Hello guys,it has been for quite some time now and I can’t seem to find sense in religion anymore (Christianity) to be specific. I go to church I pray but still I have so many questions that contradict my faith in a very big way.Every time I go to church people are talking about Money…Like how you are supposed to tithe without asking a single questions becsuse the bible orders us to tithe!!! I talked to a pastor coz I was too conflicted and he told me that no matter my financial situation, I should first tithe then God will provide…What if my budget is fixed to my earnings?? That aside ,I cant digest why God had to create us in his own image ,put in the garden of Eden with the tree that was to make mankind sin right in the middle. Was it his will for man to sin so that he will punish him in eternal fire?? The bible says that he knew us before we were born…Does that mean that all we go through is God’s plan??Things like illness, accidents financial crisis… Why fo we suffer yet we are promised that He has good plans for us??? I have so many questions!!! If I have sinned for asking,I pray for forgiveness but I honestly need help.These questions are killing me.
The Bible was written by a person with a vivid imagination. It started as a story then others built on that story and incorporated some true events that happened in their own lifetime. Some events were exaggerated and others omitted. Others were misinterpreted during translation. Most of the interpreters and early translators were members of the clergy so they had vested interests in some aspects such as tithes and offerings. I intentionally choose to ignore sections about tithe and offerings and replace them with charity. I would rather buy lunch/clothes for orphans than pay tithe. Maybe I’m weird but that’s just me.
Finally,you can confidently say this[ATTACH=full]225566[/ATTACH]
Most organized religion is fraud. Beware.
You might wanna change a church. Remember;
[SIZE=7]2 Timothy 4:3-4 [/SIZE]
3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
All the best. Jesus saves.
It is no sin to have questions, however, the best place to start looking for answers is not from the pastor but from the Bible so that you can then compare with what the pastor says. Rem the bereans? To give you an example you will learn from the Bible that we are no longer required to tithe. That was a law which was done with when Jesus died n resurrected.
Eg
Galatians 2:21, NIV: "I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!’
So these questions should spur you to dig into your Bible more. Grace to you
Thanks
I have been a Christian all my life, I went to a Catholic high school mass every day - well every evening before dinner, we would recite chapters of mostly the Psalms, so I can recite a few chapters, because every day say Monday it was the same chapter ,so do that for four years, it settles in your mind.I knew how to pray the Novena, I knew how to pray the rosary I never owned one tho , ever I went to Anglican church with my mom, did the catechism, sprinkling water baptism, my dad who never went to church except for weddings and funerals actually forced my siblings and I to go through the catechism. He didnt allow skipping church even if you were ill. He is the same way to this day. Then I went to a Christian university, there was service twice a week , for everybody, all workers and students, then on Sunday there was morning and evening prayers. So Christianity for me was a default setting. I also attended Parkie Baptist and was baptised in a pool, I have a cert to prove it. So basically it was religion. It was my parents and grandparents’ religion- both my grandmothers were church leaders -in Catholic and Methodist churches respectively and so it was mine by lineage - like my nose and my teeth. Like the family traditions and stories Ive inherited.Thats how it was, the way of life of my fore fathers.
Then one day I was sitted watching a female preacher on TV ,I believe it was KTN, I wont mention her ,she has since fallen from grace. I don’t remember what the sermon was about. I believe it was easily twenty years ago but I remember that period of my life like it was yesterday. While watching the program with my mom, I just felt light headed and like I was feeling high and I could hear my mom from a far, like I was disconnected , usually I hate watching TV with her , because she interupts it with alot of talking and I am those people who when I am watching something, the house could be on fire and I wouldnt notice. So from that day, something spectacular happened to me.The Holy Spirit entered my spirit as I was watching TV much the same way, people get a spirit of depression from listening to heavy metal rock music and suicidal spirit from playing blue whale,promiscuity from watching porn or from seeing badly dressed women who thru your eyes possess you a spirit of lust and subsequently promiscuity - the things we watch and listen to is a medium thru which either holy or demonic spirit can enter. Maybe the closest thing to it is when you are madly in love with someone but amplified. Nothing else matters, theyre on your mind 24’7, there the first thing on your mind when you wake up and the last when you go down every night. I was in love with God. I didnt answer any altar call because I believed I was a baptized and well, saved so altar calls werent for people like me who are saturated with different denominational Christianity. So all of a sudden, I couldnt get enough of God, I would attend morning service , from say 6.30am then go to work - I was on an internship - I could not wait for lunch time , I would go back. It was a church in the CBD whose leader appears also to have fallen from grace, and seems to do nothing but ask for money on his tv channel. I am not even sure how I started going there but its like it just happened. Those days there was no talk about money,tithes and all the drama churches have nowadays of selling holy oil,brooms, holy water, books, soil anything you can think of , that can be used as a point of contact.
