Ask Me Help Desk - Faith is not

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I've been a Christian all my life. My earthly journey is almost over. I look forward to again seeing my parents and other relatives, my friends who predeceased me, and especially my younger son who died three years from a pulmonary embolism.

It sounds like you give your all, helping the ones you love. Let's hope were not standing with the Goats when greeting our loved ones for the final time. I look forward to heaven and giving praise to my GOD. What a wonderful feeling!

I always feel the need to give up this life (just get up and walk away) but I enjoy my family and friends too much.

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Originally Posted by waltero

It sounds like you give your all, helping the ones you love. Let's hope were not standing with the Goats when greeting our loved ones for the final time. I look forward to heaven and giving praise to my GOD. What a wonderful feeling!

I always feel the need to give up this life (just get up and walk away) but I enjoy my family and friends too much.

Here's a story I wrote about my guardian angel who's still with me. We'll get to Heaven before you will, so look me up and we'll introduce you around.

AngelWolf: A True Story
by
Wondergirl, c2015

I’m five years old.
My guardian angel is AngelWolf.
He’s my special friend.
He’s tall and strong.
He wears a long white angel robe over his thick gray fur.
His ears stick up through his halo.
Sometimes when he wiggles his ears, his halo falls off.
That makes me giggle.

Only I can see AngelWolf.
Oh, and God can see him, too.
And the other angels, of course.

Mommy can’t see AngelWolf.
“Mommy, you’re sitting on AngelWolf’s lap!”

Daddy can’t see AngelWolf.
“Daddy, you’re standing on AngelWolf’s foot!”

When it’s time for lunch, AngelWolf and I sit at my little table.
AngelWolf is too big for the little chair.
His knees stick up almost to his chin.
His angel skirt bunches up around his legs.
He looks silly, but I don’t dare laugh.
I don’t want to hurt his feelings.
(Mommy and Daddy say, “Be kind to people and animals.”)
Also, I don’t want AngelWolf to be mad at me.

Mommy sets out two placemats with pictures of flowers on them.
Then she puts out two little plates, one for me and one for AngelWolf.
Mommy folds napkins in half the long way,
Puts one to the right of each little plate,
Makes pb&j sandwiches on soft Wonder white bread,
But refuses to cut off the crusts.
“That would be wasteful,” she says.
Daddy says crusts put hair on your chest.
(I don’t think I want hair on my chest, but AngelWolf doesn’t mind more hair on his.)
Then she cuts the sandwiches into triangles especially for AngelWolf and me.
She puts the sandwich triangles on the little plates.
(AngelWolf apparently eats his triangles and the crusts because they always disappear.)

AngelWolf takes a nap when Darlene Hayes comes over to play with me.
Darlene lives right up the hill in a big white house.
She’s my best friend (except for AngelWolf, of course).
She has a Cocker Spaniel puppy.
When I go to her house, we comb the puppy’s curly ear fur.

But AngelWolf always stays next to me when Kenneth is around.
Kenneth lives next door.
Kenneth is the neighborhood bully.
He is fat.
And he is mean!

Once he pushed my tricycle into the ditch next to the street.
I ran home crying.
Another time, he even tried to cut down our brick house.
He used silver school scissors to saw at a corner.
How dare he hurt my house!
Screaming for Mommy, I ran into the house.
“Make Kenneth stop!”
She stuck her head out of the back door and told Kenneth to go home.
He looked at me and made mad faces.
“You’ll be sorry,” he said.
AngelWolf protects me from Kenneth.
Sometimes Kenneth walks toward our house.
AngelWolf whispers to me to go indoors.
I do.
Then I am safe.

Another time, Daddy was in the driveway.
He was backing up the car to go someplace.
He’s a Lutheran pastor so he was probably going to do pastor work.
He didn’t see me.
I was behind the car on my tricycle.
AngelWolf was sitting on the grass and watching me.
Daddy felt a bump as he knocked me over.
AngelWolf shouted at Daddy, “Stop the car!”
Daddy must have heard AngelWolf yelling
’Cause he stopped the car and quickly got out.
He picked me up.
I was crying.
But I was okay.
And my trike was okay, too.

