Who me

Why do you think it is a sin to drink beer, wine or cider? At the wedding in Cannan Jesus turn something like a 100 gallons of water into wine! He was accused of being a drunkard. I can think of only one reason when one should not drink any form of alcohol and that is when you are with a recoveing alcoholic oh and when driving etc. Otherwise drink sensible, not getting drunk or so tippsy that you are a bad witness.

Calling out to God to say "I'm sorry for what I've done. I want to change. I want to accept you Jesus as my Lord and Saviour." Is serious stuff. One has to mean it One has to start changing. One has to start reading the bible and attending church. One gets laughed at from those you call friends, who do not know God is real, far realer than death, he is life, life everlasting. If you are serious do it. Doesn't matter what you say, do it and go to church and talk to the preacher.

You are already doing the two most effective things you can do. Praying for her. Showing her the Love of God through your life. What you can also do is pray for her Father and her Mother and to show as much love as you can to him. May I suggest sending him a 'Christian' birthday card, Christmas and Easter cards. To tell him you pray that he will have a safe drive. Edit and store her mind with biblical verses and memorise of happy times with Grandma and at her church.

Religeon covers a multitude of meanings. For me I understand it to be something that is performed, that rituals and ceremonies are done to placate the object of worship. Christianity is the spiritaul worahip in truth of Jesus and by spiritual I understand the sincere love for Jesus and the desire to e obedient to him. Spiritual in the sence of not being Christian or religious is a vague worship of the 'force' without knowing what it is.

We all have memorise that are embarassing or of incidents we would rather forget due to stupid things said or done. We need to realise that those incidents are over. They have happened and unless someone else brings up an incident about you that thet find funny. They are forgotten. How do we deal with these memorises. Recognise they are over, we cannot change them. Thank God that they are over and that any sin involved has been forgiven. Begratefull your stupidities aren't like Peters recorded in the bible for everyone to read.

May I strongly suggest that you take this relationship very slowly. This girl is not working, so cannot cope with the problems of meeting and working with other people. This might be a harsh judgement. But how will this girl cope with the stresses of marriage, pregnancy, school runs. The gaggle of mums meeting at the school gate, deal with childhood illnesses etc etc etc. You can help her by encouraging her to get a job. Any job, waitressing in a cafe or dinner, or stacking shelves in a supermarket. Your friendship will help her develop social skills and confidence, but don't let an over reliance on you develop. If you decide you are not marrying her and she has developed an over reliance then she will be hurt.

What is important is how we live out our believes. It is not enough to believe in right and wrong yet to wink at those who steal etc. Christians have to be seen to be different, at work, with friends and at home.

As has been rightly said nonchristian see the worst of Christians and promote it. It is up to us to show the reality of Christ in us by the quality of our lives and of our love for others.

As MissMuffet has said, by listening. One listens by reading the bible, by praying about passages/verses that strike you, by hearing sermons, talking to other Christians about spiritual matters and by thinking about what the bible says/sermon contents etc. Romans 12:1+2 says have bible biased brains to better believe the bible/God. or as an old puritan once said,"If you want extra ordinary experiences of God, enlarge your ordinary devoutions." ie spend more time in the bible and in prayer. Warning:- There is NO easy way.

One requires medication while the other requires wise words.

How did your presentation go? The only way to get better at anything is to do it. Preparation helps, but learning to deal with the fear of standing up in front of people, or going up to someone and to start talking takes practice, practice and more practice. If this involves talking to girls, doubly difficult!

The door into heaven is labelled on the way in:- "Free choice" but if you look back at it haveing gone through it reads:- "Chosen from before creation" The argument about freewill or predestination is one of those pointless, endless squables Paul warned us about. We are saved by Jesus and that is what matters.

You still haven't understood either my comment or what Jesus taught. We obey the law not because we have to, but because we want to. We are obeying as a mark, a demonstration of our love for Jesus.

They are totally different. We do not need satan to temp us we tempt ourselves and fail to resist. Nor do we have angels coming to speak to us, if we did we would be terrified. Have you never been challenged by a passage in the bible as you read it, or by something in a sermon. Have you never been brought to a halt by words said or written. Because that is God through the Spirit speaking to you. You want to hear God speaking. Are you listening?

First responce. Are you a Christian, what are you trusting in to save you? Why if you have been saved are you afraid of going to hell, only nonchristians go there. So again what are you trusting in, good works or what? If you are serious about stopping your sexual sin are you seriously prepared to make the effort to stop? Have you set up in your antivirus the controls that will 1 stop you looking at any porn site. 2 alert a third party, say your wife or pastor, that you are trying to look at porn. Please read and memorise 1Cor10:13 no temptation has seized you except what is common to man, God is faithfull he will not let you be tempted beyound what you can bear, he will always provide away out. My comment from experience. That way out is always there if, if, if you want to avoid falling into sin. The problem is all too often the sin is what we want. also read and memorise Hebrews12:4 In your struggle against sin you have not resisted to the point of shedding blood. My comment. We do not really resist sin, we think about it and want it, realise we shouldn't, think about it and do it. If you want to stop you have to make the effort, God has promised to help but how hard do you try?

Please reread my post you have not understood what I wrote.

Doesn't matter where it is, preparation is key and speaking slowly and clearly.

Which means the law is still valid and inforce. We may be freed from the legal requirement to obey, instead we have the moral obkigation as a mark of our love for Jesus to obey.

And that law is what? Love the Lord your God with All ones being and your neighbour as your self.

It is interesting that both have reacted not to what they know about God but to how people have treated them. It is the equivilent to my saying:- My maths teacher was cruel and unfair so I don't believe in maths. We need always to spend more time listening to what people believe and to there experiences as well as being able to carefully point out the truth. As well as the fallicy of there believes, both here 'feel' no need of God, do the 'feel' the same aboutmaintaining there cars or do they complie with the law that states cars must be road worthy?

The only way is to resetablish an ongoing relationship with them and to talk to them. As part of what you gosip about, mention church and what ever activity or challenging sermon, fantastic song has remainded in your mind. Remember this is gosip not an indepth lecture. The largest part of your conversation should be about them, their family, activities and what they believe. Once relations are established start asking questions about what they believe. Ask how it works for logical reasons why it should work. Your aim is to show inconsistencies and to get them to think about them. More a sowing seeds of doubt then rubbing their noses in it. If they are willing to be friendly invite them over for the weekend and to church, let them lead the conversation about the surmon. Water all this with prayer. Be sure that what ever questions you ask of their believes you can answer about yours.

You have never read Romans have you. romans3:27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. 28 For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30 since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31 Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law. The law shows us how God wants us to live and you with the Spirit of God living in you will know through the Spirits confirmation that this is right.

A change like this would make me less sceptical. I would still be suspicious of the claim that he was recruiting people for 'his' church and would want to know about his cirrent daily experience of Jesus.

I'm amased, I actually agree with your post and agree enough to want to say so. We all make little accomoidations with the practices of a nonchristian world. You doubt it? How do you deal with sunday trading? sex before marriage, people living together and having possitions in church.