Trouble with the idea of a personal God

[SPB1987]

I have been posting on here for a couple of months now. I have, until now, failed to address the following point. I have an incredibly hard time believing in a personal God. Are we really expected to believe that if we pray to God, he will help or guide us in some way? Why would God even care about us? Why does he need or want us to worship him? Why does he get so angry when we do not? I have immense struggles and am tending to see God from a Deist perspective. I am just having a hard time believing that God is this personal being who wants a relationship with us.

 

[drich0150]

I have been posting on here for a couple of months now. I have, until now, failed to address the following point. I have an incredibly hard time believing in a personal God. Are we really expected to believe that if we pray to God, he will help or guide us in some way?

Yes

Why would God even care about us?

Why does a father care about his children?

Why does he need or want us to worship him?

Because we were created to do so.

Why does he get so angry when we do not?

I don't know that He does.

I have immense struggles and am tending to see God from a Deist perspective. I am just having a hard time believing that God is this personal being who wants a relationship with us.

So the logic being, that if you do not understand why God can not love us, then the God of all creation would equally have a difficult time wanting a relationship with us.
What if God isn't bound by your understanding of Him? Besides, How is it you believe that you have an intimate knowledge above and beyond scripture of a God that does not allow what you claim to have?

 

[SPB1987]

So you do not think the great flood had anything to do with anger? Why does a perfect being need to create anything to worship him? Instead of letting Satan run free in the garden, why not keep him from being there at all?

 

[drich0150]

So you do not think the great flood had anything to do with anger?

It depends on your POV. One person could interpret these acts as simple rage, and another could see this as an act of mercy on the behalf of the righteous. It depends on which side of wickedness you wish to stand on.

Why does a perfect being need to create anything to worship him?

If you have spent all of eternity past alone wouldn't you want the company of another? Wouldn't you want to start a "family?"

Instead of letting Satan run free in the garden, why not keep him from being there at all?

The tree of knowledge in the garden represents true choice. We do not know how long Adam and Eve spent in the Garden before Satan gave them a complete understanding of what true choice was. Before Satan Man only knew to be in the Expressed will of God. Satan was the catalyst for Free will. Without Choice there is only God's will. Satan represents an alternative to God's expressed will or as it is commonly know: sin.

God created life yes, but at the same time wanted us to choose to be with Him of our own accord. In order for their to be True Choice there must be viable options. God can not represent both options because if He did then no matter what we choose we would still be in the expressed will of God. In other words we would still be in His will and not our own. This is important because it is with our own will that we are to choose to be with God.

 

[SPB1987]

It depends on your POV. One person could interpret these acts as simple rage, and another could see this as an act of mercy on the behalf of the righteous. It depends on which side of wickedness you wish to stand on.

If you have spent all of eternity past alone wouldn't you want the company of another? Wouldn't you want to start a "family?"

The tree of knowledge in the garden represents true choice. We do not know how long Adam and Eve spent in the Garden before Satan gave them a complete understanding of what true choice was. Before Satan Man only knew to be in the Expressed will of God. Satan was the catalyst for Free will. Without Choice there is only God's will. Satan represents an alternative to God's expressed will or as it is commonly know: sin.

God created life yes, but at the same time wanted us to choose to be with Him of our own accord. In order for their to be True Choice there must be viable options. God can not represent both options because if He did then no matter what we choose we would still be in the expressed will of God. In other words we would still be in His will and not our own. This is important because it is with our own will that we are to choose to be with God.

1. What about the infants and toddlers?
2. Why would God want anything? God is perfect right? God should not need me, you or anyone for that matter. This is the part that I just do not understand.

Thanks for your responses so far and I will be more than happy to admit when I am wrong!

One more point. On the possibility of my lack of understanding God. Wouldn't God want us to understand him? It is incredibly difficult to believe or put faith in something that we have no proof of, or simply can not understand. Have you ever really experienced God before? I am unsure that I have and am really questioning if it is even possible.

 

[addo]

Is it so hard to imagine a God interacting with his creations?

 

[ebia]

I have been posting on here for a couple of months now. I have, until now, failed to address the following point. I have an incredibly hard time believing in a personal God. Are we really expected to believe that if we pray to God, he will help or guide us in some way? Why would God even care about us? Why does he need or want us to worship him? Why does he get so angry when we do not? I have immense struggles and am tending to see God from a Deist perspective. I am just having a hard time believing that God is this personal being who wants a relationship with us.

Why? If there is a God, why would your intuitive idea of what he should be like be accurate?

Why should God not be personal, relational, creative, loving, caring,....?