When I was a grownup, AngelWolf would ride shotgun when I drove to my public library job. He and I had a lot of fun challenging each other with Dewey Decimal duels or reciting Bible verses. (I always won the Dewey Decimal duels, and AngelWolf always won the Bible-verse challenges. AngelWolf taught me a memory trick that the Flood story is mostly in Genesis 7. The number 7 looks like a faucet that water – a “flood” -- comes out of. Ha ha! Now you won’t forget either.)

The years went by fast.
Now it’s 2015.
AngelWolf and I are retired.
We nap a lot.
Sometimes we text each other just for fun. (We have cell phones and are so modern!)
But we still eat pb&j sandwiches cut into triangles.
And we still eat the crusts.

For a change of pace, we put on SueBee honey instead of jelly.
And now we eat 100% whole wheat bread and take vitamin D3.
AngelWolf and I are very “with it”: we read e-books on our Kindles.
We watch “Jeopardy” and “Big Bang Theory.”
We still have Dewey Decimal duels and Bible-verse challenges now and then.

Someday I will die and AngelWolf will fly with me in his arms up to Heaven.
In Heaven, we will still be best friends.
Maybe in Heaven we won’t have to eat crusts.

Wow. I jumped from the first page of this thread to the last one and apparently didn't miss a bloomin' thing in between.

Come on, children. How about we try sticking to topics?

"Faith" is a lousy word for it, because the English word has become so watered-down as to be virtually meaningless. Unfortunately, we don't have a better one yet, though I tend to prefer "trust."

Actual faith has a defined basis. I don't have faith that my car will get me from point A to point B because I just blindly figure it will cuz it's a car. The faith I have in my car is based on how I maintain it, its past performance, regular checkups, and all the rest. Faith in God is similar.

If it doesn't have some kind of basis that at least justifies its consideration, it's not faith/trust. It's assumption, usually more like presumption. When Bob Harrington declared that he believes in God because he wants to, it set pop-level apologetics back by a decade. It was a stupid statement, because one can say the same thing about the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

If we want to examine biblical faith, we need to look at the people who had it, especially the apostles. Athos, you were mistaken about one thing: we have a fair idea when the gospels were written and all were written before the close of the first century. We have manuscript fragments of them going back as far as the first quarter of the second century, which is the terminus ad quem for their composition.

What was the basis of the apostles' faith, a faith that was unshakable to the point of giving up their lives?

Jesus' resurrection. They witnessed their leader risen from death. He declared that his resurrection proved that he is the way to God. For that matter, his resurrection is the ultimate proof of the existence of God. It transformed them from a defeated, lost group of working men into a band of preachers who changed the entire world.

One of the door-knocking missionaries once tried to tell me that you can tell something is true by how it makes you feel. Also wrong. That's faith in your own internal organs, and what you feel might be God and it might be too much pizza. Genuine faith has a solidly defined object as well as a solidly defined basis.

For Christianity, the person of Jesus constitutes both. The historical probability that he really rose from the dead is the basis, and the person who rose and told us about himself is the object. He said to trust him to be our reconciliation to God, and to prove that trust by a lifestyle that focuses on others in his name.

In fact, the entire Bible can be summed up in two words: "Trust me."

Okay, for the pedantic among us (of whom I am chief!), two words and some punctuation.

That's what I have to offer.

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One of the door-knocking missionaries once tried to tell me that you can tell something is true by how it makes you feel. Also wrong. That's faith in your own internal organs, and what you feel might be God and it might be too much pizza. Genuine faith has a solidly defined object as well as a solidly defined basis.

For Christianity, the person of Jesus constitutes both. The historical probability that he really rose from the dead is the basis, and the person who rose and told us about himself is the object. He said to trust him to be our reconciliation to God, and to prove that trust by a lifestyle that focuses on others in his name.

Well said.

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One of the door-knocking missionaries once tried to tell me that you can tell something is true by how it makes you feel. Also wrong. That's faith in your own internal organs, and what you feel might be God and it might be too much pizza. Genuine faith has a solidly defined object as well as a solidly defined basis.

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Well said.

ditto.

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The person who rose and told us about himself is the object.

Who did Jesus tell?

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Prove that trust by a lifestyle that focuses on others in his name.

