Hi, my dear theist friends
I am glad that you believe that there is God because only a fool who says in his heart there is no God (Psalm 14:1). Lot of my atheist friends actually not a fool, but they chose to be a fool because of us. They see hypocrisy in us. We are wearing mask daily but keep saying that we love God even though our life testifies the opposite. We are the stumbling block for them. Let's examine ourselves: are we really believers or hypocrites?
My friends, I have a question for you: why do you believe in God? I have asked many people about this and many of them answer me "it is because I don't want to go to hell" "it is because I want to go to heaven"
I can somehow determine people's salvation from their answer. If they still saying "I don't want to go to hell" or "I want to go to heaven" they are most probably will go to hell. Why? Because they make "heaven" or "hell" as their idols and God is a jealous God and idolaters will not inherit kingdom of God. I am not playing God, but it is written.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
Those who idolize "heaven" more than God Himself, those who have fear about "hell", they don't know God, they don't love God with all their heart, their soul and their mind. Why? Because they see God as an angry God and it is true only if you choose to be His enemies. So, my theist friends, your heart and your mind already testified about your salvation when you answer my question above: whether you are enemies of God or friends of God? If you still see God as an angry God, it means that you are still His enemies, no matter how good and righteous you are, you will always be His enemies. There are two reason why you still afraid of Him.
- You are still wearing mask, you still serving two masters: God and mammon. You say in your mouth that you love God but in your heart you are far from Him. You continue living in sins, you are neither hot nor cold and because of that you are afraid of Him.
- You still don't know the way, the truth and the life. You still looking for the Truth to satisfy your heart, to give you peace in your heart that your sins have been removed.
Do you know what the different between the true worshipping and fulfilling obligation?
If you still enemies of God, you will try to do good by your own might, you will help the poor because you are obligated to, you will follow Golden Rule to get points from God, you will go to temple or church or mosque because it is your obligation, because God demands it from you, you will try as best as you can, not to commit sins, you will make many commitments that last only for quite some time, you will follow tradition and sacrament in hope God is pleasing with you, you will go to sacred place in hope you will get more points, you will share about your faith with others because your Holy Book tell you to do that, you will fast to get more points, you will observing God's law carefully and said "this is sin, that is pagan, do not handle, do not touch, do not taste". You just want to collect points from your good deeds in hope that God is pleasing with you.
Don't you realize that you are having false humility and those kind of religious acts are based on human commands and teachings? Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
Some of them will go to solitary place and exclude themselves from people because they want to live far from temptation, e.g: temple, monastery, nunnery, jungle, etc. Some of them choose not to eat some specific food not because of health reason, but because the holy book tell them to do so, e.g: cows, pigs, four-legs animal, etc. They are just fulfilling their obligation in hope God is not angry with them and in the end He will give them mercy. They are really zealous for their God. My theist friends, just be honest to your heart: are you not tired doing that obligation? How long you can continue doing that?
Now, let me tell you what the true worshipper will do. They will love God will all their heart, their mind and their soul, they will worship God with joy, happiness and laughter, even with their tears of joy, they will always want to listen to His Word written in His Holy Book by nature, they will go to fellowship because they know that God is there, ready to teach them more, they will share about God to others because they want others to have the same joy, they will not deliberately continue living in sins because it is in their nature, they will love others because God's love dwell in their heart, they will bless others even though they are persecuted, they will not selfish, greedy, and love of money, they will always want to share the blessing they have, they will not conform to any evil things, they will stand for the truth even they have to risk their life, they will defend the poor, help the needy and have compassion toward people, they will live in righteousness and holiness, they will be opened to everyone, always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres, they will overcome evil with good.
In short, they will love their God will all their heart, their soul, their mind, and their strength. And they will also love their neighbours as they love themselves. It is their nature. They don't work for it, God give them a new heart, new mind, new spirit and strengthen them by His grace through faith. It is Gift of God to those truth seekers and humble people.
How can that be possible? Jesus said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God (Mark 10:27)." We will always fall and fail if we keep trying to do it by ourselves for it is not our nature. Our flesh is indeed weak, when temptation comes most of the time we will fall into it. We have sinful nature, we always want to do bad thing, to do evil thing, to satisfy our own flesh even though we know that there are lot of temptation and sins in it. We just can't do it. We know God's law is holy and His commandment is holy, righteous and good, we know everytime we transgress it, we commit sins before God, but we just can't help it. Deep inside us we know that God's Law is spiritual but we are unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
We do not understand what we do. For what we want to do, we don't do; but what we hate, we do. And if we do what we don't want to do, we agree that law is good. As it is, it is no longer we ourselves who do it, but it is sin living in us. We just know that nothing good lives in us, that is, in our sinful nature. For we have desire to do what is good, but we can't carry it out. For what we do is not the good we want to do; no, the evil we don't want to do---this we keep on doing (Romans 7:12-19).
