Christian theology on salvation and being a witness

[Riders]

I always get into talking about Christians in 12 Step philosophy while talking about any of this but I would like to look at theology.

Free will teaches that we have the free will and are sinners as everyone have free will to accept Jesus. Those do not believe behavior or good deeds affect it say you can be a murderer or a child molester and its only free will and only choosing Jesus can get you to heaven.

You go to hell if you don't.But the problem is people addicted to sins who come to Jesus are forgiven and the church says their life is new and perfect over night so, hey go out and preach the word . So of you have 2 days of sobriety from gambling sex and alcoholic praise God your life is new!

So I am at AA and one of my child hood friends came to me 3 years ago who had a week of sobriety needed a ride to AA. So i talked to my sponsor about it he said it was ok but don't hang with her because she does not have sobriety,

The next day were at a meeting and shes talking about celebrate recovery the Christian church version of AA and her friends are there and she was telling them God had sent her there to preach and minster to me sense shes getting a ministry and they all agreed and told me to listen to her. I have her ride home and she asked for a donation I said no.

But here she i totally messed up in the head barely sober and telling me I needed to follow her and be ministered to by her why because she has been set free praise God! Her sins are forgiven forget about the fact that she still has the addiction in her system and shell probably be drunk next week oh well!

The church teaches your a new creature as soon as you get saved, work can not save you so if your on heroin forget it get saved get well and preach the gospel even if you still have heroin in you! The whole thing to me says that you can be messed up addicted to sins and leading a bad lifestyle and be saved!

But I say to Christians I expect y'all to lead a good or Godly lifestyle and they say we are not perfect, why expect us to be perfect. Eve jesus was tempted.
But if your telling me I am going to hell by not being a member of you religion it means your religion is pretty much perfect and has all the answers so, yea I expect Christians to be leading a good healthy life style and I do not see it.

Here's another example. A woman who weighed over 500 pounds on facebook in my sisters group of friends had fungus on her legs something dangerous that could make her loose her leg, I never heard from her again and I wonder about that,

She decided to go health and eat mostly vegetarian and mostly vegetables.She wrote her diet down on facebook and made a point to say God had given her directions of the exact perfect healthy natural way he wanted her to live by eating natural stuff and that she would be healed naturally by God and had decided not to get surgery like the Dr told her too.

She further said God told her she had a ministry for Jesus and was there on facebook to witness to people like me the good news of Jesus and to teach people about health and a ministry for Jesus and how to live.

she wanted m to talk to her and read her stuff she rote down her menu and after a couple of months actually gained weight. I could see her weight gain in her plan, she ate nuts smoothies with fruit juice, fruit,whole wheat breads honey yikes she bragged about raw honey, that'll make you gain a ton of weight!

At her weight she should probably be on a stricter diet then me, I can not eat honey or smoothies or fruit juice and only 2 fruits a day. If you weigh 500 pounds wild honey fruit juice and smoothies will kill you let alone the nuts and peanuts she ate.

Anyways point is she was messed up telling me she needed to minster to me when I was what 150 to 200 pounds lighter then her? I should be ministering to her. That was 2 years ago I have lost more weight.

Its just an example,my sisters saw her as a converted born again Christian and that's the credentials a lot of Christians require for any ministry like that and its bs.

They teach and believe that's all you need to be a witness be Christian and be saved!The bible says anyone who confesses Christ is a new born creature in Christ!Its a magic pill become Christian and your problems disappear over night.

Therefore a person can be completely messed up like that 500 pound woman and trying to instruct people on how to live! It doesn't work for me if anyone fro any religion at all not just the Christian religion but anyone from any religion wants to be a witness to me they need to have a clean disciplined lifestyle!

 

[Riders]

My ex boyfriend use to play keyboards at The Goat, The Goat look it up its a classic blues bar in Dallas has been here a long time. It a great bar,most of the mucisians are christian but some are not. The music is good.

But sometimes folk from First baptist church in downtown Dallas go there and other Christians who hang out there and get drunk.

A few of them on a few occasions have tried to witness to me high and drunk,it never bothered me because I don't drink or get drunk.

I always laughed it off but here they are, do you know Jeuosish as lawd and savere copluey , they look like their falling down drunk and witnessing to me its funny but typical. For some reason I can't figure out they think they are a witness wow.

 

[Earthling]

My thoughts go off in all sorts of logical excursions inside, outside and upside down when I hear this sort of logic being expressed in it's various degrees by different people. Believer and unbeliever alike seem to fall easily into this sort of fallacy. That, I have come to understand, isn't at all interesting or surprising, but what is, perhaps, interesting, is that there's always some sort of cultural frustration underlying the often verbose complaint itself. Something altogether different than the complaint, but similar in an ironic fashion.

