GandalfTheWise

Rather than giving a series of theological propositions, here's my story. I grew up in a family that regularly attended church. As a kid, I believed God existed, mostly because I just sort of took it for granted. When I was 12, our church was having a series of Wednesday night Lent services before Easter. One night, we had a guest speaker. I really don't recall much of what he said. All I remember is that I was sitting with the rest of the youth group fidgeting like a typical middle schooler. At the end of his message, he asked a couple questions that completely captured my attention. I don't recall them word for word, but the gist was this. How do you know God is there? What's going to happen when you die? I remember immediately having a sudden realization that my "belief" in God was really just hoping that everything I'd been told was true about Him being loving and going to heaven when we die. I was faced immediately with an uncertainty that I was hoping this stuff was true but I had no way to know if it was true. I vaguely remember some sort of altar call and going up to talk with him after the service. I cannot recall exactly what he told me. I only remember that he led me in a simple prayer, something like "God please forgive me and come into my heart." As a practical matter, I'd done many responsive prayers as part of congregational response readings, I'd read some prayers here and there. I had probably said and prayed words similar to these many times in church already. There was really nothing special about that prayer he led me in. As far as I know, there wasn't anything very special about my state of mind and emotions. I really wasn't expecting anything. I just had a sense I was supposed to be talking to him and I just did what he said. But as I said that prayer (not really expecting anything), I suddenly felt a warm presence inside me. It's hard to put into words. It was just suddenly a sense that yes God was there. I went from hoping God was there to feeling Him in my heart. This was not some wild emotional manipulation, it was a quiet environment and I wasn't expecting anything to happen. As I've gone through life, I've seen some things that I simply cannot explain rationally. In my late 30s or early 40s, I was in a Sunday morning church service with a guest speaker. At the end of the message, he issued an invitation for people who wanted prayer to come up. I didn't have anything in mind, but simply felt that I was supposed to go up for prayer. He prayed some short generic prayer over me and in that instant a couple of phobias and a long-term addiction went away. From everything I've read and know about phobias and addictions, they do not typically just go away like that. In one short time of private prayer, lasting perhaps 10 or 15 minutes at most, God performed a huge change in my life. I had been bound by a couple lies from the enemy that had been affecting my entire life (though I was not aware of it). During that time of meditation and prayer, God let me see a part of my life through His eyes, and I was instantly set free from a bondage I didn't even realize was there. Within the next month, my wife and teenage daughters were all commenting on how different I was. I once had a shoulder injury where I could not lift my arm any higher than about level with my shoulder before it hurt badly. This went on for a few months and at an annual physical my doctor thought it might be a torn rotator cuff since it happened suddenly. I had a couple people pray for healing at church; nothing happened and it felt the same. However, after that, over a period of a couple of months, it simply got better and I now have full motion with no discomfort and full strength. Was it actually a torn rotator cuff and healing or just something else? I'm not sure, but I know people who've ended up in surgery with similar symptoms. I was once driving a car that lost control on ice headed toward a drop off by an entrance ramp to a highway. I prayed a quick "God Help!!!" prayer, felt a stiff bump as if I had hit something, and had the car change direction straight to where I wanted to go. I sort of dismissed it as having hit a curb or some type of physical obstruction. The next time I went past that location in the day light where I could see clearly, I realized that there was nothing there to stop a car or even slow down a car. The pavement smoothly transitioned to a dirt shoulder to grass and on down the hill. I have no physical explanation for the bump I felt or why I didn't go sliding off the road and down the hill. (I have a PhD in physics so I know how to analyze that type of event.) I've had other things happen that I simply cannot explain except as divine intervention or revelation. I have many friends who are Christians who've told similar stories of what God has done in their life. These are not every day occurrences that happen on demand. Frequently, they are events where God just showed up in His timing and did something (which was