Responding to this:
Post URL:
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... 130#102324Thank you for explaining all this.
I am sorry for the hate and rancor you have come up against. This is not how Christians are supposed to behave toward others; believers or not; and I regret that it is so common.
When I say my best friends have been agnostic or atheist I mean it. Its the truth. Some still are. None were ever shy about it.
My own story is actually similar in some ways.
Not unlike yourself - I would much rather catch tad poles than go to Sunday School - or any kind of school.
The church I grew up in was really more akin to a social club than a Christian Church.
In my teens I took an interest in the occult (tho I didn't know then, that was what it was)and took up various related activities. I became known as the girl who could read palms. I had a very active and energetic Ouija board. Sometimes we got rapid fire answers - with the thing moving so quickly we could not keep out fingers on it. After a while - simply holding my hand over the board was enough to get responses. Sometimes it just rocked back and forth never actually stopping on any letters - and several times flew across the room and hit the wall.
This scared me, b/c it was so clearly not a game and I knew it wasn't Me doing these things.
Then the haunting (for lack of a better term) began.
I thought I was loosing my mind. I was fairly calm about it - just figured I'd eventually snap and that would be that. Its amazing to me now - looking back - what I took so calmly as evidence I was psychotic.
Then one night when the whispering and giggling began in the hall, I realized my dog could hear it. She was very afraid of it - trembling and sniffing the air. I shoved her with my foot - and told her to go get 'em - and she curled up into a tighter ball against me and wouldn't budge. This upset me.
Far better to be crazy than to have what ever This was going on!
In response, I started reading my Bible.
I had never not believed. I was just typically ignorant.
As a result of what I had been experiencing, I knew the super natural was real. I wanted to learn more about it, and how it related to the Bible.
My walk has been steady since then, and I feel I now understand pretty well what was going on in my home and why - and that it is not something a Christian ought to have anything to do with.
As for the gifts of the Holy Sprit - I use 1st Corinthians, chapters 12, 13 & 14 as my guide.
Anything that presents itself in a way disruptive to the edification of the people is not God. I fear many a Christian is being lead astray and ought to be praying for the gift of discernment; rather than the gift of tongues.
My concern for you Greg (if you care) would be that you were taken into a congregation that was enthralled by the super natural; sought out this particular manifestation; and wasn't exactly discerning about what spirit brought it about.
And there you were, under the stress of the seed crap - already conditioned to go with the flow and wanting to please. *Maybe* you were open to the influence of spirits that did not have your best interest at heart. *Maybe* that is why when you opened the Bible and read, you found yourself influenced to view all you read threw a negative lens.
Have you read much CS Lewis? I really like some of his work. I believe "The Screwtape Letters" to be inspired.
He sums up in the preface, the two mistakes so often made by men on the subject of demons:
There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail the materialist or the magician with the same delight.
People can make similar mistakes about the nature of God. They center on what, from their point of view, is harsh and hateful, and so turn away. Or, they see Him as loving and forgiving to the point they think there is no judgment for sin - the teddy bear in the sky syndrome. God is in reality far beyond any man's ability to contemplate. He has reveled Himself to us threw the prophets and threw Jesus, the Christ. You can know Him; tho not perfictly; And you will have a warped and incorrect knowledge of God, if you only considered either the judgment or the mercy of God.
For Greg and Ginger:
I couldn't disagree more strongly with your judgment of the prophets. I'm sure there is little point to belaboring the issue - but the prophecies are very detailed and exact, and not at all arbitrary or easily guessed.
Greg, some of your criticism has been that what I call prophecy, was really only an event in the life of the prophet. Your right to a point - lots of prophecy is like that - but it is still prophetic about events to come. That's why it was written down, and not just lived and forgotten. For example: the 22ed Psalm. This was written by David, in response to his own problems and troubles. However, in it, he gives us the lament of the Messiah, as He suffers for our sakes; and describes the torments of crucifixion perfectly; long, long before the Romans put the practice into use. He even describes the Roman solders diving up His clothes; gambling for His robe.
I feel this is ample evidence. This, is all the proof I need.
Oh, about the Pagan infiltration into Christianity - I know. I do not agree that it runs as deep as you are saying - but certainly there is much that takes place in church and in Christian celebration that has a Pagan origin.
