Seeking Guidance - Please Help

[1over137]

I just see all people as my brothers and sisters and want them to experience the Joy of Christ

I feel the same.

[TruthSeeker919]

Thank you all for the information. However, I'm still really struggling. As my research has continued, I have found that religion is really starting to dwindle in non-U.S. places, such as Europe for example. I know that I cannot begin to understand the will or plan of God. My finite mind has absolutely no ability to understand the concept of eternity and all that in which God exists. But, something about the dwindling believers world-wide is something I cannot explain and it is troubling. My fear is that religion is beginning to become something in the past. Something people no longer look at as truth. I do not want to feel this way. I so want to believe there is something waiting for us on the on the other side, but sometimes it is so hard for me to have faith in that. I'm not sure if anyone can help me with this issue, but I wanted to put it out there at least. Thanks to all who read and/or respond to this.

[Katabole]

I have found that religion is really starting to dwindle in non-U.S. places, such as Europe for example.

But, something about the dwindling believers world-wide is something I cannot explain and it is troubling.

It's because it is prophecy. As it says in Second Thessalonians:

2Thess 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

Here is Strong's concordance reference for 'falling away' in the above verse:

646
apostasia
ap-os-tas-ee'-ah
apostasy

feminine of the same as apostasion - apostasion 647; defection from truth (properly, the state) ("apostasy"):--falling away, forsake.

There has to be a large movement away from the Christian faith. Paul is claiming in the above verse that the Day of the Lord, that is, the day when Christ returns here to Earth, is not going to happen until first there is a great apostasy. That is presently happening.

I know that I cannot begin to understand the will or plan of God.

Sure you can. It is written. In the New Testament, when Jesus is asked questions, 35 times he responds, "It is written, haven't you read?" This is not to say the Bible tells us everything. It doesn't. The Bible tells us everything we need to know. Not everything we want to know. Christ did not leave us in ignorance. As He says:

Mark 13:23 But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things.

That's all things we need to know.

Hope that helps you.

[TruthSeeker919]

Thank you . . . those verses are good points to my issues. There are just so many things that bother me that I think I'll never get comfortable with. For example, I just saw an article about when it was believed that Neanderthals and humans stopped engaging in sex. I really do not know how to reconcile the Neanderthal with even a liberal interpretation of creationism. I mean, they seem to be so similar to us, how can we dismiss them as soulless beings and claim that we have one. Do we just consider with beings with conciousness but no soul? How can we make such claims? Things like this make me struggle with faith become even greater. I know it may seem like I'm reaching for doubt, but I want to feel this thing for certain. I understand that I'll never have the knowledge that I seek, but I do seek the comfort of faith, which I am still chasing.

[PaulSacramento]

Thank you . . . those verses are good points to my issues. There are just so many things that bother me that I think I'll never get comfortable with. For example, I just saw an article about when it was believed that Neanderthals and humans stopped engaging in sex. I really do not know how to reconcile the Neanderthal with even a liberal interpretation of creationism. I mean, they seem to be so similar to us, how can we dismiss them as soulless beings and claim that we have one. Do we just consider with beings with conciousness but no soul? How can we make such claims? Things like this make me struggle with faith become even greater. I know it may seem like I'm reaching for doubt, but I want to feel this thing for certain. I understand that I'll never have the knowledge that I seek, but I do seek the comfort of faith, which I am still chasing.

Don't ever forget that, just because someone puts out a theory, that it is correct.
There is no concrete evidence that Humans and Neanderthals had sex, though it was physically possible for them to do so.

[1over137]

Thank you . . . those verses are good points to my issues. There are just so many things that bother me that I think I'll never get comfortable with. For example, I just saw an article about when it was believed that Neanderthals and humans stopped engaging in sex. I really do not know how to reconcile the Neanderthal with even a liberal interpretation of creationism. I mean, they seem to be so similar to us, how can we dismiss them as soulless beings and claim that we have one. Do we just consider with beings with conciousness but no soul? How can we make such claims? Things like this make me struggle with faith become even greater. I know it may seem like I'm reaching for doubt, but I want to feel this thing for certain. I understand that I'll never have the knowledge that I seek, but I do seek the comfort of faith, which I am still chasing.