My take on it is a bit different; Love that trust, by a lifestyle that focuses on him. ("focusing on others")- If you are well liked, something is amiss?

@dwashbur:
I just seen your post (crazy, it just popped up?!?) I thought the Above Quotes were from WG. I believe we are saying the same thing...hard to tell where WG is coming from half the time.

@WG
It really Bothers me that a self proclaimed Christian doesn't put much faith in the written Word...And that's alright I suppose. Jesus said a little faith can move a mountain.

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[FONT=Arial, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif][COLOR=#000000]It really Bothers me that a self proclaimed Christian doesn't put much faith in the written Word...And that's alright I suppose.

It is one thing to not put much faith in the written word. It is an entirely different matter to live in opposition to the written word.

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Jesus said a [/COLOR][/FONT]little faith can move a mountain.

I think a fair reading of that passage shows that Jesus did not at all say that.

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Originally Posted by waltero

@WG
It really Bothers me that a self proclaimed Christian doesn't put much faith in the written Word...And that's alright I suppose. Jesus said a little faith can move a mountain.

waltero, I don't understand why you continue to analyze and measure my faith.

Here's a question for you: 1) How does a Christian express his/her faith?

And a related question: 2) How does a Christian express his/her faith so that other Christians are satisfied that it's real and sufficient?

God has promised to preserve his Word. He has done that. We can be assured that the true Word is in the world and will survive no matter how many try to mess it up.

It appears that you are standing in opposition to the written word (should I be bothered)? Standing on God’s Word is a choice.

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How does a Christian express his/her faith?

It goes far beyond our own personal Faith. We don't try to express "our" faith to others. Has More to do with Expressing the Gospel.
(The proclamation of the Gospel is surrounded with marks of respect and honor.)

I get it, you don't want to offend anybody. You are able to stand up for the LGBTQ community, that's fine. But to promote it?
Often times "our faith" get's in the way.

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Originally Posted by waltero

It appears that you are standing in opposition to the written word (should I be bothered)? Standing on God’s Word is a choice.

How on earth did you ever come up with that about me?!

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It goes far beyond our own personal Faith. We don't try to express "our" faith to others.

That's the whole first effort in mission work, in evangelizing -- to share what faith means to me and how it helps me.

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I get it, you don't want to offend anybody. You are able to stand up for the LGBTQ community, that's fine. But to promote it?
Often times "our faith" get's in the way.

Huh???"offend"? -- that never crossed my mind! "promote it" [the LGBT+ community]? -- it's not a choice, waltero!

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How on earth did you ever come up with that about me?!

Post #131, Disturbing (No need to respond). You should chickadee check yourself, before you rickadee wreck yourself.
Just saying.

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Originally Posted by waltero

Post #131, Disturbing

I'd write it again. In fact, I expressed it very well. What's disturbing?

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Originally Posted by dwashbur

Come on, children. How about we try sticking to topics?

Maybe if you showed up here more than once a month and lost that patronizing attitude, we children would do better.

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"Faith" is a lousy word for it, I tend to prefer "trust."

"Faith" is an excellent word whose meaning is well understood by all. "Trust" in this case is a woosy word and does not convey the strength of faith.

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If it doesn't have some kind of basis that at least justifies its consideration, it's not faith/trust. It's assumption, usually more like presumption.

True enough, but I don't think the evangelicals will appreciate your use of "some kind of basis" or "at least justifies" or "consideration". For the evangelicals, they are weak words and phrases in this instance.

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Athos, you were mistaken about one thing: we have a fair idea when the gospels were written and all were written before the close of the first century. We have manuscript fragments of them going back as far as the first quarter of the second century

I never said otherwise. Please grant me the respect of being honest (or more careful) re what I posted here.

Of course they were written before the close of the first century. But those autographs are long lost. The fragments you cite are just that - fragments. They consist of tiny sections of the Gospels and, being so fragmentary, they are of little help in determining the accuracy of the earliest COMPLETE copies we possess. These earliest copies (copies of copies of copies) date to several CENTURIES after the events described. This is more than enough time for scribal errors, edits, and/or changes in the narratives to suit the Church agenda of the day.

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His resurrection is the ultimate proof of the existence of God.

