Gianni wrote:
I could go on and on but I am far too angry to continue. Barb, small minded, bigoted people like you are dangerous and you and your ilk are responsible for far more hatred and misery on this planet than all the atheists and homosexuals in history combined.
I'm not angry nor hating you. But you are angry and hating people who believe the Bible about homosexuality springing from believing lies instead of truth --leading to illicit lusts --just like pedophilia, adultery, rape,incest, and porn --all are addictive and sinful and those involved feel that they cannot help themselves.
But many HAVE converted to Christ and found power to be set free from sexual addictions --including many homosexuals.
The path to happiness is not any sexual indulgence outside of a marital, straight commitment. It's to know God and know where we are going in Eternity because of His provision of Christ on the Cross.
God has purpose for your life and your body, your assignment as a male or female. We have free will and choices.
You and the biologists and psychologists have no evidence --only theories-- of congenital (from birth/inborn/genetic) cause for homosexuality--but in the background of every homosexual person you can see a lot of indicators that predict and contribute to gender identity confusion, abnormal orientation and unhealthy, illicit sex addictions.
Kids need help to be normal these days in our confusing and sinful culture. They need the guidance of the Bible and the Gospel of Christ --and parents who "get it" about how to help their kids be "normal" --in the good sense of the word.
It's ridiculous to blame Christianity for the misery in the world. The Christians are the happy people --with hope --and comfort in their sorrows. And the most deaths were caused by other ideologies and people living by no ideology except selfishness. Christianity was a big factor in those BEST qualities of America that make others want to live here --including our prosperity and freedom of religion, freedom in general.
The wars of modern times have been about power/competing for resources/greed/selfish interests and self-defense and defeating evil-doers like Hitler and other tyrants. Liberating the oppressed is a worthy goal for warriors --but killing people for religion and religious differences is not honorable. NOr is this wave of atheistic intolerance for people who think homosexuality is a sin like any other sexual sin --of which we have all been guilty to some degree or an other. As Jesus said, ALL have sinned --and all men have lusted and thus commited adultery in their hearts.
"There is none righteous, no not one," "But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Grace is His undeserved favor. It is free. We don't have to deserve it --but we do need to repent- as Christ said in His first public preaching.
It's our pride --and maybe our lifestyles?-- that keep us from repentance.
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All of these agnostic/atheists feel strongly that the Christian God is mostly condemning and that they were made to feel mostly the judgment and guilt, resulting in self-loathing. But the Gospel really IS GOOD NEWS for all us guilty sinners.
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
4 comments:
"All of these agnostic/atheists feel strongly that the Christian God is mostly condemning and that they were made to feel mostly the judgment and guilt, resulting in self-loathing. But the Gospel really IS GOOD NEWS for all us guilty sinners."
No one wants to believe they are a sinner and are not pleasing to God. Heck, I don't even "please" God the way I should. To say I do would be very arrogant indeed.
My biggest problem in witnessing is to the atheists. The agnostics will at least listen to you and by definition, can be persuaded, though I don't know if they are really agnostics or atheists.
For every truth they hear they have an answer. Look at you commenter Gandolf, who is so dead-set against Christianity or any other religion he brags that people of faith are condemned to silence in his little island country.
Is that really true, or is it true only in his small world? I don't know.
Look at Mudrake who claims to be a member of the only true church, the Catholic Church, and yet he crucifies Christ figuratively every time he makes a post on this or his or any other blog.
They think we are uneducated, as Gandolf calls us. They think we believe in old wives' tales, when in fact, Christianity has lasted over 2,000 years. If there were no truth to it it would have died when the last apostle died.
They see only the punishment of God and choose not to see the love of God.
They think science and faith cannot co-exist, but I submit to you that your husband and an acquaintance of mine who is a chemist, are both scientists who love and know the Lord Jesus as their personal savior.
There are other Christian scientists.
Right now our church is praying for a two year old girl whose Dad is our youth minister. She has a rare form of cancer that started in the brain, but has gone through her first round of chemotherapy and has just started her second. There will be four rounds and God made it possible for her to be treated at St. Jude Hospital, where everything, including housing, is free.
The tumor is gone, but there were two spots on her spine. We won't know until after this round of chemotherapy whether or not those spots are gone. She leans to her right, but is able to stand and move when medicine said she would be paralyzed.
We are all praying for God's will to be that she get a complete cure.
My own daughter-in-law had Non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a disease that took my brother's (actually cousin, but we are like brother and sister) daughter four years ago on Wednesday.
When my daughter-in-law was preparing to go to MD Anderson hospital, renowned for cancer treatment, her doctors at Baylor decided to check her tumors once more so they would have a complete picture for MD Anderson.