If you feel exactly like that, there is a hope for you. Godly sorrow leads to repentance is now working inside you asking for help, asking how to be saved. My friends, God loves you and He doesn't want you to go to hell, you are fearfully and wonderfully made by Him. It is our sins that keep Him in hidden. God is Holy, Holy, Holy, He can't tolerate any sins, even just a little, small, tiny sin. For even though you keep the whole law and yet stumble at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. We need His mercy to save us for we can't reach Him by ourselves. Mercy triumphs over judgment!
If you see our ancestors of old, they laid their hands on the head of goats, cows or sheep and put all of our guilts and sins to that goats, cows or sheep and let them die for our sins for without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Those animals are our atonement of sins. That's why in every religion, we have the shedding of blood for forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22).
But you tell me, after you transfer your guilt and sins to those animals, can you stop sinning? Will you not need to always present animal sacrifices every year? You know by yourself that you will always sin before God. For if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8). God is just, He bound all men over to disobedience so that He may have mercy on them all (Romans 11:32). You are not the only one in this world who sin before Him, but all. There is no one righteous, not even one (Romans 3:10) for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).
Now, don't you feel tired with your tradition, sacrament and religion? You keep doing it since you were child but your heart never be satisfied. And you always seek the truth for you salvation. My friends, God loves you. He wants you to be His children, not His enemies. He wants you to call Him "Abba, Father" that's why He sent His begotten Son, Jesus Christ to die on the cross, so that through His death, the shedding of blood for our forgiveness has been ransomed.
He is a sinless man and He is Son of God and He is God Himself. but He chose to take the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death --- even death on a cross (Philippians 2:6-8). He sacrificed His body once for all to justify our sins, to take away our sins and nail it to the cross. His blood is precious blood, He is our Lamb, He is Lamb of God. If you believe and put your faith in Him, that He has died for our sins and He resurrected, sit on the right hand of God. God will not only give you mercy, but grace.
He did it because He loves us all, His own creation. He knows that it is impossible for mankind to know the true salvation for God is Holy, Holy, Holy, but we are all sinner unless He came down from heaven above to this earth below in form of human likeness, born in Spirit. All the prophets testified about Him, "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel --- which means, "God with us" (Matthew 1:23). He is the Saviour of the world. He is the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father, except through Him (John 14:6). He is the Word of God who became flesh. For in beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
If we believe in Him, we will not only receive God's forgiveness, but He will no more hide Himself from you. You will receive all the blessing that He has prepared for you since the beginning of the creation. Salvation is gift, Repentance is gift, gaith is Gift, God will not give them to you if you not draw closer to Him. If you are not humble yourselves to Him.
So my theist friends, Bible said, "submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up (James 4:7-10).
The word is near you, it is in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you are confess and are saved (Romans 10:8-10).
Pray to Him, my friends. Go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you (Matthew 6:6). If you truly seek Him with all your heart and confess all of your sins to Him until your heart satisfy, something miraculously with start to happen inside you. River of living water will start to flow from your belly like electricity and flow swept all over your body and cleanse you. You will feel God's Presence. If you have not receive that, you are not finish confessing yet, you still hide something from Him. We are all naked in His eyes, He knows all about us, He is our Creator, He just wants us to be honest to Him.
And if you have struggled with your faith and God is satisfy with you. He will pour down His Holy Spirit, He will change your heart, from stony heart to heart of flesh, He will change your nature from sinful nature to godliness, He will renew your mind so that your freewill will work in accordance to His great will that He has predestined for you before the creation of the world. He will give you peace in your heart that you can't ask for more. You will wish you will die at that time, instead losing your salvation.
You will love your God will all your heart, your mind, your soul, and your strength, you will love your neighbours and you will be able to call Him "Abba, Father" and you will enjoy all the benefit of being children of God. Your chains will be broken. You are no more under yoke of sins.
Don't see those stumbling blocks in the churches. Many of them just confess that "Jesus is Lord" in their mouth while their heart is far from God. God will judge them more strictly for those people are hypocrites, they shut the kingdom of God in men's face. They themselves do not enter, not will let those who are trying to enter. Some of them travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, they make him twice as much a son of hell as they are.
Don't let any people rob your salvation, my friends. Ask God's forgiveness and mercy with all your heart and confess it with your mouth, pray to Him and He will make you whole, He will give you Gift of God and grace. Your body will be His temple, God will dwell inside you. You will always full of love, faith and hope. Please, if you are tired doing ceremonial religion tradition, go to your room and pray, wrestle with Him until He bless you and pour out His Spirit. Before you receive that, you will always be the enemies of God.
"Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebeliion (Hebrews 3:15). Surrender all, be reconcile with God through Jesus Christ that has died for you on the cross and resurrected again. And through His power of resurrection, you have hope about tomorrow, that you have overcomed your death, your flesh, your sinful nature. May the Lord give you burden in your heart to confess your sins.
I know some of you will think that this is stupid and full of foolishness. I am so sad for your soul. For since today, when you hear His voice but you chose to harden your heart, He will harden more and more. He will send you powerful delusion so that you will only believe in lie and all will be condemned because you refuse the truth (1 Thessalonians 2:11-12).
1 Corinthians 1:18
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Now, I am looking forward for you to answer my question: "Why do you believe in God?" God bless you
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