zecha51

Thanks for this message. It hit home with me, especially lately. I also have an older truck with lots of miles, and remember the Psalm that says basically, "some trust in chariots" These modern "chariots" of nice cars, etc will always fail when we trust in them for happiness, etc.. Trusting in God will bring you peace.

"He who has faith in the Son has eternal life; but he who has not faith in the Son will not see life; God's wrath is resting on him." -John 3:36 "He who despises his nieighbor is void of wisdom, but a wise man holds silent." Proverbs 11:12

DarkNebulaWelder - that does make sense to me, and I have gone through similar things. It is important to remember that God commands in His Word to "take every thought captive and bring it to obedience to Christ." - 2 Corinthians 10:5 Satan has liked to try to get me to doubt my salvation also. He does this becuase though we are saved eternally, he likes to try and make us ineffective in our walk. The car still works, but he wants to rip out the headlights

(yelled through microphon) - --"LOVE THY NEIGHBOR" Jesus Christ quoted by Billy Graham "I can't put God in a test tube for you and wrap it up and say here is God." - Billy Graham

I was just hearing the verse where the disciples said... "Lord, increase our faith" "For it is by grace that you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, lest any man should boast." -Ephesians2:8 (But if he does boast in God thats awesome imo) Oaktree even though I do not know the details, your experience is an inspiration. Stay strong in the Lord. The evil one likes to attack when you are sick and down...what better time?, but remember God is there to lift you up always. Also when you are lifted back up, you will be stronger in the Lord and will have experienced growth to a large degree.

Here is what God says about part of the topic, it can apply in Spirit to modern Christian apparel. "3 Do not let your adornment be merely outward

You all are not alone at all. I feel this way also sometimes. The thing is, we are lucky to be sons and daughters of God by our belief in the Lord Jesus. He is always there and loves us with a crazy love even when we can't fully recognize it. Times like this can build your faith and there is a DEFINATE light at the end of the tunnel. Remember heaven is eternal and our home. God loves us and like people have mentioned on the thread he "will never leave us nor forsake us." Imagine how it is for the unsaved facing the demons of alcoholism, etc, etc. This can even happen to believers but the point is to keep focused on God. Ask Him to connect you. He will. I prayed for a group of people to fellowship with and God brought me to a great church with a great small group of people. They even have similar interests, though this is only for a season also. God will provide again though, He always does. walla - take heart. Working the 3rd shift has got to be a little tough. Remember good old Psalm 23 and remember that God will reward you for being faithful.

Oakleaf sorry to hear about your conditions. God is making you very tough in my opinion! God will comfort you and in eternity you will be healed and in perfect peace. Wayne that is an awesome verse from the Psalms.

God will judge them. Don't worry about it. People are nasty sometimes, but not everyone is like that. Great verse..... Romans 12:21 "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." It is hard to deal with nasty people, but God sees everything you do and making the creator smile is a great thing. : )

"I could point out the day I prayed a prayer accepting Christ as my Lord (when I was 13), but if I'm really honest with myself, I can see that my conversion experience was actually something that took several years...in fact, it started when I was in grade 6 (from what I remember, anyway...childhood memories are so fuzzy sometimes)" Same here exactly in year and experience,, except don't know the day. Not knowing the exact time of salvation can worry some people. It worried me for a long time. The date though is not important, the fact is once we believe in Jesus Christ our eternal destiny changes forever and we are brought into his family. We will still mess up (though we do not have a license to sin), but we are born again. Confess to God with your heart what you are feeling. If doubts or questions come up, say "I'm going to see what the Word of God has to say about this!", and read a book like 1 John (chapter 5..) which is awesome at comforting those who have stop relying on themselves and have believed in the Lord Jesus. The devil will try to confuse you, but don't fret about him, we have victory becuase of the cross. This is settled eternally, no matter what man or devil tries to do. God bless you!