Lemme tell you, it was the happiest time of my life, when I’d get home, I would hurry up to my room to pray, like I couldnt get enough of prayer, my heart would always be yearning for alone time with God.I could not forget to read my Bible because I feel its drawing me like a magnet. When I’d attend service, the place was so heavy with this intoxicating prescence, the place was always full , infact most people were the ones standing. It was amazing I cant even explain it to you. I was happier than Ive ever been and it was so peace giving, nothing would phase, then at the time I was having this health condition which begun when I was in high school and some lady who worked at my school told me God asked her to pray for me to get healed of that condition. It wasnt something she knew about so, she prayed and in a couple of minutes I checked and I was healed. Just like that. I had never prayed about it because I thought it was a lifetime chronic illness. It was at this point I understood that you can be born and raised and educated in the church yet never in your entire life have encountered God in form of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in your Spirit and this is why Jesus only beef was with the religious class of His time because He could see that religion is the greatest enemy of a personal encounter and walk with the Spirit of God. In Matthew 23 Jesus speaks of this, 13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves,nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Meaning the religious class was a stumbling block to those in dire need of God. Jesus in His death tore the curtain that only priests could enter into the Most Holy of Holies which was where the Spirit of God dwelt, meaning that men can access God directly , no need to got thru a pastor, a priest,a saint. God is accesible to everyone who trully desires to meet with Him. As Jesus put it to the Samaritan woman in John 4, as the woman became religious with Jesus, in verse 19 , “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem Believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” So this is the point , if you dont have the Holy Spirit indwelling you , YOU CAN NOT WORSHIP GOD. All you can be is religious, superstituous, doing rituals and rites mechanically because you have no Holy Spirit. The crux of it all is the Holy Spirit. So you’re completely justified in feeling lost and confused and it makes no sense to your mind and your pastor isnt making it better, instead of telling you to seek God to give you His Holy Spirit, he’s telling you pay tithe FIRST then God will provide. Like obey stuff you cant understand from someone you dont know. Ofcourse you’ll feel exactly how you feel. You can only tithe if it makes sense to your spirit if it doesnt make sense , theres no point in doing it. God looks at the heart, if you give out of a conflicted spirit, its better you had never given bcz to God the money means nothing, its your heart, the attitude of your heart.
2 Corinthians 7:9 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
God loves a cheerful giver not a manipulated giver or a fearful giver that if I wont give tithe God wont be happy. The devil is the one who is out to force people to do what he wants, God is about free will. you do what He wants because you are one with Him, you are His child, and You love Him. For God has not given us a spirit of fear but a spirit of love ,power and sound judgement 2 Timothy 1:7.
So this was my turning point in my understanding or perception about God. So I will try to address your doubts from that perspective. The first thing I’d like to tell you, and sadly so, is that a pastor may not be the best way to know God because many pastors are in ministry to make a living. Like this is where they make their living. So if you’ve ever had a business,ran a business , or you make a living working freelance not salaried, people will go to ANY lengths to make ends meet. So you cant really begrudge them, unless maybe they work for the church and are paid a salary like how ACK do, thats the one I know of. Then the person isnt really free to minister without the main agenda being how to make ends meet. I think now, in hindsight, I can conclusively say that , Jesus knew that the two things wrestling for man’s heart is God and Mammon- God and Money and that man can not serve both and nowhere is that dual clearer than among men and women of the cloth,ministers of the gospel. Does it mean believers should be poor,not at all because all the Fathers of faith from Abraham ,to Isaac, To Jacob, to Joseph and even the righteous Job were very wealthy but God had their hearts.Abraham left the land of his father who was very wealthy ( this is the place Islam originated -the father of Abraham) yet God told Abraham leave everything and go to a land where I will show you, and Abraham left with nothing at 90 years of age and the Lord made a covenant with him ,saying walk before Me and be blameless and I will greatly increase you.
