Any Christians here? Need to ask you something.

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Yes, I have. Right now I'm waiting (waiting lists are quite long). I get to see someone within 3 weeks or so. Seems like an awfully long time until then though.

There is such a lack of mental health resources. One time I had an appointment in 2 months time and they bumped me another 3 months. I ended up getting help elsewhere. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and you'll get there.

Not quite how I read what the Bible says, heres how I see it.

The Devil, Lucifer, was the Cherib orginally tasked with looking after the Earth, but he wanted the worship of Man, something only God is allowed, he in effect, wanted the position of God, so he convinced Adam and Eve to rebel against God and reject Gods soverignty over them.

In Ezekiel 28, a message is given to the King of Tyre that also fits the Devil:-

13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.


But Satan wasnt put in a pit or cast to the Earth then for in Job we read that Satan was still allowed in Heaven:- 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.

7 And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.

Satan gets thrown to the Earth just before Gods Kingdom comes, after a short while confined to Earth, he will be bound in the pit for 1000 years.
When the Devil is thrown to Earth, you will certainly know about, his Fallen Angel followers join him here as well

Revelation 11
7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.

9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.

Yes, Lucifer was once the angel of light, and yes, he did want God's job (so to speek), he thought he was better than God in some regard and so God casted him into the pits of Hell, after which, satan tempted Eve with knowledge, and then after that Eve tempted Adam with the same, and of course they were thrown out of paradise and the garden was burned down.

Please provide scriptures to give credence to your view that Satan was cast into "hell" before he even tempted Eve, also a scripture that says the garden was burnt down. As far as I read, Eden was still there until the Flood, it was guarded by two cherubs with flaming swords.

All my Bibles have Satan being bound and thrown into the Pit, (Tartarus I belive rather than hell), during the 1000 years of Jesus rulership, after which we have the resurrection followed by Satan being released for a short while leading the Nations to Armageddon, then he is destroyed.

As its been over a 1000 years since Adam, I dont recall reading that Satan was released, we had the resurrection etc and as revelation 21 says, death is no more".

Revelation 20 20 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.

You can either believe me or not, I don't care either way. I don't have time to sit down and show anyone why I believe what I do, it would literally take hours of preperation to show the evidence properly and it serves no purpose other than to provide satisfaction for you and others to dispute whatever scripture I put forth on this topic, showing why I believe what I do. That is not my purpose here, someone asked a question about beliefs (not necessarily scripture), I stated mine, enough said, it doesn't matter whether or not anyone believes me, even if it's the OP because that is between the OP and whatever they choose to believe, it's not for me to say, only to provide a new point of view.

You believe you have a justified, true belief and you aren't willing to substantiate your claims with evidence?

Did you not just read what I said about it taking hours of preperation time to do so, and that I simply don't have that kind of time on my hands right now?

I don't care if anyone here believes what I've said, that's not the point of this topic and I will not get into a debate with people, like you, who think people have to have evidence to support everything they say that they personally believe because you don't believe them. That's just arrogant quite honestly, it's not about you, it's about the OP, and what they choose to believe is up to them, and like you, they can either believe what I said to them regarding their questions, or not.

The OP asked us, how, as a Christian, each of us keeps faith alive, etc. which inevitably has different answers depending on personal experience. I gave my perspective and that's all I care to do here, everything that you and others would spew about "proof of beliefs" and such nonsense shouldn't even be in the topic and frankly that's a question that only people who require evidence to believe, would ask, and that's not the mark of faith at all.

My experiences and beliefs are in the topic, you can either take them to heart or leave them be, I don't care, but I don't have to justify anything to anyone here, and if some of you have a problem with that, too bad, that's your problem, not mine, and not anyone elses.

God Bless

As best I can tell, God does not directly intervene in our lives, or at least not with clear evidence. He may do so in the backround.

But he does provide the last ditch friend & confident and someone who knows what is trully good in this world. He is also unlike any human which like me may fail, but is the ultimate understander and forgiver who will never leave you. And in your inner thinking and consideration his advice has a way to come thru and is the best. Only you can leave him.

But this is all based on hope and so lives in a seperate part of our exsistance, and is something no one else can ever reach or take from you.

I used to be Christian and attended church regularly. My deconversian from Christianity began when someone accused me of being nothing like a Christian and that I was hellbound. It was an unfair accusation. Because of my AS, I was always treated differently in church. I was always a "project" and was always treated more harshly than others. The less I was involved in religious life, the more harsh they became. It usually took 2-3 days for me to recover from a morning at church.
Today, I am free of religion and all the anxiety that came with it. It's odd that I have never been freer than when I was "free in Jesus".

I'm sorry you had to suffer from the intolerance of pricks calling themselves Christians. My church thankfully treats my daughter and me much better than that.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Agreed, real Christians don't act like that Danimal. If they're judging and condemning you, then they're breaking their own beliefs by doing so, the Bible tells us to love our neighbor and to not judge other people (which is clearly something that people ignore these days). It was Jesus who once said "let those without sin, cast the first stone" (while defending a woman who was about to be stoned, specifically for adultery if I remember right), and in that, we must remember that none of us are "clean", and none of us have a right to condemn others for any reason. Judgement is strictly God's job and only after the gathering together, will that take place. People who judge others, have a mark on their record for every time they do so, and they'll have to live with that in the here-after.
I'm sorry you've had a bad experience with Christians, this seems to be a common occurrance in late years, since a lot of Christians like to ignore our basic tennants. I hope you know that not all Christians are like that, there are those of us who wouldn't do that.

There are many who treat g-d as a personal butler. All to often I see people sitting on their ass expecting g-d to magically do something. I believe our actions are a conduit for blessings.

Jesus identified the main "commandment" as this: Love your neighbor or fellow man they way you love yourself. Apparently the people at your church missed this.

ruveyn

Or perhaps they fail to love themselves too.

Exactly, too many people expect God to make their lives better because they feel deserving of it and "that's what God should do if he's a loving God" (I've heard that one so many times it's not even funny), that's not the way it works. God helps those who help themselves, and when praying to God and asking for things to get better, people (like you said) fail to realize that God doesn't work that way, he'll never do the work for anyone, rather he'll give you what you need to do it yourself, and if you don't need anything to do so, you'll likely not hear an answer. People ask for guidence all the time and why do they not hear an answer 90% of the time? Simple, that's what the Bible is for, to give us guidence in our time of need.
Like you said also, what we chose to do is directly connected to the blessings we receive, if we live according to God's word (the Bible's tennants, everyone, you know what I mean), we're blessed for doing so. If we stray from the path, we find our lives in wanting before we know it, we're wondering why.
We're constanly being tested and taught, and so many can't see the teachings, they don't understand that they're being tested in life not because they've done something wrong, but rather because they need strength for the path ahead, and whatever ordeal people go through for a long period of time, is what that's for. "What doesn't kill you, makes your stronger".
The Bible says that God would never put us through something that we cannot handle... something to think about, whatever people are going through right now, you can handle it in some form or another, and things will get better.