The inevitability of historic mythology being what it is I rarely believe anything I hear about Adolf Hitler, but for what it's worth, they say he was a teetotaler. I imagine he led a "clean and disciplined lifestyle." Jesus told his disciples that the sinners and tax collectors they complained he was keeping company with may enter the kingdom of heaven before they would. I can imagine that that kept them quiet when arguing among themselves who the better one among them was.

I personally used to go to gay bars where often I would be surrounded by people who would earnestly ask me questions about the Bible and they would listen attentively like no other audience of righteousness I had ever addressed. I also used to be in the habit of getting as drunk as I could and mocking atheists on forums like these. I once apparently even passed out on the keyboard and managed somehow, over the course of the night, to have hit "Post Reply," resulting in a long post consisting of various random letters, numbers and symbols that certainly had some people scratching their heads in the morning.

I guess my point is that our sinful nature, while certainly no excuse for us to exercise such foolish behavior, is at least more of an honest approach than those who would protest the reality of it which is only an excursion in the opposite direction under the guise of pretense.

My advice is to cut out the middle man and avoid self righteousness. You shouldn't be spiritually living vicariously through anyone else anyway. Except possibly Jesus, who himself said: "John the Baptist has come neither eating bread nor drinking wine, but you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of man has come eating and drinking, but you say, ‘Look! A man gluttonous and given to drinking wine, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’"

If two people are standing before you, one of them telling you how good they are and the other one telling you how bad they are you know which one of them is lying. The former. And even if he isn't lying his heart is centered upon himself. Not God. The question you have to ask yourself is where is your heart centered?

 

[Riders]

Except that I am an addict, and when I hang with other addicts who don't have 9 months of sobriety or more I slip. I almost relapsed with my other guy friend had I took the advice of my other guy friend and hung out with SH. I would also have relapsed.

So there's a difference when you speak about addiction.People will always bring up the tax collectors and the fact that Jesus got drunk but its not acceptable if your addicted to a drug and need to stay sober.

Going to bars is off limits to me, hanging with drunks are off limits to me unless they have good sobriety. In 12 Step programs Christians should not witness unless they have a year of sobriety.

I'm also an over eater, I'm not hanging with someone on facebook dying of obesity who tells me its ok to binge on wild honey and fruit juice smoothies.

That's negative not positive, and I don't want to hang with someone who si d destructing themselves.

If Christians don't want me to think they are perfect they should not present themselves as the one and only perfect religion who is going to heaven and everyone else goes to hell, being the only ones makes you perfect!

 

[Earthling]

Except that I am an addict, and when I hang with other addicts who don't have 9 months of sobriety or more I slip.

Maybe. That's what they tell you at AA meetings. While stressing the importance of attending AA meetings where all the addicts go.

I almost relapsed with my other guy friend had I took the advice of my other guy friend and hung out with SH. I would also have relapsed.

I see the wisdom in choosing not to associate with those who practice your former vice, but at the same time, you and you only, no matter where you are or whom you are with decides your sobriety.

So there's a difference when you speak about addiction.

I saw the bigger picture than your addiction in the OP. I saw the placing of someone on a pedestal where they are bound to fall and the subsequent sanctimonious reaction to the expected spiritual decline being a product of a self righteousness - a hiding behind a mask of spiritually great expectations. Spiritual irresponsibility.

People of modest means attend a circus tent revival led by a caricature adorned with falsity. The vulgar suited and bejeweled spiritual corpse with the $700 haircut they resurrected upon the stage before them can hardly be surprised when he falls from that pedestal as the masses he misleads handed him fistfuls of cash. Blinded by the glare of his grill how could they have been surprised at the hookers and drugs inside the gates of his amusement park. They paid the price of the ticket. All too happy are the heathens outside the gates to witness such a spectacle, though, they are in the same sinking ship of fools.

People will always bring up the tax collectors and the fact that Jesus got drunk but its not acceptable if your addicted to a drug and need to stay sober.

Jesus didn't get drunk, he merely drank wine.

Going to bars is off limits to me, hanging with drunks are off limits to me unless they have good sobriety. In 12 Step programs Christians should not witness unless they have a year of sobriety.

That seems like a reasonable imposition to me, but I'm 10 years sober and the same as I was at 1 month I can allow myself to go to a bar or be around people who are gacked to the gills on various substances without loosing sight of my personal responsibility. Spiritual or otherwise.