often unexpected) where there was a need. None of us are really anything special spiritually speaking from the standpoint of having amazing faith or piety or righteousness. It's just that this seems to be what God does. He's active in the lives of His children. Over the years, my faith has moved from primarily "convincing myself particular things I am supposed to believe are true" to being primarily trust and confidence in God Who has been active in my life. Often, God does stuff in ways I did not expect and at times I did not expect it. But over the course of over 40 years, that warm presence inside me that I first felt as a kid has been with me. I have seen His hand of guidance and protection at various times. I have felt His presence and comfort in rough times. My trust and confidence now rests on God and Who He is. Trust and confidence in someone is something that grows over time. We simply do not "trust" someone when we first meet them because we don't have a track record to know them. I think it is similar with faith in God. Faith is not simply a binary thing we either have perfectly or do not have at all; faith (or trust and confidence) is something that changes and grows over time. When I was first a Christian, I used to want to see some huge miracles or divine signs to "boost" my faith, thinking that if only I could see something miraculous that it would somehow make me into a better person and be able to have stronger faith and that that would somehow sustain me spiritually for the rest of my life. What I've come to learn over the years is that being a Christian is about being transformed. It is about having God's Spirit living inside of us (which is what I sort of describe as that warm sense of God inside me) and changing us. It is about that daily walk where I simply became more and more use to and comfortable with God's presence in my life. It's perhaps ironic, but I've seen things that I can only describe as miracles occur in my life and in the lives of others, and and they did not have the effect on me that I expected. They did not boost my faith so much as they made me aware of God's love. I now see them more simply as part of God's gifts to His children, not as a means to "believe more". The key I see is that it is all about our relationship with God and getting to know Him. We often try to come closer to God through our own strength and efforts. We try to learn the right facts to intellectually agree with. We try to see something miraculous so that we will have evidence that God exists. We try to change our behavior on our own (as if being a Christian is the ultimate in new year's resolutions). We basically make a religion out of trying to find God. However, God wants something different. God wants to draw us in so that He can live inside of us, change us into the person He created us to be, and so that we can walk with Him and know Him. Instead of walking beside us physically, He has chosen to live inside of us spiritually. When Jesus was talking to His disciples at the last Supper, He said that it was better that He was leaving the disciples because the Holy Spirit would then come. (See John 16) At the time, I'm sure that the disciples thought having Jesus right there at the table physically with them was better. But Jesus said it was better than He physically left and the Holy Spirit come spiritually. In my opinion, this is the most important thing about Christianity. God wants to live inside of us and change us into new creations in the image of Christ. It is not about stoking up our belief so we have no doubts; it is not about figuring out what rules to follow and doing so to the best of our ability; it is about God coming into our hearts, taking up residence, being present in our lives, and transforming us. This is not something we do in our own efforts. This is something God does. From our standpoint, we need to recognize that we cannot do it on our own and that we must depend on Jesus Christ as the only way God has appointed for us to eternal life as His children. Anyway, this is a summary of what I've seen God do in my life. I've heard similar things from other people but each of our stories is different to some extent. God has made us unique individuals and the specific way He comes into our lives and draws us to Himself is often unique to us. Some people respond to God at church during an altar call, a good friend of mine was given a gospel tract walking across a university campus, sat down before class and read it and surrendered his life to Christ, some people hear the gospel from a friend or over the radio, some people respond the first time they hear the gospel message, others resist it for decades, some people seem to find God the first time they become aware of their need for Him, others seem to strive and struggle for awhile and have something unique to them that God wants them to give up or deal with. I have no answers for why except that God wants to walk with us as the individuals that He created us to be.

