Personally, I believe in Santa Claus. When I'm good, I get rewarded 
Reply With QuoteInteresting thread boys, interesting ....very good.....so from my readings here in this thread I gather that the vast majority of you are atheists, or at best agnostics...good for you..... good for you. If I read it right, the majority of you think that God is a joke, the bible is a fairy tale, and we just.....float.....out ....into....the....cosmos???? Is that a fair and balanced assessment????
Well, here's a little news for you, God is NOT fake. God is real, more real than you might want to deal with. The Bible is the most important archeological document in the world, everytime they look for something using the Bible, amazing folks, they find it. And explain away this one....
The Bible is split into basically two books....for you non-believers, that would be the old and the new testament. The old testament is old JEWISH law, written as a historical document, but also, of stories of great Jewish leaders, of which Job and Moses are two. Yes, David, later KING David, was also Jewish, auther of some of the most beatiful verses in the Bible, the Psalms. The new testament is the teachings of Christ, his birth, life, death and teachings of the apostles to other peoples throughout the area after his death.
In the old testament, written 2000 years before the birth of Christ, are 143 prophesies, about the nature and context of the mesiah. How he would be born, to whom, and so on...Christ fulfills those Jewish prophesies to the letter. 2000 years before his birth....explain that.
Christ talked about a lot of things, love, the 11th commandment, the sermon on the mount, but one of the things he also talked about, was who he was. He was very straightforward about who he was. He did not mince words. He did not sugercoat the nature of his life. And in John 14:6-9, he said it once again, as a warning, if you will, and I quote;
"I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through me"
He said it!! There it is boys...I don't make the rules, he does. All of your goodness in life, treating others good, gets you nowhere after you die without Christ in your life. I don't make the rules, I just quote them.
I firmly believe that in these days, more then any others, people are being forced to make a choice, whose team are you on?? And people are making the choice sometimes without knowing that they have. In Revolations, the Bible talks about the ages of the Church. The last age of the Church, is known as Laodicea. This Church symbolizes the decline of the importance the Church in the last days...these days, the Church is darn near irrelevant in this world. So he says this...
To the Church in Laodicea
"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarmneither hot nor coldI am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."
This is a direct quote to those of you caught up in the I'm a good person thinking. Being a good person is great, good for you, but Christ makes it clear it's not enough. For you atheists, I give you and example.... C.S. Lewis, great author, and for a large part of his life, atheist. He wrote Narnia Chronicles...and he later went on to say this about God......
"What are we to make of Christ?" There is no question of what we can make of Him, it is entirely a question of what He intends to make of us. You must accept or reject the story.
The things He says are very different from what any other teacher has said, Others say, "this is the truth about the Universe. This is the way you ought to go," but He says, "I am the Truth, and the Way, and the Life." He says, "No man can reach absolute reality, except through Me. Try to retain your own life and you will be inevitably ruined. Give yourself away and you will be saved." He says, "If you are ashamed of Me, if, when you hear this call, you turn the other way, I also will look the other way when I come again as God without disguise. If anything whatever is keeping you from God and from Me, whatever it is, throw it away. If it is your eye, pull it out. If it is your hand, cut it off. If you put yourself first you will be last. Come to Me everyone who is carrying a heavy load, I will set that right. Your sins, all of them, are wiped out, I can do that. I am Re-birth, I am Life. Eat Me, drink Me, I am your Food. And finally, do not be afraid, I have overcome the whole Universe." That is the issue." (C.S. Lewis, God in The Dock, "What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ?", pg. 160.)
Strong words from a man who swore (like a lot of you do, by the way) that there was no God.
For those of you sitting on the fence, not sure what to believe, know this. In the battle between good and evil for souls going on across this world, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold to God, you are condsidered the same as cold. You might as well not believe at all. Christ wants you all in or nothing.
Again, I don't make the rules, I'm just quoting them.
And being a Christian is a great thing....not much different than the vast majority of you are living now.....the Lord God and Christ just set up the rules, and we follow them. How do you treat your friends? Your enemies? Your wife, kids, neighbors?? How many of you already show love and respect to those people in your life? Most of you. Becoming Christain is not about I'm a better religion than that other guy, it's about submitting yourself before God, saying "I believe in you, I can't see you, but I feel you, and I hear you talking in the quietness of my soul". And letting God take control of your life. It does work. I could spend another two pages of this string talking about a really bad train crash out past Indio that nearly killed me in 2000, my hard recovery, thoughts of suicide, and finally, a tearfull realization that I could not carry it alone...it was too much for me. Most of you are already living a Christian lifestyle...but without Christ, it will get you nowhere.
I would ask that you visit this site,
http://www.harvest.org/
This is my Church from when I lived in Riverside until last year. This is a GREAT church...go, listen to Greg...and be blessed by it. This is one of the nations' GREAT churches, and it is in most of your backyards....I'll leave you with this quote, from Greg...
We all have our moments of hypocrisytimes when we are not behaving as we ought to behave as Christians, times where we really let the Lord down in our witness. The Bible tells us that hypocrites find out the hard way that you can't pull the wool over God's eyes. God deals with them very harshly because, in all honesty, He hates the sin of hypocrisy.
When Jesus walked this earth, He saved His most scathing words not for the sinners of the day, but for the self-righteous, religious hypocrites. In fact, with the sinners He could be quite gentle. Remember the woman caught in the act of adultery? He said to her, "Where are those accusers of yours?"
"No one, Lord," she told Him.
Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more" (see John 8:1011).
Does this mean Jesus approved of the way she lived? Far from itGod is very clear about how He wants us to live. Jesus knew the real problem was that her sin needed to be resolved.
It was the same thing with the woman at the well, who was known for her immorality. Yet as Jesus spoke to her that day in Samaria, He did not condemn her for her lifestyle as much as He appealed to her inner spiritual thirst.
The bottom line is that people are empty, and they need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. Expend your energy there. Expend your energy in proclaiming the gospel. The heart of the matter is that people are lost. They need Christ. And we need to take that message to them.I pray you all find what it is you are looking for in the Church...and that you are blessed by it....[B]
The main thing I got out of this, is you are saying adultery is okay?
