F_Ivan

@Sharky and George I like orthodox since what I heard theyre basically catholic without papacy infailability belief or mary worship @Tzephanyahu Thank you so much, I wish I read that earlier today. I was plauged by feelings of condemnation today that god had just left me forever and I committed the unpardonable sin, it started making me angry and resentful (and anguished) and it started weakening my faith too partially because of this. I know I shouldnt be angry at god in any circumstance but idk I felt so horrible with the condemnation? I was in a very bad place today from listening to the flesh.

@Tzephanyahu I feel like believing these doubts and feeding them only pulls me further and further away from God

@Tzephanyahu Yes it feels like a long time since I became Christian. I was suprised to find out its only been about 4.5-5 months. Feels like it was a year ago almost Edit: thank you for the encouragement, by the way

@Tzephanyahu @Sharky and George How can fear of hell be a worthy reason? It is self serving, wanting to preserve yourself. You don't treat your wife well because you're scared of her leaving you and being alone, you treat her well because you love her (ideally). How can I come to God with such a self serving reason? I feel a little better with the hope that as I continue in my faith my love for him will grow. Yes I am facing some serious challenges from myself, its almost like the part of me that distrusts me is hard at work with every mental gymnastics trick trying to condemn myself at every chance it gets. Like today I was thinking "you dont love god truly you only want to love him just so you can be saved from hell" like accusing me of only having selfish fears and its honeslty hard to know if its true or to know if thats the only reason (I really hope its not true) when im feeling such strong guilt condemmation/fear of hell I just really hope his holy spirit has not left me. Sorry to repeat myself, but I edited out the reason why I feel so condemned in my previous post, because i considered it worldy sorrow, im not sure if you saw the post before I edited it and my struggle and willful sin with porn. Let me know. I was given conviction, felt STRONG GUILT, prayed, pleaded for forgiveness and said I wouldn't do it again, and yet I did it again. Its a serious offense. Granted im relatively new to the faith, but still. this back sliding it makes me feel like ill never be able to loyal to god, like im too double minded/and messed to ever find rest in him. And yes ive been trying to work on seeing women as more human in order to forsake lust/porn. I think ive hsd some success in thinking this way. To be frank, i'm being lazy and it's probably my fault I don't feel close to god because I dont really crack my bible much. Ill check that site out you sent me tomorrow because its already getting late. Again I hope god has not departed his holy spirit from me. Do you know of anyone with similar backsliding experiences who finally found some peace atleast? (And just to let you know I was raised christian/catholic as a kid but fell off in my late childhood for leaning on athiesm. Hopefully that doesnt change anything). Please forgive me for babbling, I want to be concise but I dont want to leave out what could be important.

@Tzephanyahu I came to be a believer because I was in a time of crisis where I was constantly feeling doomed. I used to be so obsessed about my physical appearance i thought it was everything and i felt like i wasnt good looking enough to ever enjoy being with someone i would want to be with because i was too ugly. like always feeling inadequate. i wanted to do anything to become better looking. i began to hate god (i wasnt totally sure of gods existence i was basically agnostic leaning towards god existing in belief, i believed in god enough to blame all my problems on him basically) because i feared he would destroy my selfish plans to teach me a lesson (which now i know would be a blessing if i really needed that to happen to me) so i continued down that path of hating and distrusting god like he was my enemy for about a year and a half, i also had constant anxiety that i was getting uglier and uglier btw. I met a really christian guy at a summer camp and he invited me to church, I went to a church with him where we sang songs for God and I feel like I felt God's presence and goodness/holiness/purity at that Church, then forgot about it and continued in my god hating self serving ways for several more months. after a while I started realizing that god is not to blame for my problems and that he wouldnt ruin my life, i also starting looking at testimonies of other christians who have said they have struggled with demonic opression and false beliefs before coming to god and listening to those made me kind of realize that i need god, i was softening to god and i stopped hating him. and also started fearing that all this ocd and despair/doom (i had general chronic anxiety too) was because of demonic oppression. I think somewhere down the line i also realized that being with god/god is more important than my physical appearance even if i magically woke up the most attractive person on earth or woke up disgustingly ugly (i know this sounds ridiculous to people but i was extremley insecure). And the fear of demons in my life (suffering through OCD at this time) also drove me to become a christian. I stopped thinking that god was out to ruin my life too. I got in contact with that christian friend and he gave me his pastors number. And I had a meeting with his pastor and I gave my life to Christ in prayer and trusted him with it. I became christian I think This July or so

