What if you lost everything?
- Locked due to inactivity on Mar 13, '17 3:54am
Thread Topic: What if you lost everything?
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Imagine youve lost everything, everything youve ever used to build your identity and your personality. No more fandoms, books, subcultures, favorite things, internet, entertainment, hopes and dreams.
All wealth, health, comfort, power, and ability has been peeled away. Your strength and reputation fade away. Your family, friends, and relationships abandon you.
What would you be left with if you were only left with yourself?
If you were to die today, how would you feel about the life youve lived? Was there ever a part of you that has mourned over the state of this world? The hatred, abuse, war, death, destruction, and injustice? Of course we all see it, but deep down we believe we are generally good people and havent done anything that bad.
But havent we all contributed to the problem? Havent we all lied, envied, and hurt other people? Weve turned blind eyes to the sick, broken, poor, and those less fortunate than us. As individuals and as a collective, we havent been able to do all of the things we know we should do. Weve all hated and lusted in our hearts, seeing other human beings as someone in our way or as someone we can use to gain something from. At the heart of all of us, even the best people, we are self-centered, self-seeking and drunk on our pride.
The Bible makes clear whats wrong with our world, and offers the solution. From the beginning, God gave one commandment to Adam and Eve. He gave them the garden to live in and dwell in peacefully, but they had to trust Him, that they should not do the one restriction God put on them, and instead obey Him.
This should have been a simple agreement, but the devil sowed a seed of doubt in their hearts. They believed the lie that God was keeping something good from them, that if they ate of this fruit, they would become gods. (Genesis 3:1-5) They decided to choose self-interest and power, to forsake and rebel against their Creator. This is the heart of all sin, as all sin starts with turning against God.
But before God sends them out, He made a promise of reconciliation. (Genesis 4:15) He promises a Savior (the Messiah) will come and destroy the devil. God is holy, and He will pour out justice against all sin, but we know also that He is loving and merciful. (1 John 4:8-10, Romans 5:8, John 3:16-17, Ephesians 2:4-5) He has given His creation the ability to choose between good and evil, and whether or not we will serve Him. He never forces us to love Him back.
In the Old Testament, God creates the nation of Israel which shall reveal His law and His heart to the world. The Passover and the temple sacrifices reveal the truth that the blood is the life, and that the penalty of sin is death. Mankind can never make themselves sinless or earn their way to Heaven. There needs to be a covering, and later on a cleansing, that involves sinless blood.
Abraham also foreshadows this when he has to choose to sacrifice the one thing he loved the most, his only son Isaac. He knew that God had promised him that a great nation would come from Isaac, so by faith he knew God would be able to raise him from the dead. (Hebrews 11:17-19) This is worship. We surrender all of our heart to God because we know He is worthy and able to do all things. (Ephesians 3:20)
Soon after God gives His law to the Israelites and brings them into their land, it becomes clear just how incapable human beings are at being righteous when were walking in our own strength. I just finished reading through the book of Judges, and its horrific how depraved we become when we forsake God and do whats right in our own eyes.
Yet God never forgets His promise, and years later the Messiah came. The King came into the world as a Servant to pay the price we could not pay. (1 Corinthians 6:20)
Isaiah 53 describes how the Messiah would suffer and bring salvation to the world. This prophecy sticks out to me so much as such a clear picture of Jesus in the Old Testament, how He is despised yet brings healing to the very creatures that reject Him. He could have ended it before it ever started, but He is faithful to do His Fathers work to the very end. Jesus, the King of kings, humbles himself and takes on human flesh to serve us.
In the New Testament, He gives the Holy Spirit to His people, that we can learn of Him, live for Him, and serve Him. He didnt tell us to clean ourselves up and then come to Him. We cant. What we are called to do is to believe that He, Jesus Christ, is the only begotten Son of God and to put our faith in Him. This involves repenting (turning from sin and darkness to the One True Living God) and following Him forever. Not because were forced to, but because we love Him and want to. Were called to count the cost of following Him, (Luke 14:26-33) and indeed it involves forsaking anything that keeps us from being in relationship with Him, but when we know its worth it, we want to.
Throughout the New Testament, God reveals how all believers worldwide are part of the Church, and that the Church is Christs bride. That means all those who truly believe in and love Christ will want to be faithful to Him, to not go after other gods since this is spiritual adultery. This is also pictured in the Old Testament, when Israel forsakes God for the pagan gods of the others nations around them. We can recognize that a cheating wife doesnt actually love her husband if she cheats on him and wants nothing to do with him.
Yet earthly love is a mere shadow of something greater, since we were created to personally know and love God. Thats why sin is so damaging and horrible. Sin separates us from God, who is perfect and holy, and apart from Him we will never actually be at peace inside. Sin destroys us inside, whether we recognize it in the midst of it or not.