How You Can Know for Certain You're Going to Heaven By Bob Wilkin "Most assuredly, I say unto you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life." (John 5:24) I was a senior in college and it had only been a few months since I had heard about the grace of God and placed my trust wholly upon Jesus Christ to save me. It was night and I was watching Billy Graham on TV. I was shocked when he said, "I know for certain that I am going to heaven." I deeply wanted to be able to say that, but I didn't think that anybody could know that for certain. It was more than a year later when I discovered the blessed truth that all believers have eternal life as a present possession. I had thought that eternal life started when we died. However, one day I was reading a Bible study guide and I discovered that eternal life was an eternal relationship with God which begins at the point of faith. Death is not the beginning of that life and that relationship. One passage that stands out as clearly and irrefutably teaching this is John 5:24. Jesus said that all believers have already passed from death to life. That is, before faith people are spiritually dead. They lack the life of God, eternal life. However, at the moment of faith, at that very moment, one who believes in Jesus Christ gains eternal life and ceases to be spiritually dead. Jesus also indicated in this verse that believers will not come into judgment. That is, once we believe our eternal destiny is sealed and there will be no future judgment which will determine where we go. [While all believers will be judged at the Judgment Seat of Christ (Matt. 16:27; 2 Cor. 5:10), that will not be to determine our eternal destiny.] Jesus made this same point earlier in John's Gospel in John 3:18 when He said that he who believes is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already. In other words, based on John 3:18 and 5:24 anyone on earth who accepts the authority of Scripture ought to be able to say with certainty where they will spend eternity based on whether or not they have come to trust in Christ alone as their only hope of heaven. I was struck by something one of my professors in seminary, Dr. Charles Ryrie, said on several occasions in class. He said: "Eternal life wouldn't be eternal if you could lose it" What we gain at the point of faith is ETERNAL life. I shared this verse with someone recently and they asked, "Why does Jesus say that he who believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life' instead of 'he who believes in Me has everlasting life'? Don't we have to believe in Jesus, not the Father, to be saved?" The answer is that in order to believe in the Father one must believe in Jesus Christ since the Father sent Jesus that people might believe in Him. Jesus said, "He who hears My words and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life." To believe in the Father one must hear and believe Jesus' words (i.e., about His substitutionary death). The preceding verse, John 5:23, says: "He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him." To a Jewish audience this would have been an especially powerful statement. By rejecting Jesus Christ one was ultimately rejecting the God of Israel since Jesus and the Father are one in essence (cf. John 5:18; 10:10) and since the Father speaks to us through His Son (Heb. 1:2). There is a strange teaching about today which says that no one can know for sure that he believes in Christ. This teaching effectively cuts the heart out of verses like John 5:24. Many today act like Jesus said something as incomprehensible as "He who frumpigollips bormocidal has eternal life and has passed from death to life." Assurance is annihilated if I can't know whether I have done what it takes to pass from death to life. The Scriptures are clear that we can know that we believe in Christ from the moment we trust in Him. John 3:16, 5:24, and 8:24, to name but a few verses in John's Gospel, all are meaningless unless a person can know if he believes in Jesus or not. In John 9:35-38 Jesus asked the formerly blind man to whom He had restored sight, "Do you believe in the Son of God?" The man responded, "Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?" When Jesus identified Himself as the Son of God the man didn't say, "Lord, I think I believe." He said, "Lord, I believe!" He knew he believed. It is interesting to note that Jesus does not rebuke him for saying that. Indeed, it is clear in context that Jesus was pleased by his statement and that He found nothing wrong in someone knowing that they believed in Him. Likewise, Paul said in 2 Timothy 1:12, "I know whom I have believed." He didn't wonder whether or not he believed in Christ. He knew. So did Peter and the other apostles, Cornelius and his household, and many others (Acts 11:17). Any person who is conscious knows whether or not he is trusting in Jesus Christ alone as his only hope of heaven. That's why we can ask people what they would say if they appeared before God and He said, "Why should I let you into My heaven?" I praise God that He has told us clearly in His Word that whoever believes in Jesus Christ has eternal life. I know with absolute certainty that I'm saved. I have come to see that God has given the last word on the subject and to doubt my salvation is to doubt God. My life isn't what I would like it to be (i.e., perfect); however, I know that I have passed from death to life and that really encourages me and motivates me to live for God.