Thank you to everyone who has posted. @Sharky and George Thanks, I'll try that. Might help. @Tzephanyahu I find the bible fairly understandable in general as to what I've read so far. Just fear that everything I do is for a selfish reason

Thank you

@Tzephanyahu I just started reading my Bible a few weeks ago. Im unfamilar with anything the disciples didn't write about Jesus' life The bible is God's word meant to be read with conviction of the Holy spirit and it helps us understand God's wisdom and who he is

What do you mean repent of the charges they bring against me? This morning I was looking up attractive actresses on Google partially trying to avoid looking at explicitly lustful images and this thought appeared in my head "You don't really care about god" and in that moment I believed in that statement and it filled me with anxiety and ruined my day

@Tzephanyahu Sorry If I'm repeating myself. I felt horrible even typing all that because it feels like im feeding fears/doubts/sin/worthless thoughts

Thank you so much for helping me, I was diagnosed with Obessive Compulsive Disorder a while ago and I am on medication. The fears I would say are potential developments I Worry about what I think a ton, like worrying about even having intrusive thoughts of apostasy, "did you really repent?" blasphemy, rebellion against god, or even fearing doubting too much, etc. If you believe God has abandoned you, won't forgive you, or doesnt love you anymore, you are not trusting who god really is right? I told my dad these fears and that is what he said to me. I Keep getting tormented by fears such as "you dont actually care about god enough, you're probably going to become an apostate" "you arent truly repentant" "god will never accept you because of your double mind" "its too late, youre doomed to move further away from god every day" "youve doubted too much already, its too late""you distrust god too much and he has abandoned you because of this, its too late". I hate to admit it but I think my faith is weak, maybe thats the main problem. I really dont think these fears are from God, God wouldn't instill a fear in to me based on distrust that only pulls me further away from god by entertaining these fears. I think they're either my OCD or the enemy because I suspiciously get them most when im at work or doing something (my attention is divided) so it makes it hard to defend against those thoughrs or try to differentiate if they're actually trying to tell me something important or if its just my overly doubting/distrustful mind/aka useless thoughts or the enemy.

I deal with fear alot. How do I know the fear isn't just me causing unnecessary problems, the enemy, or from God?

Thank you so much for your post, you're right. Edit: About baptizing myself in the spirit, I was baptized as an adult at my Baptist church months ago, unless you meant something different? I prayed a prayer giving myself up to Christ at my baptism and I think I was being genuine but maybe I wasn't totally true deep down, or maybe I just let myself get sidetracked by my own distrust/insecurities/anger and sins, im not sure.

I feel like I'll never be able to fully repent or truly recieve Christ unless I completely give up everything wordly and by that I mean like im going to be tested until my life is made a s**thole like job in the bible and I cant repent until im completley willing to give it up to that extent that id be okay with something like that happening because I feel like I have to "proove" myself to god to even be worthy of repentance (probably because I doubt god so much or something, im always doubting or maybe because I believe gods promise is too good to be true to be so liberally granted to someone like me). I feel like im trapped between going to hell or willingly living a suffering s**thole of a life here in order to somehow proove myself that I dont hold wordly things above God, obviously id rather choose the one where I dont go to hell but I feel so depressed, desolate and somewhat hopeless. Maybe im just overly fixated on the fear of going to hell combined with the feeling ill never be good enough TO EVEN RECIEVE CHRIST Also in my case im very insecure about my physical appearance (I hate how I look, I feel emasculated, and kind of like genetic garbage), I get the thought that god is going to test me by making me truly very ugly to see if I still believe in him afterwards similar to the story Job.

Wow. At first I thought that being good or bad boy didn't matter as long as you were attractive but your story really proves the common woman really does find a jerk attractive. However, definatley not everyone who goes to Church is a real Christian yet, or they may be still very early in their walk with Christ.