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How many years does a person have to seek God before he/she can give up? What if a person prays, reads, converses, all that, but receives no answer?
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What if you seek and don't find?
- Thread starter nightflight
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Oncedeceived
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Can give up? What do you mean by can? Do you believe that you are praying to someone? What do you read? What do you mean by converse? These are important details to understand where you are in a spiritual sense.
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You have to take all that Scripture says into account, not just cherry pick verses. Believing you are communicating with God is the key... if you have no faith, you should ask God for it (this is one instance where I believe God will respond to the sincere unbelieving prayer, He just may not reply how or when you are expecting). Trying to talk to a person you don't really think is there is really fruitless in my experience. I used to lift a prayer up once in a great while before I became a believer, and I really had no sense that I was actually communicating with God, it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
"And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him." (Hebrews 11:6)
I came to know and believe in God through a year and a half (or more) of serious Bible study and seeking, and once I came to believe, everything changed.
Hope this helps.
"And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him." (Hebrews 11:6)
I came to know and believe in God through a year and a half (or more) of serious Bible study and seeking, and once I came to believe, everything changed.
Hope this helps.
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It took me about three years to go from Bible believing, born again Christian to the atheist I am today. I didn't want that to be the case and there were some pretty strong repercussions in my life for accepting the truth that there just wasn't anything there. I sought and what I found was how I had been deluding myself. I knocked in desperation and there was no answer. I'm still half hoping to be convinced that Jesus is God and exists etc but so far it's not looking good.
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- Jul 9, 2002
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What specifically did you expect from God that you did not get? A feeling? A specific prayer? Something else... is there one thing that stumbled your faith more than anything else?
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Hey in short I would have said as a believer that being born again meant dying to my old self, the old desires of the flesh and being reborn as a new creation in Jesus. I'm not sure how pertinent that is to the opportunity though so I'm curious as to where my answer leads as we continue to wonder about how much time should be invested in forming or undermining a world view.
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This is a great question. Looking back I got a lot from my time as a believer feelings of community, belonging some good friends and a respect for believers if not always for their beliefs. As for why I ended up changing my beliefs it began with 1 Peter 3:15 and as I investigated the issues trying to make the best possible case for God I became aware of the weakness of the evidence and was exposed to the naturalistic explanations for all the experiences I had in church.
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Oncedeceived
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To understand someone's position, you have to ask what they mean by what they say if you are not sure. That is what I have been doing. I agree that born again includes dying to self, being a new creation in Jesus; which is an ongoing process in which all Christians are in. Yet, you have said nothing about God revealing Himself to you, nothing about a relationship with Jesus, nothing about having the working of the Holy Spirit in your life. It seems to me that you were in the believe but not seen part of journey of being a Christian, there was probably a time when there was doubt and you could either rest on God to show you the answer or to question His existence. Seems you questioned His existence.
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Oncedeceived
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I had to laugh (even if it isn't funny) that I hit the nail on the head before reading this post.
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As you say we have to ask if we want to clarify...well put
My initial answer was a shorthand to be sure and if I had been inclined to give a more detailed answer I would have included all of those things you mentioned. In my mind all those are summarized as being a new creation in Jesus. But if it helps move the conversation along I absolutely agree with your extended definition and I would have (and did) said similar things when I was a believer.
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Well laughter is the best medicine so that is good
Not sure which nail you are referring to in this case but in my experience as long as you don't actually hit your own thumb it has to count as a win
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