@creativemechanic, keep up the cartooning!!!!! I like how you are using visuals to communicate what you are thinking. The visuals in the OP are compelling. Your artwork is communicating what you are thinking and feeling. I've looked at some of the other work you have posted in other threads. I like what you are doing. It is a gift to be able to do this; with intentional and consistent practice this is a gift that can be honed and improved even more over the years. I also think that as you spiritually mature more and more and walk with God more and more over the years, His wisdom and truth will start to flow even more and more into your work. Now, take the rest of this post as grandfatherly advice. This is the sort of thing I'd tell my kids or grandkids to try to help them out. One of the life lessons that it took me many years to learn is that clear thinking is an acquired skill that takes a lot of practice. It is something that we all must work at. In the various artwork you've shared in various threads, you are doing a nice job of putting what you are thinking into a concise visual form. However, a weakness I've seen at times in your work is that your thinking is sometimes not completely thought out. This means that there will sometimes be holes in the message or that it might be misunderstood. I'm going to go through a (probably tedious) consideration of the ideas being expressing in the OP. My main purpose is to illustrate how I systematically try to think about an issue and how I try to reduce it to its simplest unambiguous terms. Once an issue is reduced to a simpler (but accurate) form, it is usually much easier to do things with it. First a general look at the passage in John 8 in relation to the Gospel. This sets up the main ideas I need to focus on. 10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? 11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. John 8:10-11 KJV Jesus said two things here, not just one. He didn't condemn her; and He wanted her to stop sinning. We need to be very careful that in saying the second part that we do not erase the first part; We need to be very careful that in saying the first part that we do not erase the second part. The Law was about rigorously defining and pointing out uncleanness and sin and harshly dealing with it to eliminate it. The Good News of the New Covenant is about being forgiven and becoming new creations in Christ who naturally live as God wants us to. As soon as we get into a mode of spending most of our time and effort worrying about identifying and eliminating sin by our own efforts, we are going back to a Law based approach to righteousness. When we spend our time focused on sin management, we are attempting to identify and eliminate sin by setting up rules and trying to keep rules through our own strength. We are basically taking the Gospel and turning it into keeping our version of the Law through our own strength and efforts. I think that most of our time and effort should be spend worrying about how to grow spiritually and walking closer with God. It is by being transformed into His likeness more and more each day that sin is continually reduced in our lives. Our focus should be on getting to know God better and better and walking more closely with Him day by day. This happens as He transforms us, not as we attempt to transform ourselves by getting better at keeping particular rules. Here is my take on what the cartoon in the OP is saying. I'm not saying this is what was intended, but what I read from it. I think that the cartoon unintentionally is teaching a gospel of good works and keeping rules rather than of transformation. There is no mention of lack of sin in a believer's life being the result of God's work in our life. Instead, there seems to be an emphasis that it is our job and responsibility not to sin and that we are left alone to deal with it. There seems to be an emphasis that it is my duty as a Christian to tell others not to sin rather than telling them how to get closer to God and become more mature. I admire the attempt to point out the necessity of holiness in a believer's life and that being a Christian is not only about being forgiven but living a righteous life. However, the absence of a mention of God's work inside of us as what leads to a righteous life is a serious omission. One possible direction: How the world misunderstands the Gospel. Take a serious look at the last frame by itself (from the point of view of a person who is not a Christian). This is what the world thinks Christianity teaches. God from Heaven saying "GO AND SIN NO MORE!" and we are left sadly alone and by ourselves at a complete loss as to know how to do it, but knowing we face His displeasure and wrath if we fail in our quest not to sin. This could make a good first panel entitled "What the World Thinks God Does". This is a compelling image. For a second panel entitled something like "What God Really Does", something that somehow reflects that God changes us from the inside. I don't know what this would look like. But the idea would be the woman smiling and glowing, with God saying something like "I'm going to give you a new heart and change you into a new person" or something like that. Maybe Jesus lifting her up by the hand? I don't know. In other words, the world thinks Christianity is about keeping rules but it is really about God changing us from the inside out. A second possible direction: How new Christians feel. This could almost be a repeat of the first possibility. Often new Christians feel that it is their responsibility to avoid sin rather than focus on maturing and growing. They often fear that they are in danger of God's judgement and worry about that a lot. In other words, new Christians focus on stopping sinning through their own efforts whereas God focuses on them growing and maturing and being transformed. Now, for what was attempted in the OP. My sense is that the goal was really to point out that many Christians do not point out and confront sin as much as they should. The challenge is to properly portray righteousness as coming from being transformed into new creations in the likeness of Christ who naturally bear the fruit of the Spirit and do good works in contrast to trying to follow rules to the best of our ability. The main point I see is effectively confronting sin. Simply quoting a few Bible verses, saying "Well, I did my job as a watchman", and then going on our merry way is usually not effective in my opinion. Effective confrontation of sin will produce change, and real change only comes from God working in someone's heart. I'm not really sure how to visually present confronting sin without it being confused for keeping particular rules. The first panel of the OP does a nice job of painting a good picture of how confrontation of sin is often carried out (perhaps entitled "How Not to Confront Sin"). A possible second panel would somehow emphasize God's work in our lives eliminating sin. In other words, confronting sin by pounding people for not keeping the right rules is not nearly as effective as encouraging people to let God change their lives. Hopefully, this gives a sense of how I try to think about something and focus on the main ideas. Once the main ideas are clear, it is usually much easier to do something with them. Again, I encourage you to keep up the cartooning!!!! There will be people that you can reach through that way of communicating that others of us cannot reach.

