.

Get to zero. Get to nothing.

You are swamped with attacks from spirits. It is part of the price. It is the struggle. The swamp of attacks. You have to stand down every attack. Be strong.

Learn how to wipe them out. Twist them until they bleed the last bit of water in them. Burn them away.

The Gospel is nature. It is your nature. See that. You don't "do" anything. You can, if you must, look at yourself and try and understand that.

Even if you go against your nature, it is your nature still, and that nature is one you do not fully understand for it is a nature of a child of God.

 

[Emmy]

Dear rebelprophet. You are right: to love God and to love your neighbour ( all others) is what God wants from us. In Matthew, chapter 22, verses 35-40, Jesus tells a Lawyer: " The first and great Commandment is: love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. The second is likewise: love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." Love is what God wants from us, selfless with no conditions asked. Jesus told Nicodemus, " You must be reborn," Jesus told us again and again: " Repent", exchange our selfish and unloving character for: loving God and loving each other. A good way to start this: treat all we know and all we meet, as we would like to be treated, with kindness, considerration, and not always insisting on one`s own rights. People will soon notice, and treat us the same, it will change our lives, we will enjoy meeting people and share Jesus`s Love and Joy with each other. We will stumble and even fail often, but Jesus taught us to pray:" Father forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us." Just get up and keep asking Jesus to walk beside you, He will give us the strenght to change slowly And surly. You will never know what Love can do, until you give it a try. I say this humbly and with love, rebelprophet. Greetings from Emmy, your sister in Christ.

 

[razeontherock]

Excellent questions! Of course, the answer(s) is renewing your mind by the Word of God.
And while you are certainly attacked on every side as you make this effort, we have ways of "weathering the storm." One of my favorite word pictures:

Psa 61:2 "From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock [that] is higher than I."

There is SO much the Lord has for us, that the Church today seems to be without. Take for example, our breastplate of righteousness. Pretty important stuff, right? What do you really know about it? If we don't know what the original audience did, are we missing the point? I've got a very detailed study on this in the Deeper Fellowship sub-forum, in a thread by that same name. You might be ready for it soon.

 

[Peripatetic]

You have discovered one of the interesting paradoxes of growing in faith: the "better" we become (ie. closer to what God wants for us), the "worse" we seem when we look inwardly. It happens because our growing wisdom exposes our sinful nature and inability to be righteous. It may not be pleasant, but the alternative is much worse. The old saying tells us that ignorance is bliss, but the blinding ignorance of an unrepentant sinner (or even a "luke-warm" Christian) is devastating. It's kind of like a person with no nerve endings walking on a pit of fire.

A similar paradox comes with learning the word of God. The more time we spend in the Bible, the more we realize how much we don't know. Sometimes I will spend an hour trying to unpack a few verses by reading commentaries and considering different interpretations, applications, and the historical context. Sometimes I'm discouraged by just how far behind that I am. At the same time, it's kind of exciting to know that no matter how many more years I'm on this Earth, Bible study will always be a challenge.

 

[salida]

Do you have the holy spirit? He will give you the power to live a christian life. Human effort alone can't do this. Pray and you will get it.

Take one day at a time and get some inspirational friends that love God by their actions. Read the bible and pray daily. Get involved in a serious church. Its a life long lifestyle and you will know God more and more. True faith is demonstrated by actions than then the feelings will come. Feelings alone are like a roller coaster. Feel free to email me if have more questions.

Also, keep yourself separated from vulgar movies and t.v. Remember with a computer its garbage in and garbage out-same with a human.

 

[ezeric]

The Christian Life is not "I" anymore but CHRIST.

The only person that can live the Christian Life is JESUS HIMSELF!

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
Galatians 2:20

The only failure is when you 'try' to live the life (like Peter learned) walking
on water - you will sink.

It is easily resting in HIM to do the impossible!

-eric