Watching the Olympic games last night I saw a McDonalds commercial that made me think about victory and defeat. Two little league baseball teams with children I'd say were about 9-11 had finished playing each other for the title match. The winners were haled and presented with a gold trophy, the other team looking across feeling the sting of defeat as the victors celebrated in their faces. Later, on the losing team side, someone started passing out Happy Meals and the losing team's spirits returned. The gold trophy wasn't so important after all.

I liken my life's journey much like this commercial for it makes accepting my defeats not only palatable but view them as inevitable (that I better start getting use to them), which put's my faith in a certain context.

For one, I think it is a true cop-out to hold onto a belief of something that's going to happen and when that something does not happen the casual observer concludes, "you (I) didn't have enough faith." I think it's a cop-out that reflects the entire institution of Christianity as a religion.

I also think its a cop out to also remark "it wasn't God's will," another comment that debases the belief in Christ as a religion.

Ridiculous.

Rather than accepting these explanation to rationalize why faith had failed to materialize my desires, I simply now accept the matter as fact that I was once again beaten down, I played and lost. To the winner goes the spoils and to the loser nothing. And its a pretty bitter thing too.

But for me what would be the equivalent of a Happy Meal for a believer in Jesus Christ?

That God is good, no matter what.

It's the conclusion I've drawn even when the stakes a high such as a person's health, life or limb is involved. Why should someone not get healed or recover from their ailments despite the out pouring of faith and prayer that the person gets healed? Because someone had doubted? Poo poo. In a 100 cases will all 100 result in miraculous healing? Seems unlikely, but by that admission does that automatically allow for a failure?

The basic tenet fundamental to faith is believing in Jesus name and it will get done. But if it doesn't happen 1. "I didn't believe enough" and or 2. "It wasn't God's will" are no longer plausible explanations because to me they are statements that mock the name of Christ.

What does that leave me? It leaves me with accepting the bitterness of defeat but still believing God is good, and that is all that really matters.

Good word- HB...

One time I knew of a person with cerebral palsy. He was a christian. He did christian things. Another group of christians (this particular bunch was a little more charismatic) approached him and told him that reason why he wasn't healed was because he didn't have enough faith.

His reply (in a nutshell):

"I have enough faith to know that 100 years with this disability is nothing compared to an eternity with my Lord"


Job's friends and family were convinced he did something to make God mad. The religious authority in the gospels were convinced that a man's disability was from sin.

What are those verse from Habakkak? Just replace those circumstances with your circumstances, it still reads the same.

Hab 3 verses 17-18.

Though the ____________________________and there are no ___________________, though the _______________and the ____________, though there are no __________________and no ____________________,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.

Amen to both posts... Bob and Appy!

I also had a friend who was on the list for a kidney transplant and had to be on dialysis nearly full time as her other kidney failed. She read the Bible every day and i would take her to dialysis. One day in the car on the way to dialysis she started crying and i thought something was wrong, like she was hurting or was sick or something... and she said, Rose... am I not healed because I don't have enough faith?? I wanted to cry with her and just hold her and tell her it has nothing to do with her faith... nor does it have to do with the Will of God... that He would allow this to happen, or that she did something wrong to make Him punish her, but it was fallen man and his condition. We would all get our rewards in due time, and that life was short... but to continue in her faith and hope. 7 years later there was a car accident right before Christmas and she got the call that a 17 year old had passed away but had donated his organs... and would she come in to be typed as a match... and she got her kidney. 7 YEARS! 7 PERFECT years and she perfected that faith to the point where she is now working as a social worker and helps people with kidney disease... helps them to understand that it's not the will of God to cause them to suffer.

I think that we all have trials and though Satan is allowed to touch us for a time, God will never allow him to do more than God allows. I don't know what the reason for her 7 years of waiting were, but maybe she does now. She built my faith in those 7 years too.

I am blessed... and by her I understood the pain my dad went through when he was on dialysis last year. I could identify with the long hours, the machines, the open catheter ports on his chest... I had seen it before and I wasn't afraid, and neither was he.... it was all comfortable for him when he realized what was happening.

God bless you!

The more I thought about this the more I felt how the message is important in this thread.

Bump

I think this is God speaking...the world hangs in the balance because of allegiances with the devil and God sees it as little league...

Maybe my name change is working...



I hear the word "winsome" in my spirit....I think that is meant at two levels in this case...

The problem is that Christians and atheists don't have the same ground rules in debate, so for almost all the time, their debates are incompatible.

For example, if a person honestly believes that X is God's will, should that person do X?

If you answer that question with a "yes," then you have a problem, because there's no reliable way to tell if X was God's will or not.

Or another 1, some Christians believe that prayer works if you had faith. So if the prayer didn't work, is that conclusive evidence that you didn't have faith or enough faith? Or how about - it simply wasn't God's will?

They do not have the same ground rules but they have the same grind rules. Mouths are mouths. Axes are axes in no matter whose hands they are weilded.

I don't follow.

