ColorfulBlossoming

Hi, God bless you. I send you a private message.

Yes, I'm attending one, it's a pentecostal/charismatical one, although I'm planning on moving to another church because I believe they are preaching some doctrinal errors :/. Yes, I said to my Pastor what I had and he said that it's common issue, he and my brothers and sisters from that church prayed for me.

Hi! God bless you. I don't always respond in time because I'm busy, my first language isn't English so it takes me some time trying to write in English in a intilligible maner (that may take me even some hours), and because I'm a introvert person, sometimes I avoid social interaction Yes, I'm still struggling with the same issue, I'm getting better since yesterday thank God!

?? What is not assurance?

Before I became a christian, I was a non-christian theist that was apathetic about religion and similar topics. My mother and my grandmother are christians, but my grandfather isn't. My grandmother is a catholic who almost never goes to church (and she creates excuses for not going...) and my mother was one too (after I became a christian she started to go to church with me and now she's protestant) and when I was younger I had gone to a catholic catequesis class but there I didn't learn the fundamental things (like for eg. that salvation comes by grace through faith, not by works; that not everyone is saved...etc). The christians of my entire family (which all of them are catholics I guess) didn't even tried to evangelize me. I was blind. It was by becoming interested in reading the Bible by myself that I saw the truth and after then when I started to believe in Jesus I asked Him to forgive my sins and to be my Savior. (Btw, I almost always don't doubt if I'm a true christian until those intrusive thoughts appear).

And I agree with you! I never said trusting in self is salvation. I know trust in Jesus is. I check if I trust Him almost every day.

I'm sorry to hear what happened to you. You have to report to the police what this man did. You have to forgive him (because God wants us to forgive those who hurt us) but that doesn't mean he can't be punished for the crime and immoral act he did. Romans 13:1-7 makes it clear that we have to obey the law if it doesn't contradict the law of God, so not doing so it's a sin; I don't know that much about U.S' law (I'm from Venezuela), but of course, sexual assault and rape should be crimes there. So rape and sexual assault are not only objectively wrong but they are also crimes. If I understood correctly, you also said that some people "advised" you to not tell anything to the police, but again, they may not only going against what ephesians 5:11 tells we have to do but also if some of the people who "advised" you that are friends of this man, they may are going against the law, because...well, wouldn't that count as concealing a crime? And well, even if he doesn't go to prison, when he dies he'll have to face God. Because you may find it difficult to forgive this man, you have to tell to God to help you to do so and to heal your wounds. Never stop praying and reading the Bible. I would also advise to you to join a group of christians that were victims of sexual offenders. Because it would be a group constituted by christians who went through a similar situation, it could be healthy for you to engage in it. In the original post you said you had doubts about why God allow these things to happen. Well, there's a website called "reasonablefaith", it provide answers to questions of that nature. It helps me when I deal with some doubts. I hope you find it useful. Legal reporters for the Wall Street Journal reported on part of the story last year and mentioned his crime. Wait, so they reported his crime and the police did nothing? (Sorry if I said some unintelligible things, I don't have a perfect english, spanish's my native language. By the way, I prayed for you).

When you said "my trust isn't salvation" are you talking about that trusting myself doesn't save (which I agree) or are you saying that I have no faith in jesus? Asking because I don't want to misunderstand you

Thanks for the advice and for praying for me, God bless you.

Hello, God bless you. Been living with these tormenting thoughts (like every day). But I haven't give up. (And I don't want to). Those other intrusive thoughts of another nature appear rarely and they don't affect me that much. I though for a moment that those particular ones disappeared forever, but they didn't. But unlike the ones that attack Christianity, those don't appear that much and don't affect me that much. And thanks for the advice, I'll try to put it into practice.

Thanks for the advice. Honestly, I don't trust myself, I'm scared to do something stupid that makes me lose my faith and my salvation :/ although I have to put more trust in Him.

Hi, thanks for the uplifting words, for the advice and for the recommendations. Although it'll be really hard to stop praying this prayer for salvation everytime I feel like I have fallen from it. It's like a vicious circle... Do you think so? That makes sense. If I get out of this situation with God's help, maybe I'll be one [apologist]. But for the moment I won't. Well, maybe it's not always satan who's annoying me with this situation, but maybe he or his minions attack/s me sometimes, or maybe it's my own fault? (Or both?) God bless you.

Hi, God bless you. Yes, almost always when these thoughts appear I feel anxiety. Sometimes I can't sleep well because of them.

Hi, thanks for the advice. Lately I'm trying to ignore them, because if I don't, they won't leave. Although I have to say it's not easy to do so and sometimes I fail to do so either for my desire to reply them saying things like "no, that's a lie" or "that's stupid"; or for feeling like I'm approving them if I ignore them. God bless you.

Thanks for praying for me and for the uplifting words. Also, does the passage Romans 8:38-39 applies to free will too? I mean, is my free not able to separate me from God?

