People are born with an innate desire to build relationships and friendships. God made us to be “Social Creatures.” But, what happens if we encounter bad relationships or friendships? These bad encounters can, and often do, hinder our willingness to be open and transparent with people which is a building block in cultivating future relationships. This includes building a healthy friendship with God.
I was a very rebellious individual in my younger days and one of the most challenging parts of becoming a Christian, even after believing in God’s existence, was that I knew my rebellion had to be broken if I was going to be able to embrace the forgiveness of Christ.
Have you ever focused on the difficult passages of scripture in which Jesus said things that seem difficult, if not impossible, to live out practically? I know I have, and I continue to circle back to them throughout my Christian walk because I know the more I try to understand the scriptures the better I am able to understand God and my walk with him.
One thing I discovered studying the scripture over the years is that when considering Jesus Christ and his offer to be my sacrifice for my sin it is clear there would be an exchange. I would be exchanging my way of life for his and that meant appreciating who and what he has done and will do in my life.
This is the third article on myths we believe in. If you have not read the first two, please read them first to understand why I am calling these topics myths. When Christians read the scriptures we take our cues about how to understand what God is saying from so called “Intelligent” people who claim they know Greek and Hebrew words and sentence structure. But, have we been brainwashed to believe false ideas about what God is saying? History is not always right, especially when it comes to scripture.
We have been seeing violence on the daily news lately with all the chaos and protesting on university campuses in America, which in my mind is the result of poor parenting. The rioting of students on the university campuses is not a surprise given that parents have believed in the lie that providing college for their kids is the best way to love their kids. This, I believe, is a clear deception of Satan. When parents turn over their children to atheistic teachers to be indoctrinated in twisted and evil thinking, the end result is that their children become God haters who no longer understand how to reason truth from error.
I think there are many instances in our lives that God is probing our hearts and minds to see if we will participate in a creative miracle with him or deny participation because we only see the natural. Being spiritually minded is not denying the natural but working in tandem with the natural. However, learning how to think both naturally and spiritually together takes a lifetime of training and discipline.
This is now the fourth article exploring whether God changes his mind. What we think about God’s willingness to change things based on how and why we pray makes all the difference in the world as to if we are motivated to pray as we are challenged by scripture to pray. If you have not read articles 1-3 please do so before reading this one.
If you gave your life to Christ your heart had to go through a transformational process where you changed from wanting to live for your self-interest to wanting to please God as your top priority. If your heart didn’t change salvation was never truly realized regardless how many times you prayed the sinner’s prayer. After all, God is more interested in transformation than he is in just forgiveness.
I think when we consider acting in love towards others we think about what act of kindness we could demonstrate towards them or for them, but should we, or could we, be looking at only certain obvious aspects of what it means to love others? What about things we “DON”T SEE” in others that call us to extend or demonstrate God’s love to people who may appear undeserving? What if they appear to have a weakness of faith, should we love them in spite of that weakness?