Though since John Mark was with them on the first trip, he did precede Silas.

Silas

James?

As I recall from Luke, Caesar Augustus.

It was either the blind man, or he also healed a lame man at the pool of bethesda on the sabbath. I cannot remember which was first. There might be another one in there too.

Hey SIC, you're pretty good at this!

It was under Moses' direction. I think it was actually done by the 12 heads of the tribes. David was the 2nd anointed king. However there was a brief civil war between David and one of Saul's sons where they were both viewed as kings for a few years. I'm drawing a blank on his name. (I cheated and looked it up. It was bothering me because I should have known it. Ishbosheth.)

There are Amish and Mennonites in Wisconsin around where I grew up. The few interactions I've had with them have been positive. In general, I'd tend to categorize them as Christian groups with very extreme views on being separate from the world (which includes not using modern technologies of certain types). I think that there is variation from location to location as well. Someone else may have more experience with them and be able to give better insights.

That's a giant red flag to notice before getting married to someone like that. If married to someone very jealous, it's going to take some marriage counseling to get things on track. Neither of the two options will help in that situation. Flaunting a friendship generates hard feelings; following jealous wishes enables the jealousy even more and may just result in sneaking around. The second frame of the cartoon is a clear warning sign that there is a fundamental weakness in the marriage (and it's not clear which side, or both, are the source). Often the phrase "we're just friends" is the honest reaction of someone being drawn into in the first stages of what is called an emotional affair. This is when (in this case) a husband starts slowly becoming more and more attracted to another woman. This could be a colleague at work, someone on the same ministry team, a neighbor, an old friend, whoever. It's a woman (who is genuinely a nice person) that he gets along well with and enjoys spending time with. At some point, those feelings of attraction can grow into something much more than "friendship" and become infatuation, romantic love, and eventually, a strong intimate relationship that starts to compete with his marriage. My impression is that the majority of affairs committed by Christians naively start out this way and slowly progress over time if not stopped. It's best to nip these types of relationships in the bud before they become a menace to the marriage. I don't think that this is a reason to never be around the opposite sex. I think however that it is a reason to put limitations on those relationships that have the potential to grow. I make it a point to avoid being alone with other women in a physically isolated setting and I steer clear of intimate topics of conversation.

Don't underestimate what God can do in your life. 25 And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. 26 And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed. 27 And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed. 28 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: (Joel 2:25-28) The entire story of Israel seems to be one of wasted opportunities and restoration. I think I might even toss in the parable from Matthew 20 about all the laborers being paid the same amount because the Lord of the harvest is good. Some of those laborers spent almost the entire day doing nothing. God can use the path you walked to make you into an effective minister to those on the same path. You know it intimately well. You are acquainted with what they are thinking and feeling. You know what to pray for for them. You might be a person who helps rescues multitudes from that path of life or helps many from starting down that path. I'm always hesitant to consider parts of a life wasted and irredeemable. Moses "wasted" 40 years in Midian (learning how to be a shepherd and in effect learning how not to be an Egyptian and how to be a Hebrew), Jesus (God incarnate) spend 3 decades walking this earth before starting His ministry! I mean, why in the world didn't He start a decade or more earlier, or have a ministry longer than 3 years? How much more could He have done if He had spent 30 years ministering throughout the entire world before His death and resurrection than 3 years in one small geographic region? God's plans and purposes and timetables don't always fit our expectations. I say this all by way of encouragement. Your path didn't lend itself to becoming a long beloved pastor who ministered for 50 years. But, it is entirely possible the rest of your life will result in God doing so much stuff in some way unique to you that would be far beyond than if you have spent a life doing the "normal" Christian stuff that you are now mourning not having done. I'm sure the apostle Paul wished he had listened to John the Baptist and the followers of Jesus before putting many of them in jail and applauding Stephen's death, but that didn't stop God from using him in a unique way.