"why do you care?" is a legitimate question to ask God - it's there in Psalm 8 - but why not accept his answer instead of saying "you must not be..."?

 

[SPB1987]

Why? If there is a God, why would your intuitive idea of what he should be like be accurate?

Why should God not be personal, relational, creative, loving, caring,....?

"why do you care?" is a legitimate question to ask God - it's there in Psalm 8 - but why not accept his answer instead of saying "you must not be..."?

What makes you so sure the God in the Bible is the real God. There are many other religious texts with widely varying doctrines and beliefs about God. How can you be so sure that your right?

 

[SPB1987]

Is it so hard to imagine a God interacting with his creations?

Well that is the whole point of this thread.....

 

[drich0150]

1. What about the infants and toddlers?

What about them?

2. Why would God want anything?

Because He didn't want to program us to love Him.

God is perfect right?

Yes

God should not need me, you or anyone for that matter. This is the part that I just do not understand.

Perfect does not mean content

Thanks for your responses so far and I will be more than happy to admit when I am wrong!

Thanks for your questions, and We will see.

One more point. On the possibility of my lack of understanding God. Wouldn't God want us to understand him?

Yes that is why we have the bible and Christ.

It is incredibly difficult to believe or put faith in something that we have no proof of,

God will provide proof if we have faith.

or simply can not understand.

"Understanding" has been promised to those who earnestly seek it.

Have you ever really experienced God before?

Yes, without doubt.

I am unsure that I have and am really questioning if it is even possible.

Luke 11
5 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity[e] he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for[f] a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

We ask through, prayer, we seek in the bible, church and places like this, we knock or repeat this process till our hearts get what is it asking and seeking for. If you ask and seek for the holy Spirit as the passage tells you to. you will have the understanding and all the personal proof you need.

 

[ebia]

What makes you so sure the God in the Bible is the real God. There are many other religious texts with widely varying doctrines and beliefs about God. How can you be so sure that your right?

That's a valid but separate question, and what pursuades me may well be different to what would persuade you.

But before getting to that point one needs to decide "am I open to discovering what God is like/accepting God's self revelation, whatever that might look like" or "am I starting with my own preconception about what God must be like"? The latter seems to me to be an extraordinary position for one to take.

 

[bsd31]

I have been posting on here for a couple of months now. I have, until now, failed to address the following point. I have an incredibly hard time believing in a personal God.

I don't know that the term "personal God" is fitting. I always picture someone whipping out a brass lamp, giving it a few good rubs, and out pops their personal God. For me it makes more sense to picture a father figure who is part of his family.

Are we really expected to believe that if we pray to God, he will help or guide us in some way?

Biblically speaking, yes. You are expected to pray and believe that God will guide and help you. It's what faith is all about.

Why would God even care about us?

Therein lies a true mystery of mysteries not Darwin's version. Why indeed, would God even care about us? What can we offer God? What can we give to the creator of everything? What can we possibly offer to God that would make Him care about us?

Wait... we can offer nothing. That's the whole point. God does the offering, we do the accepting. There's not much more to it than that.

Why does he need or want us to worship him?

He does not need us to worship Him. It's not like He derives His might and power from our worship. It doesn't benefit Him one bit. It benefits us. When we worship God it is ourselves that reap the reward.

Why does he get so angry when we do not?

Because He is a jealous God. It seems that you are married. Are you jealous for your wife? Are you jealous to spend time with her and talk to her? When something else comes along and takes her focus away from you do you get jealous? That is the kind of jealousy that God has. It's nothing to do with anger like a parent gets angry with their children for not doing the dishes.

I have immense struggles and am tending to see God from a Deist perspective. I am just having a hard time believing that God is this personal being who wants a relationship with us.

Why?

Because if you were God you wouldn't want relationships with most of the filth and the dreg?

 

[oi_antz]

What makes you so sure the God in the Bible is the real God. There are many other religious texts with widely varying doctrines and beliefs about God. How can you be so sure that your right?

Subscribing..

Also, I can vouch that God speaks to us when we read the bible. I vouch from experience. Yes you are completely right, we are like little ants running around down there and they don't even know we are watching. Thank God He isn't as cruel as my colleague who squashes them on sight! Yes, God is one fearsome person to know, but He is 100% righteous. When He makes a promise you can depend on it.

 

[oi_antz]

So you do not think the great flood had anything to do with anger? Why does a perfect being need to create anything to worship him? Instead of letting Satan run free in the garden, why not keep him from being there at all?

