What a person who turns to God through trust in Jesus is giving up is sin and love of self. Both of those things will keep a person separated from God. Sin will not only destroy you in this life, but it will bring the just condemning judgment of God on the real you after you leave this body.
Jesus said, Mark 8:34 “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37 Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”
His word is faithful and true. It is established by the fact that He rose from the dead.
Hi Kaylynn,
Since you say you are a mystery junkie, in recent months, I have contemplated a statement I read somewhere that I think leaves the door open for the Holy Spirit to reach us where we live and for us to get close to Him in prayer and spiritually. You may want to give it some thought. I wish I wrote down who said it, but the thought is this; “God works Anonymously with us so we can live Autonomously with Him.” When you get to Isaiah in your Bible reading, you will find that he was escorted into the throne room of God. He immediately fell down and said, “woe is me; I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips and live with men of unclean lips!” God had an angel bring a live coal from the alter and purge his sin. He does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. That is what Jesus’s mission to Earth was about.
My view is that the “Anonymous” presence of God by his Holy Spirit is a work of grace that gives us freedom before Him without his awesome presence “undoing” us like Isaiah. When you read God’s Word and find the “comforting feeling of hope,” you will be encouraged that the book of John will name that mysterious one as the Holy Spirit. He is the comforter who will draw close to you in your depression and the one who will give substance to your faith. When you reach out to Jesus with your heart, he will hold you close.
You mentioned that you “latch onto something for a while, but it always fades.” Last night’s dinner faded away today and you fully expected it to be that way. That is why you prepared another meal for today, and it will fade away tomorrow. You will develop a spiritual appetite as you get to know the Holy Spirit better Feeding on the Word of God in the Bible will help. Fellowship in a solid Bible church will help. Making Christion friends in a 'Life Group" will help. Daily devotionals will help. I recommend “Our Daily Bread” which I have read for over fifty years as a resource you can find online.
Another thing to think about is this. You recognize your “inability to believe in a form of a higher power.” It is entirely possible that the Holy Spirit revealed that need to you. You do not need to consider yourself 'an atheist/agnostic", you have moved beyond that. You are clearly a seeker who is finding your place in God’s family. The Holy Spirit is faithful, you can depend on Him to lead you into spiritual fulfillment and a useful ministry in His work.
Regarding your comment about giving in to ignorance and mysticism, I am working on a manuscript to bridge the perceived gap between our beliefs and science. It has required reading over a hundred books, the Bible cover to cover several times, and many conversations with accomplished scientists and unbelievers. BioLogos can help you overcome ignorance and mysticism.
By the way, no one should tell you that His way is without challenges and problems. Some say, “He won’t lead you to it unless He plans to lead you through it.” We are His children, and I’m an 82-year-old toddler. He holds my hand and He will hold yours. Blessings.
I have found that reading the testimony of obviously intelligent Christians such as C.S. Lewis is helpful.
But then I have to worry whether feeling that way indicates I am prideful and am idolising human capacities, both sins.
But then again I also feel that God gave us, unlike all the other animals, the capacity for reason and understanding. It is a gift from God, and it is possibly one of the ways He is reflected in us, as image-bearers. With that in mind, surely it would be a sin to not appreciate that gift.
And as such, I feel any teaching that seems to demand we abandon our rational faculties ought to be looked upon with suspicion. Christianity does not demand that. Certain Christian traditions do.
Read Maggie’s testimony, which she posted here at BioLogos. I think you will concur that she did not give in to ignorance. Others’ testimonies are not compelling to anyone who is not really interested in knowing or finding God or who are content with their lot in life* and the status quo, but I hope it will encourage you to keep looking for him, as did the woman in my earlier comment.
Christianity is not just a head thing, it is also very much a heart thing as well, not to be confused with mere emotionalism, since it is about our hearts’ desires. An important idea is in the title of a book, and all we need to want: Desiring God. The subtitle makes you do a double take , and is an apparent oxymoron: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist.
*Not at all that Christians cannot be content, rather just the opposite – we have the ultimate reason for contentment (not for complacency!).
I think it’s horrible. The very fact that God would let so many of His children be so determinedly wrong, is seriously challenging my faith.
Other people being wrong, that itself doesn’t bother me, but the fact that the other Christians I’m connected with in real life are YECs, is very very challenging. It blocked me for many years from entertaining the possibility that there is a God and He is none other than the God of the Christian Bible. And now that I have taken that leap of faith despite that, it’s still presenting enormous challenges.
Sorry, not very cheery!
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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God ‘allows’ us to think say and do everything we’ve thought, said and done for hundreds of thousands of years. Faith needs to deal with that. His only direct input, if any, is through Jesus.