This is a nice thread! A lot of good experiences and insights shared here. I spent the first 30 some years of my life as a Christian focused on trying to find my calling, using my gifts and talents, looking for opportunities to minister, and in general focused of determining what God wanted me to do. Over a period of a couple years, God basically benched me out in a figurative desert until my heart and soul were cleared of the urgency and zealousness and drive that had characterized my first three decades as a Christian. He was then able to get my attention focused on something that was much more important to Him than my spiritual to-do list and trophy case. He focused my attention on the fact that His main concern in my life was that I become the person He created me to be. I was dragged unwillingly into that desert as a high-energy person whose main focus in life was on doing as much for God as I could in my life. I emerged as a much calmer and focused person and much more focused on walking with God and being the person He created me to be. I've spent the past 7 or so years focused on being who God created me to be. I've found that the past few years have been the most enjoyable, satisfying, and fruitful of my life. I've dropped off a heavy burden (that I had no clue I was carrying) and took up His much lighter one. I used to labor intensely whenever I was involved in ministry; now it just seems to naturally flow, and it often feels like I'm just sitting back watching God do stuff. I found those things that I thought were my individual calling and spiritual goals in life were not things I had to focus on and strive for. They were God's promises about what was going to happen as I walked with Him. Instead of striving to be worthy enough, holy enough, and dedicated enough, and to bring about fruit through my own spiritual labors, I found that God was calling me to walk with Him as the unique person He created me to be and that He would bring about the fruit. Instead of worrying each and every day about falling short and missing opportunities and impoverishing myself from heavenly treasure I wasn't earning, I'm now getting up with much more of a "what's up for today?" type of attitude. My gifts and talents are now tools, like a carpenter's tools, or an artist's tools, that I pick up each day to do something unique that only I can do as I walk where God wants. Instead of worrying about what open doors to take and what to do, I find that I just enjoy seeing what He brings up each day. A few decades ago, my main concern coming onto a site like this would have been truth, holiness, zeal for God, and I would have been doing it with all of the intensity I could bring. I would have been insecure and any negative feedback would have caused me distress. Now, I more or less hop on (this and a few other sites), speed read the threads, and see if someone is in pain, lost, struggling, frustratedly striving, being ganged up on, or doing some of the stuff I used to do years ago that ultimately was discouraging and hurting people and causing me to take my focus off of walking with God. I then try to bring what insights I can to help them move forward with walking with God. When I find threads (like this one) where people are sharing encouraging, enlightening, and helpful insights and experience about how to move forward, I try to determine if I have something unique I can bring to it to help everyone else. So, in a nutshell, I now focus much more on being who God made me to be and walking with Him rather than worrying about what to do. I find that much of what I now do is much more a reflection of who He made me to be instead of me striving to accomplish spiritual things. There were some things that God put on my heart as my call in life when I was a teen and in my early 20s. I had long ago given up on those things since I had long since fallen short of them so I was just trying to make the best of my life. A few years ago, after I was emerging from the desert, God reminded me of those things. They all came flooding back to me with an intensity I hadn't known before. I suddenly realized that these things were promises, not goals to strive for. These weren't things that would come about because I honed my gifts and talents and worked hard. These were things that would come about as I started living life fully as the person God made me to be. These were things that would flow naturally from me as the person He made me to be, not things that I had to discipline and force myself to do. These weren't things I would *do* by working hard and using gifts and talents; these were things that would require 100% of me to be fully engaged in as the person God made me to be. It's kind of difficult to summarize about 2 to 3 years of a life-changing spiritual paradigm shift in a single post without becoming too tedious. But, this is why I would say I've more or less stopped worrying about the question of what God wants me to *do* and spent more time worrying about who God wants me to *be*.

I just happened to hop on and see the question. I'll probably show up tomorrow night for the chat version.

I'm thinking Nimrod was a hunter. But I'm not sure if he was first.

Lots of people had variations of their name (Abram/Abraham) or different names (Daniel/Belteshazzar) or nicknames (e.g. Peter/Cephas for Simon), but someone actively using a pseudonym .... maybe it'll come later but possibly except for Jacob lying about being Esau, I'm stumped.

Actually, I need to run as well. It's almost my bed time.

It was the one you quoted from Jeremiah.

One of the kings sliced up the parchment Jeremiah sent him and burned it as it was read. Don't know if that counts as a book.

Hmm... let there be light?

The name Eutychus comes to mind.

Abraham had concubines, not sure if that counts. (Whoa. I'm way behind on this thread.)

I'm trying to recall if Abraham only had visions or if a dream, same with Isaac. I do recall Jacob has a dream of the ladder to heaven.

Isaac

Best guess is the guys who weren't shouting loud enough to wake 'm up. (I think Amanda7 may have been answering a previous question.)