Paul knew of the conundrum of a minister depending on his flock for his entire susteinance and so he had a legit side hustle,he was a tent maker and he warned the early christians that nobody in ministry should eat if they dont do work and ministry wasnt the work he was talking about and Paul said, anybody who doesnt provide for his family under the guise of ministry, is worse than an infidel or a non believer.And the other thing with being independent financially as a minister is that you can ruffle feathers but if you depend on your congregation to pay you , you must toe the line, because he who holds the purse strings holds the power and the only Person who should hold the power over any minister’s life is God and God alone. God can and does provide if its really His work ,His ministry started by Him. Not some business that some charismatic charlattan has seen he can make a pretty penny off of some desperate folk by preaching positivity message round the clock. Thru out my walk with the Lord, He has forbid me to seek out any pastor for anything because He wants me to seek Him directly and have confidence that I have access to God and not just I but every believer , as said in Hebrews , without faith IN GOD, not in the pastor or pope or saints ,but God ,it is impossible to please God for EVERYBODY who comes to Him must believe that He (God) exists and is a rewarder of those who seek Him diligently. God does not need your money , its the pastor who does. What God wants is your heart because where a man’s heart is therein lies his treasure. Thats all ama say about ministers and money and counsel or advise from ministers.
So about whats in the Bible , there is the logos word and then there is the Rhema word. A man can read the logos(printed word) and get absolutely nothing out of it. The Bible can not be helpful to anybody including those who gat PhDs in thelogy and can read it in Aramaic,Greek and Hebrew -the original languages it was written in. The words in the Bible must speak to you , as in really speak to you, in the voice of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you. That Holy Spirit must be in you, in your spirit,at one with you, then when you wanna read it, the Holy Spirit shows where to read thats relevant to you at that moment and time in your life, you read the words and the deeper revelation thats relevant to you,for the season you are in at that time. The Spirit of God speaks to YOU, like you can read a single verse and the things the Holy Spirit reveals from that one verse, is so mindblowing. And thats what will keep you coming back not because of the printed word(logos) but for the amazing trinklets in the voice of the Holy Spirit revealing to you the deeper ,hidden meaning in that verse(Rhema word) . In I think John first verse,first verse it says and the Word became God. The Word Before Christ was logos , written on tablets and scrolls but after Christ came , it became Spirit. You cant understand it with your mortal and finite mind because its no longer just whats written , its the Spirit of God for everyone who believes. Just like it says in Romans, the gospel is the POWER of God for salvation(from death,illness, eternal hell, Satan, the corruption in the world etc) for everyone who believes. Because I used to wonder how can the same Bible be applicable to every Christian black,white, male,female but thru that experience I understood it is not the Logos word,its the Rhema Word -the Spirit of God becoming the Word, the timely, relevant Word for you individual situation,individual understanding.
So after these many things Ive told you, finally brother, understand this : the things of the spirit can only be perceived or understood spiritual, the carnal/physical man/mind can not understand spiritual things because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Cor 2:9-13 says,
9 But as it is written:
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the [d]Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
All I can tell you is that God promises that if you draw near to Him , He will draw near to you James 4:8. And that is a promise. God has put His Word above His Name.
[SIZE=4]Jeremiah 29:12-14[/SIZE]
12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity;
Go to Him in prayer and ask for the Holy Spirit, thats the starting point.
Luke 11:9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11 If a son asks for [e]bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
You can also listen to expositions of the Word from Pastor Jon Courson and Pastor Chuck Smith. Just google you will get their podcasts or on Youtube start with the gospels and Psalms. Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you what you should listen to each day. God is faithful
Blessed!
John 10:
27 My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. [U][B]No[/B][/U] one can snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of My Father’s hand.