May I ask what you mean by comfort of faith and it's seeking? Which thing you want to feel for certain? Just need to be sure what you mean to be able to react. Thank you.

[Katabole]

I'd probably be able to help you better if you had a definite creation position Truthseeker. But according to your profile your undecided. I am an OEC ruin/reconstruction or gap creationist. I can briefly go through the creation positions on the existence of Neanderthals but I am not an expert. Others can probably help you. Our moderator Rick D, would probably help you the most on the creation positions.

This is the Day Age creation article from the main site:

http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth ... ation.html


Progressive Creationists – Progressive creationists believe in an old earth, but do not believe in evolution. Each species was a specific creation of God, and did not subsequently evolve into other species. Neanderthals can be considered a separate, created species, which did not evolve from previous species, and became extinct 29,000 years ago. As such, they were not created in the image of God (Adam being the first some 6,000 to 10,000 years ago), and did not have a soul.

Theistic Evolutionists – Theistic evolutionists believe in an old earth, and claim that God used evolutionary processes to finally arrive at today’s species. Neanderthals can be considered one of the branches of hominids that evolved, but due to natural selection died out about 29,000 years ago.

Gap Creationists – Gap theorists believe that there was an older, created age, in between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. This old world was renewed by God during the creation week account of Genesis. Neanderthals can be considered an intelligent form of prehistoric ape which were destroyed before the old earth age was replaced with the new one due to Lucifer's rebellion.

Young Earth Creationism - Believe that the Neanderthals perished in Noah's flood.

According to the Bible only modern homo sapiens man and woman were created in the image of God. Animals quite possibly have a soul, as the use of the Hebrew words chay and nephesh are used in Genesis for the words living and creature but not the same type of soul as man and woman. Man and woman have both body, soul and spirit.

Hope that helps.

[TruthSeeker919]

By comfort of faith, I mean having faith - 100% believing God is there and that his path is True. Believing this, I would have the comfort of knowing, or at least truly believing, that there is something on the other side. And thanks to you all for your input. I sincerely appreciate it!!!

[bippy123]

By comfort of faith, I mean having faith - 100% believing God is there and that his path is True. Believing this, I would have the comfort of knowing, or at least truly believing, that there is something on the other side. And thanks to you all for your input. I sincerely appreciate it!!!

Your welcome Truthseeker you are our brother , so its natural for anyone to want to be there for their brother.
Praying for you:)

[1over137]

By comfort of faith, I mean having faith - 100% believing God is there and that his path is True. Believing this, I would have the comfort of knowing, or at least truly believing, that there is something on the other side. And thanks to you all for your input. I sincerely appreciate it!!!

It will come, Truthseeker, but don't push things. God is wiser than us and He knows best what and when to do. I myself was for 25 years atheist, then 2 years agnostic and then 1 year Christian, but my faith was not that strong, it was like intellectual faith. But month ago, I really had what we Christians call personal experience. I never felt before what I started to feel and feel it to this day. It's like feeling His presence. Also, I feel what He wants me to do or not to do. My life is so joyous now. (Well, there come also hard times from time to time, but that's part of our growing.) I wish your life was as joyous as mine one day. I am certain, all people here will try to help to get you there. So, keep interacting with us and learning from us. God bless!

[bippy123]

By comfort of faith, I mean having faith - 100% believing God is there and that his path is True. Believing this, I would have the comfort of knowing, or at least truly believing, that there is something on the other side. And thanks to you all for your input. I sincerely appreciate it!!!

