Posted on 10/20/2018 6:55:44 PM PDT by OddLane
When I read that songwriter Michael Gungor told his wife, Lisa, “I don’t believe in God anymore,” I experienced a familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was the same one I’d had a couple of years before when Nick, a 20-something leader in our church, called in a panic. He was having doubts and wanted to talk. I spent hours with him, listening as he poured out his questions and fears. Over the months that followed, I prayed God would reveal himself to Nick, but his doubts hardened into unbelief. He began telling people he was an atheist.
Nick and Gungor seem to be following a well-beaten path to atheism: cognitive dissonance over the church’s stand on sexual orientation and gender; outrage over pain and injustice; doubts regarding the authority of Scripture; and an embarrassing feeling that science has rendered belief in the Bible’s claims ridiculous. If there are reasonable explanations for these conflicts, why doesn’t God just show us? Why doesn’t he come out of hiding? Why doesn’t he come out of hiding and reveal himself to my child, to my friend? Or, if he has, to where can I point them?
The various doubts that tripped my friend before he fell into atheism were all situated on the bedrock of the hiddenness of God. His thinking went like this: Christians say that God requires people to believe in him or they will be eternally condemned; God, if he is good, would assist people in forming that belief by revealing himself; God does not reveal himself; therefore, God is either not good, or he does not exist.
(Excerpt) Read more at christianitytoday.com ...
Israel exists again. Just as God prophesied it would.
Israel is involved in Jerusalem again. Just as God prophesied it would.
Many run to and fro and knowledge has increased (tremendously). Just as God prophesied it would.
FYI
A primadonna who thinks he is important suddenly does not believe in God. So What? Worthless time, words, and bandwidth. Get a life and leave us alone with your drivel.
If you’r half as miserable as you sound today, I am glad you are not a missionary :)
What’s up? These kinds of posts aren’t normally you.
But to each his own.
hope you are well.
I believe and I follow but I get confused about how the chemicals we now know about are involved.
Serotonin, dopamine and others can affect a lot about a person.
Someone here prayed the other day to stop smoking, which releases dopamine.
Were they praying that God controls their dopamine receptors?
Serious question. Hope you are well.
God constantly reveals himself. “My Sheep hear my voice” he said. If you don’t are you expecting to? Point them towards spending time listening, reading and praying. Faith is not a pacifists pursuit. You have to fight for it. Part of that fight is to learn what God’s voice sounds like so that you can distinguish it from every other voice that would take you: including the voice of unbelief! Do the work of God:
27 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.
28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
You dont get this by tying to sort out every angst ridden problem but by focusing on God. Eventually every question is answered in Him!
unknown
According to science, a man cannot actually walk on water.
Or make a hammer float.
Interesting article, OddLane. Thanks for posting.
Pinging you, sfumato. You might like.
#### it.
I’m not gonna even torture myself with trying to think it out because it will be evident when I die and it is not in my human grasp to figure out anyway, most likely.
Like explaining relativity to an ant.
Because ants are known to have incredibly low attention spans :)
Since we realy don’t know what the HELL will power is, it is likely God giving you the strength to overcome an addiction to the NATURAL and necessary chemicals in your body
Agree.
If humans are going to find God, it will not be where he has chosen to hide but where he has chosen to reveal himself.
Sometimes believers undergo periods of testing, where all that remains to their grasp is the memory of having believed.
But this is like having entered a dark room, where one remembers having seen in there by the light.
Yes and Amen!
Our expectations of God are unreasonable though they seem reasonable to us. His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are above our thoughts. He sees the end from the beginning. He is a mystery to us and will remain so until we reach Heaven to learn from Him directly.
Time and Space.
Yes, sometimes the memory of God’s presence is all one has. That memory, however, is all one needs. A memory of His kiss of my soul, but no sensible consolation, has been my fare recently.
Hogwash! Can these people read? Have they bothered to crack open a Bible or New Testament. God isn’t “hidden”. Jesus said that anyone who has seen Him has seen the Father. The 4 gospels reveal God in Christ as clear as crystal.
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