I try to trust Him, but these thoughts discourage me :/ but I still haven't given up faith and hope. Before I became a born again Christian, I had obsessive thoughts of another nature, but after I became a Christian those particular thoughts dissapeared, and then I started to have those tormenting thoughts of a unbelieving nature. So that's why I suspect I might have OCD (I haven't visited a psycologist yet to know if have OCD or not). They appear at any time, but the chances they appear increase when I'm stressed/anxious, happy or I feel energetic. Thanks for the uplifting words and for praying for me. God bless you.

Hi, I have been doing that, but thanks for the advise anyway. And besides, your words encouraged me to not give up. God bless you.

Greetings...it's embarrassing to talk about this, but I think I need to talk about this... Intrusive thoughts of a unbelieving nature that claim things such as"God doesn't exists" have been tormenting me for a while and I feel guilty when they pop up, even when I hate these thoughts and I don't want they appear. Almost always, when I have a feeling that they'll appear, I start to frighten due to this feeling, and sometimes when that happens I try to do something to avoid them (such as think about God's grace and try to be calm), but this doesn't always work. The worst thing is that sometimes, after they appear (especially the one that claims "God doesn't exists"), I feel like I had believed what they claimed (or like I had thought them deliberately) and them I feel distressed due to that feeling, and when that happens I pray to God the "prayer about salvation" (the one in which you accept Jesus as your only Lord and Savior with genuine repetance for the sins you had committed and with genuine faith that He's God and He died and arose from the dead because you can't save yourself with works) because if that feeling wasn't a false alarm and I believe stupid things such as "God doesn't exists", I fall from salvation, because I can't be saved without faith...so I pray that after that happens, just in case...and after I pray that, I exanimate to ascertain whether I am a true Christian or not with questions such as "Do I believe God exists"? And I come to the conclusion that yes, that I believe the God of the Bible exists, that Jesus is God and He died in the cross and arose from the dead...and then I'm confident that I'm saved until these thoughts appear again and I feel like I had believed them or had thought them deliberately... I even had already found theological/philosophical, logical and scientific evidencs in favor of Christianity, which helped my faith to grow, and I even had thought about studying theology and to be an apologist. Honestly, I'm scared to die as a unbeliever and to God to hell...I DON'T want that to happen...I love Jesus and I don't want to leave Him. I don't want to be an unbeliever. Maybe I have religious OCD; maybe I had never fallen from salvation and that feeling is justo a false alarm and I believed that I had fallen from salvation by fear and paranoia; or maybe not matter what God would do I'll go to hell, because If a Christian can deliberately loose they salvation (because God allows humans have free will), them I'm probably doomed. Honestly, I'm confused, and afraid...

Greetings, I'm new here. As you may already know if you've read the title, my doubt is: is God telling me I can't listen to rock music? I already had wonder if rock music is inherently sinful or not before, so I already had investigated about the subject and had already prayed to the Lord for answers, and I had got to the conclusion that it's not sinful only if the song doesn't glorify sin, therefore that doubt has faded away that time. I want to point out that in the moment I had this doubt (before it rose again) I had abstained from listening to rock music. But now that doubt rose again (as I said before) because in short, after that doubt had faded, and I began to listen to rock music again, my health started to worsen forma a while (today I'm fine, thank God). Maybe it's just a coincidence. But I'm not so sure about that. So, since that time, the doubt rose again and I started to ask to myself "and if this is happening to me because listening to rock music is a sin and God is warning me...?" so, I started to ask God again to reveal me if this was happening to me because rock music is inherently sinful (regardless of whether it's christian or not). I asked Him this question several times. Sometimes I felt an ache after asking Him this question (maybe this is just a coincidence too). I felt a soft headache after I listened to a christian rock music yesterday at night. (Maybe this is a coincidence too and there's nothing wrong with that song. It doesn't has sinful lyrics). Sometimes when, after asking Him [this question] again, I requested Him to answer me throught Scripture's passages, and next opened up the Bible at a random page and read the passage (or just a portion of it) that my eyes first find. Sometimes I would find passages related to worship (e.g. Psalm 105); sometimes others related to repetance and God's mercy; and sometimes others related to happiness. I'm not even 100% sure if God was really speaking to me throught the words of these passages. Honestly, I'm confused. I really like rock music and I don't listen to rock music that have an anti-Christian message. But, I don't want to offend the Lord if listening to that kind of music is a sin. But, if it's not a sin and God wasn't telling me it's sinful, I would not want to avoid this music I like to listen thinking it's a sin to listen to it when it would be not (if it's not sinful) So, is God telling me I can't listen to it? Or maybe this happened to me for other reasons (maybe He just wanted to test me...?) and He never told me that? And, a question to those christians who likes to listen to rock music too: have you gone through what happened to me? Or by a similar case? By the way, if some things I've said are almost unintelligible, it's because I don't handle a professional english. Sorry if that's the case. Spanish's my native language. God bless you all.