God's wisdom is incredibly hard to understand. Think of it this way though: those who have overcome the serpent will be wise enough to trust in the new earth where God's son reigns. There will be no mutiny in that paradise. Adam and Eve obviously were not trustworthy, they were only made of dust, but the resurrected body will be superior to these carnal bodies that are made to die.

1 Corinthians 15:35-58 NLT - The Resurrection Body But someone may - Bible Gateway

Specifically look at verse 53:

53 For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies.

It's a very heavy chapter, I expect you would need to think about each verse for at least 10 seconds to really absorb what Paul is saying, so read it patiently.

 

[GrayAngel]

I have been posting on here for a couple of months now. I have, until now, failed to address the following point. I have an incredibly hard time believing in a personal God. Are we really expected to believe that if we pray to God, he will help or guide us in some way? Why would God even care about us?

We are the point of all creation. Why are there mountains? So we can climb them. Why do stars light up the night sky? So we can marvel at them.

You've probably been around somebody before who has looked up at the sky and said, "Makes you feel little, doesn't it?" Well, they've got it all wrong. Our worth is not in our size, or even in our ability to manipulate the world around us. God created us in His likeness, and we are worth more than the biggest stars in the galaxy.

Why does he need or want us to worship him? Why does he get so angry when we do not?

Because everyone likes to be appreciated. Also, considering He was the one who created us, the world, and everything in the world, God is rightfully deserving of praise.

God is also a jealous God. Now, when we hear the word jealous, we think of the wrong thing. This a problem with the English language. Biblical jealousy is not just looking at something you want that doesn't belong to you: that is called "envy." Biblical jealousy is when something that is rightfully yours is taken away and given to someone else.

As the creator of the universe, God is the rightful center of our worship. When we offer up our worship to anything else--Zeus, the forest, our ancestors, pop idols, addictions, etc.--we are basically stealing from Him.

I have immense struggles and am tending to see God from a Deist perspective. I am just having a hard time believing that God is this personal being who wants a relationship with us.

The relationship is the whole point of it. When God created the world, He lived with Adam and Eve in the garden. But when they sinned, they drew a wedge between themselves and God, and mankind was separated from Him. The reason the Messiah came was to fix what had been broken, and to reunite us with our creator.

 

[Emmy]

Dear SPB1987. If I may suggest to you, why don`t you give God a chance to prove His Love to you? There are thousands upon thousands of Christian men and women worldwide, who have found a loving and personal God: myself included. In fact, Christianity is not only a Religion, Christianity is also a " Loving relationship with our Heavenly Father." If you truly want to find out, ask God in sincere prayer, and keep your eyes and mind open for God`s answer to you. God loves us and wants us back again, Jesus died out of Love for God and for us, that we might live; and all we have to do now: Repent, change our selfish and unloving character TO: Loving God with all our hearts, with all our minds, and with all our souls. Also: Love our neighbour as ourselves. God is Love, and God wants our love freely given and absolutely no conditions tagged on. Talk to God as our Heavenly Father, ask Him what you need to know, and wait for His answer. Just trust Him, SPB, and see what God will do. I say this with love, and send greetings. Emmy, your sister in Christ.

 

[oi_antz]

Dear SPB1987. If I may suggest to you, why don`t you give God a chance to prove His Love to you? There are thousands upon thousands of Christian men and women worldwide, who have found a loving and personal God: myself included. In fact, Christianity is not only a Religion, Christianity is also a " Loving relationship with our Heavenly Father." If you truly want to find out, ask God in sincere prayer, and keep your eyes and mind open for God`s answer to you. God loves us and wants us back again, Jesus died out of Love for God and for us, that we might live; and all we have to do now: Repent, change our selfish and unloving character TO: Loving God with all our hearts, with all our minds, and with all our souls. Also: Love our neighbour as ourselves. God is Love, and God wants our love freely given and absolutely no conditions tagged on. Talk to God as our Heavenly Father, ask Him what you need to know, and wait for His answer. Just trust Him, SPB, and see what God will do. I say this with love, and send greetings. Emmy, your sister in Christ.