I love talking with God in the car! "t never fails to amaze me how inteligent people can believe that talking to "god" helps them." Einstein believed in a God although not Jesus who is truly God. 'bible is nothing more than a group of writing that the council of nicea [a group of biships that const. apointed to bring togeather the different beliefs of christian sects.] got togeather and decided what books or writings were gods word and others they did not like were just mans ideas.' All of the books had been written and are extremely close to the original pen dates. The Bible is extremely reliable and far more reliable than any other ancient work. The council found it easy by God to pick the books He wrote. '...only copys of copys, there is nothing that is in the bible that exists that is closer than two to four hundered years removed from the people who wrote them.' There was not copiers back in those times. You are really stretching the head of this claim. Every book of the Bible was written very close to the Lord Jesus and through time came to be put in the Bible - its simple. 'such as mathew and mark luke and john, there is now way to know who wrote these books.' Without faith you will never please God. Ask Him to reveal Himself to you if he is so real.......... He will! We have a very good idea who wrote the books. When I get my cable bill it does not have to say comcast for me to be able to research and say there is a good chance I have comcast becuase of the location of where I live. (weird analogy : ) ) 'I highly recomend the book called christianity the greatest story ever sold as good place to start.' Some people do sell Christianity. These are NOT real Christians, and there are tons of people like this. I highliy recommend Evidence that Demands a Verdict. It turns your whole argument against Bible reliability upside down. Even secular scholars agree that the Bible is a reliable work and a total masterpiece... they just do not see it as the Word of God. God bless you and welcome to the forums. P.S. .... "The Case for Christ" is a good book to read also.

Paranoid Android, thank you for that research and commentary. I greatly appreciate it after finding this passage tough to explain. Thanks also Dave and posts.

Believers MESS UP and MESS UP BAD. It has nothing to do with them losing salvation. Salvation cannot be lost once you truly have it. "I believe that anyone that deliberately turns his/her back on God, after having been saved, and chooses to live his/her life in sin is no longer saved. Being saved once doesn

Billy Graham speaking at a university.mp3 Very old but the Bible verses he uses are even older and great.

Spend time in nature giving thanks for all the diverse plants and world He has created. I find going to the beach and meditating on Psalm 46 is amazing. You are seeking a commendable thing. : ) "Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you." (James 4:7-8)

"How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock" end of Psalm 137 Some translations say "happy" are the ones who dash your little ones heads against the rocks. This was brought up to me as an attack against God saying He condones infanticide. Obviously God loves children, we know that. What is the best way to best explain this verse to a skeptic? I am finding it kind of tough. The only answer I have so far is that this tribe that the Psalm speaks of was doing terrible things to the Isreallites. Thanks; if this post goes better in another forum.. move away mods. *edit* The best explanation so far is justice becuase the Edomites had taken them captive and done terrible things to them. Does anyone have information or knowledge that affirms the same thing?

Evidence that demands a verdict Evidence that Demands a Verdict This is a great book despite what the " internet infidels " groups will have you believe. This is not endorsing amazon, it is just a link to a great apologetics book.

awesome song. Mods this is a link to a Christian song, please edit if for some reason it cant go here

"The Purpose-Driven Life"

Good to see God's people digging deeper into word studies and etc, awesome!

Isaiah434 that does make the idea that the gospels were biasedly written to fit the prophecies seem kind of way off. These replies have helped a good preperation for answering this question, thanks. The point about the writers deing for their beliefs (like Paul being beheaded) is a great one imo. How is it that we know this though? It should not make you doubt imo, but for example we have lots of historical stuff by like Tacitus about Jesus. My Bible mentions it is by legend that Paul gets beheaded etc. Not saying it did not happen of course.

If this is in the wrong forum, I am sorry. How would you answer someone who says this.... "The gospels are biased. They were not stupid back then and simply made the story of Jesus fit in with the age old Jewish prophecies about the Messiah." Basically, someone who says the writers made the gospel accounts with a tweaked intent becuase they already had the OT, etc.... Can someone help with a good answer? I only have the verse that says "we were eyewitnesses of His majesty." Anybody have anything deeper? Thanks

This is from a pamphlet I have... it says, "the devil can not take away one's salvation, he can only worry him" (who is saved) I have doubted some also but have also found myself feeling convicted by the Holy Spirit etc.. Read the book of first John! The devil DOES want to worry us. He does want us more lukewarm becuase of doubt. Say, "God, help me not to rely on feelings and other people but in you Christ and help me with this doubt." He will.

Great post, God is incredibly complicated in things like nature, but His Word is made so that even some of the handicapped, and those not as bright can see his awesome plan of salvation that comes through Jesus Christ. Thanks for the post