Truthseeker let's start with something on the otherside.
Nde's in my opinion pretty much rule out the nothing on the otherside theory.
Pamela Reynolds's nde is one of the most medically documented nde's.
I posted the link to it on this forum somewhere. She was clinically dead for a while yet still witnessed her operation from above her body and described it in detail to the doctors afterword.

Gary habermas has a great article called paradigm shift where he researches 15 years worth of veredical nde's where people who were pronounced clinically dead visually witnessed events that were even out of range of their normal sight.
This might be why 80% of doctors are either theists or spiritual.

Once the evidence shows you that thee is compelling evidence for life after death, that leads you to the next question, namely which religious worldview is the fullness of truth. In my opinion nothing comes close to Christianity.

As far as Christianity dwindling in western Europe there is some truth to that, but I don't see what that has to do with the truth of Christianity? Why don't you check out China. China is an atheistic regime yet Christianity has exploded there and some estimates put the number of Christians there at 200 million!

Didn't Jesus say to the women of Jerusalem not to weep for him as he was being lead to his crucifixion, that the day will come where women wished that they would never bring kids into this world?
The bible predicted that Christians would be ridiculed and persecuted for their beliefs.
Heck, it even happened to Jesus himself.

As far as creation , I was a new earth creationist when I was little, a theistic evolutionist until I was 42 and a young earth creationist for the last 3 years. I don't see why any of these positions should be a stumbling block for Christians because God could have done it all in any of these 3 ways.

Remember that the Hebrew word yom meant day or time period.
I think checking some of Hugh Ross's stuff on his website would really help you in this area.

[RickD]

Bippy wrote:
As far as creation , I was a new earth creationist when I was little, a theistic evolutionist until I was 42 and a young earth creationist for the last 3 years. I don't see why any of these positions should be a stumbling block for Christians because God could have done it all in any of these 3 ways.

Bippy, just curious, you say you've been a young earth creationist for the last 3 years. I thought you were an old earth/ progressive creationist? Btw, what's a "new earth creationist"? I thought that was another term for young earth creationist?

[TruthSeeker919]

I know many of you will see this as the "falling away," but things like this scare the tar out of me:

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/0 ... nt-1816740

Seeing religion dwindle away makes me think of a world 500 years from now where no God is recognized. What does this mean? He is not there? Then end is still to come? I know many of you probably believe the dwindling of God's followers is simply part of the script that has been written. I want to believe, but this scares me into thinking sometimes that we created God like so many other religions/gods created before. If there is nothing on the other side, to me life is the biggest cosmic joke of all time. To get a small, small window of time to love people so much, only to in the end have to say goodbye. Having to say I will never ever see you again. That tortures me to no end. I seek faith and the comfort that God is there. I'm still searching.

[bippy123]

Bippy wrote:
As far as creation , I was a new earth creationist when I was little, a theistic evolutionist until I was 42 and a young earth creationist for the last 3 years. I don't see why any of these positions should be a stumbling block for Christians because God could have done it all in any of these 3 ways.

Bippy, just curious, you say you've been a young earth creationist for the last 3 years. I thought you were an old earth/ progressive creationist? Btw, what's a "new earth creationist"? I thought that was another term for young earth creationist?

Opps sorry Rick. As usual my fingers are typing faster than my brain can keep up with them lol.
I meant I've been an old earth creationist for 3 years, but I meant to say I was a young earth creationist when I was between 8-12 years of age.

[bippy123]

Truthseeker, those numbers are deceiving. I saw this being discussed on the fox news show the five, and out of the 1 in 5 68% of them don't prescribe to organized religion but believe in God, so it really isn't 1 out of 5.

I really think that You should spent some quality time on Gary Habermas's site, as hexastyle a skeptic himself before doing his phd dissertation on the resurrection and converting to Christianity soon after.

www.garyhabermas.com

Habermas is brilliant and yet very easy to understand for newbies, and remember he went through doubts for 10 years
Before his faith came full circle.