Apparently

You might as well argue that people whom can't interpret text figuratively or symbolically (the right way) are idiots.

Does that make me a grounder or a grinder?

You would have to define them to me.

What if you're both right?

Both have grinders, but the dialogue has become so textbook (thus incompatible)?

...which makes me think....very few dead people have the faith to be healed and raised back up.

Hello Neal. If God told me to do X I'd do it. I wouldn't expect anyone to believe me either unless God told me they would



Isn't the dead just dead and know nothing?

Anyway, now that's a grinder!



mmmmm!

grinder, anyone?

I'll bite!

In "udder" words am I to respect the high moral ground of the imposed linguistic beauty of a dedicated Christian and do and say at all times exactly as some supposed code book specifies? (hence being grounded) ... (grounder) Or am I also able to whoflungdung with the diatribe of a Los Angeles street gang? (grinder)

I see evidence of Christians exacting their pound of bacon all of the time. With fanfare and notoriety...going down in flames to rise up again and go down in flames to rise up again to go down in flames to limp off exit stage right and reappear as a reincarnated "same old" with a new name and then begin to outperform all of the previous incarnations with great swelling words of rancour...I wait with baited breath for the next performance which has the curb appeal of a house for sale to get one interested, only to find out it is a used house with squeaky floors and clapboard on the windows so you can't see the true heart..which will be as empty as the rooms in an abandonded house...

Okay, so explain that evidence.

head in sand syndrome?

You'll have to explain that to me.

I understand!

Neal :

You bring much truth to the playing field . . . ' Christians & Atheists do have different
ground rules in debate, ----------( this is true )

So I am presenting the ' X ' answer, for the respect I feel toward you Neal.

The X, Tz is here in Psalms :

http://www.bartleby.com/108/19/119.html

Psalms 119: 137-144

TZADDI

137 Righteous art thou, O LORD,
and upright are thy judgments.


138 Thy testimonies that thou hast commanded
are righteous and very faithful.


139 My zeal hath consumed me,
because mine enemies have forgotten thy words.


140 Thy word is very pure:
therefore thy servant loveth it.


141 I am small and despised:
yet do not I forget thy precepts.


142 Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness,
and thy law is the truth.


143 Trouble and anguish have taken hold on me:
yet thy commandments are my delights.


144 The righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting:
give me understanding, and I shall live.

do you want the grounded version or the grinded version? Justice is back. That ought to say something.

http://www.christian-forum.net/index.php?s...mp;#entry224742


?

From what I see and experienced:

In a Christian/Atheist debate, more often than not the Christian will say this more than once, "the bible says..." to boot Christians use 'christian talk':

'it's (not) the Lord's will',

'I feel the Holy Spirit is telling me',

'you have a hardened heart',

'I have faith'

'I care for and love you'


Christians go in setting the pace and rules for the debate... It seems like we want to be heard, we want to be the one that others listen to, look up to, admire....

We have forgotten how to listen to others, we are willing to love and serve others but there is a catch, if they come to church, if they take this tract, if they will take a few minutes to listen...etc. There is always a catch.... 'conditional love' instead of 'unconditional love'... Christians with an agenda.

We are not taking the time to get to know people, walk a mile in their shoes... We have grinders, let's talk.

In Jesus day, all sorts of people knew Moseic Law and Prophesy back and forth, but still missed the point. They knew the 10 commandments but still were willing to 'bear false witness' against him... That's irony...

Jesus knew his audience, he walked a mile in their shoe. Whom the religious community looked down upon, he embraced and broke bread with. He made them feel like people instead of out casts.. He knew they knew the scripture, but he used parables/analogies to help them understand.. The religious ones still did not understand because stories of fields, vineyards, pearls, working, etc. wasn't in the moseic law.

Christians do not set the rules they are bent by the rules. Atheists have no rules. The basis of their inventions is secular humanism.


Christians do not set the rules they are bent by the rules. The "rules" are as much a part of a generic bent as they are a discipline of love. Atheists have no rules. The basis of their inventions is secular humanism. They expect th eChristian to define the naturally unknowable and when that attempt is made the ridicule begins. The naturally unknowable is spiritually knowable, but the catch 22 of that is there is no spiritual discernment in half of the debating equation. No balance means loss of equation. To an atheist, spirituality is like denying the law of gravity.

Sure they do, would you like to see them?


Ah yes, "morality without God."

I've said this to you before, and I'll say it again: my morality is better than yours, want to compare?

In fact, my morality is better than all the Christians in this forum put together.

That is an oxymoron for morality begins in the concept of God.

Opinions are the same regardless of whom believes them.

For example, suppose a judge had a 4 year-old grandson, and he asked his grandson for opinion on how to sentence the criminal.

Or the judge taught the 4 year-old grandson what his opinion is and the 4 year-old followed it.

Opinions are the same regardless of whom holds them.

Unfortunately, not every fundamentalist Christian can grasp that concept, which is why arguments with them can be impossible.