I don't deny that. But this is a matter of faith - the word "proof" is out of place here.

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It transformed them from a defeated, lost group of working men into a band of preachers who changed the entire world.

Well, not the ENTIRE world. And certainly not within the lifetime of those lost working men, which is the implication of your sentence.

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The historical probability that he really rose from the dead is the basis

Hardly "historical, and I notice you use the word "probability".

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He said to trust him to be our reconciliation to God, and to prove that trust by a lifestyle that focuses on others

Others here say that the focus should be on Jesus, not on others. I think your focus is the correct one, but let's not quibble with the others.

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In fact, the entire Bible can be summed up in two words: "Trust me."

Well, I'll quibble with this one. That's a gross exaggeration, but if hyperbole - OK.

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That's what I have to offer.

Thank you for participating. Speaking for at least some of the others, I hope it won't be so long before you offer again. A Biblical scholar is always welcome here.

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LGBT+ community are or have become followers of Jesus – lay and even ordained. If Christian churches would more openly accept, embrace, and love them, even more in the LGBT+ community would become Christians.

Should Churches become recruiting stations?

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If Christian churches would more openly accept, embrace, and love them

Where's the love. Why don't Churches love and accept their lifestyle?

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LGBT+ community are or have become followers of Jesus

Whom are they focused on? Who is willing to be transformed?

Luke 14:26Whoever comes to me and does not hate his father and his mother and his brothers and his sisters and his wife and his children and even himself, he cannot be my disciple.
Matthew 19:29 29And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.

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Originally Posted by waltero

Should Churches become recruiting stations?

Cf. the Great Commission, Matthew 28:19-20.

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Where's the love. Why don't Churches love and accept their lifestyle?

Because far too many Churches/Christians don't know and understand the science of what happens during a pregnancy. Being lesbian or bi or gay or trans or intersex is NOT a choice!

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Whom are they focused on? Are they willing to be transformed? NO.

Yes and many have been, have even become Christian ministers and teachers.

Edited:

Luke 14:26Whoever comes to me and does not hate his father and his mother and his brothers and his sisters and his wife and his children and even himself, he cannot be my disciple.
Matthew 19:29 29And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.

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and even himself, he cannot be my disciple.

Umm, I'm guessing they Don't hate themselves or their lifestyle.

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Being lesbian or bi or gay or trans or intersex is NOT a choice!

Your Science is Bunk! Make a choice. Sorry, I'm going with Jesus on this one.

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Originally Posted by waltero

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Luke 14:26Whoever comes to me and does not hate his father and his mother and his brothers and his sisters and his wife and his children and even himself, he cannot be my disciple.

You put a double negative in there, so it means the opposite of what you probably intended. Oh, I see Luke did that too. Soooo, we have to hate in order to be Jesus' disciple?

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Umm, I'm guessing they Don't hate themselves or their lifestyle.

It's NOT a lifestyle. And yes, they do hate themselves. The medical and psychiatric literature call it dysphoria ("a profound state of unease or dissatisfaction...the opposite of euphoria. In a psychiatric context, dysphoria may accompany depression, anxiety or agitation." Online dictionary)

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Your Science is Bunk! Sorry, I'm going with Jesus on this one. Make a choice.

Jesus would have been the first to sit and talk and eat with anyone from that community.

There is very little evidence of a genetic connection to being “born” gay. Having sex with whomever is ALWAYS a choice.

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Originally Posted by jlisenbe

There is very little evidence of a genetic connection to being “born” gay. Having sex with whomever is ALWAYS a choice.

Mr. Science Teacher, read up on this. Read about hormones that affect the developing fetus during pregnancy. Google "is gay a choice" or "is transgender a choice" and read scientific documents/articles.

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Jesus would have been the first to sit and talk and eat with anyone from that community.

Yet they can't even talk about what they do in private!

Hormones are great, lets feed them to our children, good Idea!

WG, Loving this world leads to death. You really should think about what it is your setting yourself up for.
This world is not your friend.

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Originally Posted by waltero

Yet they can't even talk about what they do!

Who can't talk about what they do? (Do???)

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Originally Posted by waltero

Hormones are great, lets feed them to our children, good Idea!

We do, all the time.