Salvation is simple and available to all. It is a gift, that we dont have to be a slave to wickedness and darkness anymore. Its the way we can return to the purpose we long for so deeply in our hearts. And whether we know it or not, we have a choice. If something isnt right in our lives, we can continue doing the same thing over and over again only to get the same dead end results, or we can humble ourselves, recognize something is wrong, and search for the answer.
The best thing I know to tell you is that if you have doubts, questions and reservations about the Bible, all the answers are there, but you have to approach it with an honest desire to understand why this is what God says. If you open your heart to God, He will make Himself known to you.
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Isaiah 1:18
One last note, I know that in the past you may have encountered distorted forms of Christianity. There have been people who have identified as Christians that have done abusive, hurtful, and even greedy things to people. There are preachers out there getting rich off watered down sermons, and people screaming at certain groups of people without looking in the mirror themselves. When I see this, I get sick in my stomach because I know that God hates when religious people act blindly self righteous. But I want to make clear that during Jesus three year ministry, He confronted the Jewish religious leaders (Pharisees and Sadducees) in their hypocrisy, and pointed them back to Gods true judgment and righteousness.
If anything, the hatred we see nowadays (especially in the divisive political environment) should confirm all the more our need for God, that humanity is broken and that the further we run from God, the more things will decline. -
I pray for you guys daily. In the past the idea of writing about God on here terrified me, because I was a hypocrite and didnt really know what I believed. When I write these big walls of text, I just want to share with you the hope that Ive found. Everything I written about, Ive had to experience in my own life. Youre loved beyond what you can imagine, and youre alive for a reason.
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This sermon was really a blessing to me and what I've been going through lately. I believe it's so important that we draw near to what the Word of God says and not be swept away by false teachers and empty religion. Jesus reveals the heart of God and heals our lives. Since this ties into a lot of what I wrote here, I pray this helps you understand the Gospel better. -
Le1F ExperiencedI alreddy have but half of my things
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So what gives your life meaning? What's beyond all the shallow things this world offers?
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You know what I like what your saying
We don't pay attention to the weak and
less fortunate at least most of us have and
im actually quite Ashamed of myself thanks
for pointing that out -
My life has no meaning beyond any of this. God's 3d anyway.
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The thing is, although we can recognize that there is good and evil in the world, deep down we are still drawn to do things out of self interest. The Pharisees are an example of people who proclaimed they believed in the law, and on the outside they seemed to be righteous and religious, but on the inside they we're filled with pride and hatred toward God.
Deuteronomy 10:16, Deuteronomy 30:6, and Romans 2:29 all speak of the "circumcision of the heart", how God focuses on the heart of a person since it's what comes out of our hearts that defiles us. (Mark 7:20-23) Sin starts in our hearts.
Circumcision in the Old Covenant was to physically separate Israel from the pagan nations around, but it points to the need to be right with God in our hearts. Just like how the Passover blood on the door post points to the need to have the sinless blood of Christ on the door posts of our hearts.
We were created to be in relationship with God. We can't follow Him without first coming to Him and surrendering our lives to Him. This involves repentance toward God and faith toward Jesus Christ. (Acts 20:21) He will give you the Holy Spirit and dwell with you, leading you into all truth.
Paul writes extensively about salvation in the book of Romans, and how we become followers of Jesus Christ.
As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. (Romans 3:10-12)
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23)
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23)
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9-10)
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10:13)
Romans 8, one of my favorite chapters, goes on into how we should live when we have put our faith in Jesus. It's all about walking with God and being filled with the Holy Spirit. It's about living for the purpose we we're created for and having power over the sin and darkness that seeks to destroy us.
Before I came to Christ, I used to use fandom and romance to escape from reality. I hated my life in the real world, so I entered a world of escapism. It got to the point where I became so self destructive and I didn't realize I was hurting the God I claimed to love and other people in the process. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
It was difficult and painful, but I couldn't bear the guilt and lies any longer. I cried out to God, confessing I was broken and I couldn't stop myself. I asked Him to take the vicious cycle away from me so I would no longer be a hypocrite and truly live for Him.
There's no doubt in my mind that God exists, because He's made the impossible happen in my life and in my heart. Today I am not like the broken teenager I once was. That burning inside is gone, and now I have peace and purpose that transcends anything this world has ever offered me.
God's justice and love are one. His love would be empty if He wasn't just and tolerated sin. We don't have to go through this world alone and try to be "good enough" in our own lies. He's not some impersonal being that just left us here to do what we want for no reason. He is personal, holy, good, and loving. He heals us if we want Him to. He is God. -
Another great sermon. -
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
(John 3:16-21) -
Here's a Gospel centered message from my church. Hopefully it can answer some questions, especially how the Old Covenant and Testament points to Christ.
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