I don’t have any interest in the literalisms of YEC. But I also don’t have any interest in imposing the view that life is a mechanical process devoid of meaning. Though I’m agnostic I think there is something real and important which has given rise to God belief, but I don’t think it is something omnipowerful in the way YECs and anti theists conceive of Him. If God matters at all it is because He is a living presence in your life, not because He can extend your life beyond the grave or work miracles on your behalf. If the God that has been articulated in religions seems a little overblown it is probably because in fact faith is much easier to lose than to maintain. I personally have always found the idea of anything ‘supernatural’ to be intellectually repugnant. But then the concept of God arose when it was harder to articulate a way that God can be something that arises in and with you.
I’m sorry it did. As you said, other people being wrong should not be a factor, but on the other hand, I don’t see how God can be judged for that, either.
I can’t characterize believing in God as a leap of faith. That makes it sound like an uninformed guess, choosing blindly, but it’s not – there is evidence. There is not scientific or deductive proof, of course, but there is reason to believe God does not want those.
I wrote the attached as an aid to folks like you who are searching for God. The link is to the first of a five-part piece covering the basics of Christian belief, but not necessarily the traditional Christianity you may have been exposed to. The fourth of these is “Scientific Evidence for God”, which may be of particular interest to you. Christianity in the Age of ‘Whatever?’ – A Pilgrim’s Search (saludovencedores.com)
Isn’t it reasonable to expect that all sincere Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit? It doesn’t seem reasonable to deny that’s the case with YECs, or with non-science-denying Christians. Why would the Spirit work in such conflicting ways between these two groups? It’s hard to understand.
I remember Darrel Falk and Todd Charles Wood puzzling over this, in their video chat associated with The Fool and he Heretic. Rob Barrett asks in the book, “Could asking for forgiveness when we’ve offended a brother be mysteriously linked to resolving the controversy over evolution? That just might be crazy enough to be exactly what the Holy Spirit would do.”
It was for me, just initially. The reasons to believe didn’t get me all the way there. There was a gap still to be crossed between accepting it as possible and actually believing it. There were fears, like the one in the subject line. And there was also a gap between that as an intellectual position, and opening my heart to God, surrendering and being born again.
For me all that was crossed by saying a prayer, in fake it til you make it style. Once you’re standing on the other side of the gap, you’re there and you’re not faking it. All those reasons are so much more powerful when experienced rather than just thought about. It’s a bit like starting a car. It won’t fire without being cranked by a starter motor. But once it’s firing on all cylinders, it’s self-sustaining, and the starter motor can be shut off. You can drive a car that’s run out of gas, using just the starter motor, but it doesn’t go well or far.
True Christians are God’s children – that is not an empty analogy, it’s the archetype, the original. So as biological children have various degrees of obedience, motivation and applied effort and self-discipline, as well as understanding, Christians are different from each other. We are not all stamped with the same cookie cutter, and the degree of attention paid and objects of attention are factors, too. It is also possible to have a more close relationship or a more distant one, depending.
Yeah and this is one of the answers to the Problem of Evil. But the difference is, evildoers generally don’t do evil while feeling they are doing God’s work through the indwelling of and filling of the Spirit.
Both YECs and anti-YECs seem to genuinely feel that they are doing God’s work by taking that position. So, either, the Spirit strangely finds it profitable to drive with the handbrake on, or those feelings are unreliable or even delusional.
OK, but aren’t we also supposed to assured by Scripture that all those who have come to Jesus are saved (e.g. Matthew 11:28-39) and the Spirit indwells them (Romans 8:9) and testifies to them (Romans 8:16)? Does the Spirit’s testimony to us not manifest as feelings? And even the feelings aside, if we can see and hear and trust by word and by consequent deeds that YECs and non-YECs alike truly believe on Jesus and have repented, then can’t we be assured that the Spirit indwells them?
Perhaps this comes down to the difference between indwelling and filling by the Spirit, the latter only being an offer/commandment (Eph 5:18), not a guarantee. Is one or other or both of our two competing groups not actually filled by the Spirit, even though they genuinely strive to do so? Is there a way to tell which?
I think we need to keep in mind that most YECs (at least in my experience) believe what they believe because they haven’t been taught differently and they assume in good faith, YEC is the default Christian view. Most are not out there vociferously opposing scientists or ostracizing their fellow believers over disputes about origins. There is a small minority that makes money off of peddling nonsense and I think it’s fair to question their Christian character. But that isn’t most people at all.
, and is an apparent oxymoron: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist. 