Out of 8 tumors six were gone and the other two had shrunken and are now gone.
All Christian doctors who knew their limits and the limits of science, and admitted to the miracles of God unashamedly.
Since she worked in a lab at the hospital she was very close to the pathologists. Before we could get the money to her to purchase her "hope for healing" drug, our last hope outside of God, one of the doctors already had it stocked in the lab refrigerator for her to start treatment immediately. We would have had the money there on Monday but he ordered it on Saturday and got it over the weekend.
This man survived several strokes, even driving himself to the hospital. He always went on missionary trips to Africa, India, South America etc. at least twice a year for at least two weeks, along with his wife, who is a pediatrician.
They went at their own expense and took gifts, what he called "bling" to the missionaries and people of those lands. He had our daughter-in-law make a fudge recipe that came from my grandmother because it was so delicious.
One day he had a major stroke while working in the yard, went to the hospital and was welcomed home in heaven a couple of days later.
The other pathologist collapsed in his field while tending to his cattle. He was found several hours later by his son and was taken to the hospital.
After a few days the doctors decided it was time for him to be turned off life support, but when he was, he didn't die and all vital signs were good. He opened his eyes and asked what everyone was doing around his bed.
He has since had a heart transplant and has "cut down" to four day weeks.
There are no explanations other than God's hand in any of these stories.
Science had given up on them, but God still had a reason for them to live, and they live life to the fullest. But even if they had all died, each one was ready for eternity. They didn't want to catch the next bus, but they knew they were ready. Sometimes, I know my daughter-in-law was so low she wished she would die except for her husband and children. She didn't want her children to live without a Mom and God granted that wish.
She is now in charge of a lab that does tissue biopsies from patients. It's important work, and she excels at it. They even offered her a promotion, but she would have had to be in San Antonio for 3 weeks a month and back at home for 1 week a month. Her family was more important than the huge raise they offered her.
When I was 27 years old I had severe headaches so bad that I was unable to drive the church bus as promised for VBS.
I went to an ophthalmologist, thinking the headaches and blurred vision were from needing new glasses.
I was immediately sent to the ER to meet with a neurosurgeon, not neurologist, but neurosurgeon, because my right pupil would not go down. It was dilated almost all the way across the iris and that indicated pressure on the optical nerve, i.e. the brain.
I was told I probably had an aneurysm and if it broke I would be dead.
Since my husband was out of town at a meeting I asked if I could go home, arrange for someone to care for my small children (my daughter was barely 2 and my son 5) and to wait for my husband to be home.
I had to promise I would be back as the doctor said if I had a brain aneurysm it could burst at any time.
After contacting family, and I was lucky my sister was living in the south in our town at the time, I contacted my then pastor and asked for him and the church to pray for me. I knew I was saved, but didn't want to take the next bus to heaven as I had such small children.
No brain aneurysm and no other problems after a series of tests to check for even small tumors, including a spinal tap.
I was to go back for more tests in six weeks, but six weeks later the eye began to respond to light. I didn't have to go through all the painful and scary tests again, and the headaches stopped. I was advised to get off the birth control pills and to get sterilized as another child would be hard for me to carry safely.
I struggled with that decision but ultimately had the sterilization procedure and about six years ago a complete hysterectomy.
I'm not telling you all this just to tell my life story, but to tell you I know personally and anecdotally of cases where medicine would not work, but the hand of God interceded and people were unexplainably cured.
This was science working with faith and the prayers of the faithful.
But I can tell all of this to an atheist and he wouldn't believe God's hand was on any of these things.
I can't relate to atheists because I have never been one. That's why I have so much difficulty and frustration in trying to tell them the good news of the New Testament.
They will always give some other "reason" for things happening the way they did, but I know God's hand was in it all the time, and He brought me and the others through the mental stress and the physical problems we all suffered and little Belle continues to go through.
We are praying and believing Belle will also have a complete cure from this nasty cancer and will live a productive life serving her Lord.
Sorry to take so much space.
I admire you for taking on the atheists with the Sword of God (the Word), because I know I am not gifted in that area.
Jeanette, these are great stories -and true. Thanks for contributing to the enrichment of the blog!
I think my husband told me that a majority of doctors DO believe in God, according to some survey he heard about.
There was a doc here in this area who prayed with his patients --and the hospital made him quit because of one patient who was unappreciative and felt obligated to receive the prayer --and so that doc left town --he may have been forced out, I don't know. I believe he was a fine cardiologist, acc'g to my husband who knows him. Later, he was vindicated when a medical study proved that prayer helps people recover.
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