I guess what I'm saying is that I've always thought personally that the 12 step program was bull****.

I'm also an over eater, I'm not hanging with someone on facebook dying of obesity who tells me its ok to binge on wild honey and fruit juice smoothies.

That's negative not positive, and I don't want to hang with someone who si d destructing themselves.

If you think about it as a whole, you have a very limited space in which to occupy, when the space you are looking for lies within yourself whether you are on facebook, at the bars, the church or the AA meetings.

If Christians don't want me to think they are perfect they should not present themselves as the one and only perfect religion who is going to heaven and everyone else goes to hell, being the only ones makes you perfect!

Well, that's just more bull****. So, you've established with a fair degree of accuracy that the people in the places you avoid are in the same position as you are. Like the believers and unbelievers inside and outside the gates of the above mentioned revival tent.

So . . .

 

[godnotgod]

There should be an AA for addiction to Christianity. Christians seem to have a fetish about 'Jesus'.

We Buddhists have a saying: "Every time you say the word 'Buddha', you should wash your mouth out with soap!"

Christians might follow suit.

Alan Watts once said: "Christians are like men huddled in the dark, shouting to lend comfort to one another", LOL.

 

[Riders]

Thank you for the responses. Not every alcoholic needs AA to quit some quit on their own. I'm not sure if all that from Rothschild was criticism for me or for the church.

I have organizational dislexia can not always keep up with everything being said to me. However I am sick right right now and don't feel like arguing so Ill just say it sounds good to me.

I will say this, I do not look to religion to save me from hell, but from myself, So I do look to spirituality to help me discipline myself. So I once I see the 500 pound Christian witnessing to me,my i turn off and my ears close.

Some may think I am judging the Christian, expecting too much but I can live with those who think I am mean. Sorry I have high standards and expect a lot from spirituality.

Just to be honest I do find other groups of people with higher standards then Christians. Weather you think I am mean or not to be honest i find higher standards especially with weight loss and addiction in other religions.

 

[Earthling]

Thank you for the responses. Not every alcoholic needs AA to quit some quit on their own. I'm not sure if all that from Rothschild was criticism for me or for the church.

I have organizational dislexia can not always keep up with everything being said to me. However I am sick right right now and don't feel like arguing so Ill just say it sounds good to me.

I will say this, I do not look to religion to save me from hell, but from myself, So I do look to spirituality to help me discipline myself. So I once I see the 500 pound Christian witnessing to me,my i turn off and my ears close.

Some may think I am judging the Christian, expecting too much but I can live with those who think I am mean. Sorry I have high standards and expect a lot from spirituality.

Just to be honest I do find other groups of people with higher standards then Christians. Weather you think I am mean or not to be honest i find higher standards especially with weight loss and addiction in other religions.

What I'm saying is that you will not find what you say you are looking for where you are looking for it. I hear you complain a great deal about other Christians and in your case that reflects more upon you than it does them. If Christianity isn't working for you then **** it off, have a go at another or none at all. I personally don't think that spirituality is equipped to save one from oneself unless the person is willing to delude themselves into actually doing it of their own accord with a facade of spirituality as a sort of crutch. That's what I think you are doing, but what do I know of you? Only what you present before me.

 

[Riders]

What I'm saying is that you will not find what you say you are looking for where you are looking for it. I hear you complain a great deal about other Christians and in your case that reflects more upon you than it does them. If Christianity isn't working for you then **** it off, have a go at another or none at all. I personally don't think that spirituality is equipped to save one from oneself unless the person is willing to delude themselves into actually doing it of their own accord with a facade of spirituality as a sort of crutch. That's what I think you are doing, but what do I know of you? Only what you present before me.

Uh no I
I've already found it many times that's what I said you got a problem with me being happy?

Other religions do not witness and do not try to make me follow them, the Quakers already told me they do not convert and don't witness.

I've been to Unity I also like them and they do not witness, there are many UNiversal churches who do not witness.

You keep talking about all the complaints I have for the Christians.I only have one complaint, a church that witnesses to me and tries to convert me, point blank period.PERIOD. In the process of trying to convert me they lie to me and pretend to be perfect when they are not.

They're sins wouldn't mean anything if they were not lying about it and being hypocrit by saying they have the one and only perfect way.

Universal churches are not hypocrits because they do not offer up the church as the solution and one and perfect way. I love the Universal churches am satisfied because I know they wont pretend to be perfect when they are not. im happy with them they do not try to convert.