This about says it all SPB, all you need to do is allow yourself to trust Him. When you open your heart He will speak to you, He may speak through the music, through the wind in the tree's through the signs on the street, through the chatter of people around you. Allow yourself to listen to what He tells you, let that barrier down and trust Him. Of course it is terrifying to encounter God, but just trust Him and His love will become apparent quick enough. I want to pray with you and I hope you can agree with what I say here:

Dear heavenly Father, we thank you that you care so much about us, that despite your enormity and might, that you reserve the most pure love for us that we can feel important even though we are but a speck of dust in your universe. We thank you that we have the right to approach you confidently and ask for your assistance with matters close to our hearts. We pray for our brother SPB now, we ask that you'll give him the confidence to listen when you speak to him. We pray that you'll give him the confidence to trust you with his heart's desire, which is to know you. We pray that you'll open his eyes to the truth when he reads the bible, we pray that you'll send your Holy Spirit to be upon him when he hands his life over to you. Lord we pray that you'll send ministering angels to guide him into his lifelong decision to love you and follow you wherever you may lead him, that he will be well informed of what it means to be Jesus Christ's disciple. Lord we pray that the time of his conversion will come without delay, and that his journey onto that end will be prosperous and not frustrating. Lord God, we pray all these wishes to you knowing that you alone have authority to grant them. Father, we ask you to become the complete father figure in SPB's life for the rest of his life. We pray in the name of your blessed son, who gave everything He could to give us the privilege to call you "Father". We praise you, we thank you for life, Lord we love you and it is our hearts desire to praise you. Amen.

Well SPB, I hope you are able to agree with what is said here, sister Emmy really hit the nail on the head. There are thousands upon thousands of Christians in the world who have gone from your position of wanting to being fulfilled. Remember what Jesus said:

John 4:10
Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”

So you need to ask Jesus to make the deal, and trust Him when He speaks to you. Allow yourself to trust Him, that is what faith is, it is trust in things unseen:

Hebrews 11:1
[ Great Examples of Faith ] Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

So open your heart to God, keep the bible close by so you can read it as He instructs you to, because as you read He will show you things you never knew before, all you need to do is trust what He says and believe Him because God does not lie.

 

[razeontherock]

What makes you so sure the God in the Bible is the real God. There are many other religious texts with widely varying doctrines and beliefs about God. How can you be so sure that your right?

What makes you think various texts from differing belief systems contradict? They all teach the same values ... is there no intrinsic worth in the fact of their overlap?

 

[SPB1987]

What makes you think various texts from differing belief systems contradict? They all teach the same values ... is there no intrinsic worth in the fact of their overlap?

Not saying they teach different values. It was more akin to Jesus is the Christ in Christianity as opposed to Islam. The question I was asking is: how can anyone be so sure that Christianity is the one true religion? Same goes for every other religion or belief system.

 

[SPB1987]

This about says it all SPB, all you need to do is allow yourself to trust Him. When you open your heart He will speak to you, He may speak through the music, through the wind in the tree's through the signs on the street, through the chatter of people around you. Allow yourself to listen to what He tells you, let that barrier down and trust Him. Of course it is terrifying to encounter God, but just trust Him and His love will become apparent quick enough. I want to pray with you and I hope you can agree with what I say here:

Dear heavenly Father, we thank you that you care so much about us, that despite your enormity and might, that you reserve the most pure love for us that we can feel important even though we are but a speck of dust in your universe. We thank you that we have the right to approach you confidently and ask for your assistance with matters close to our hearts. We pray for our brother SPB now, we ask that you'll give him the confidence to listen when you speak to him. We pray that you'll give him the confidence to trust you with his heart's desire, which is to know you. We pray that you'll open his eyes to the truth when he reads the bible, we pray that you'll send your Holy Spirit to be upon him when he hands his life over to you. Lord we pray that you'll send ministering angels to guide him into his lifelong decision to love you and follow you wherever you may lead him, that he will be well informed of what it means to be Jesus Christ's disciple. Lord we pray that the time of his conversion will come without delay, and that his journey onto that end will be prosperous and not frustrating. Lord God, we pray all these wishes to you knowing that you alone have authority to grant them. Father, we ask you to become the complete father figure in SPB's life for the rest of his life. We pray in the name of your blessed son, who gave everything He could to give us the privilege to call you "Father". We praise you, we thank you for life, Lord we love you and it is our hearts desire to praise you. Amen.

Well SPB, I hope you are able to agree with what is said here, sister Emmy really hit the nail on the head. There are thousands upon thousands of Christians in the world who have gone from your position of wanting to being fulfilled. Remember what Jesus said:

John 4:10
Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”

So you need to ask Jesus to make the deal, and trust Him when He speaks to you. Allow yourself to trust Him, that is what faith is, it is trust in things unseen:

Hebrews 11:1
[ Great Examples of Faith ] Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

So open your heart to God, keep the bible close by so you can read it as He instructs you to, because as you read He will show you things you never knew before, all you need to do is trust what He says and believe Him because God does not lie.

Thanks to both of you. How can you know your experiencing God? How can you know that Jesus is speaking to you?