Church goer seeking varied faq on things that perplex.
Q: I've been on and off with the church my whole life. I wasn't raised Christian really, my parents never went to church or talked about God. I did go to youth group by entire high school and church camp and believed.
Life things happened that made me go a different route. I'm originally from Nor Cal, so more liberal ways and views. I've always considered myself hippie at heart. I move to KY 2.5 years ago and within a few months we found a church and have been going every Sunday. I read my Bible among other readings so help me develop my relationship with God and to just learn.
But feel comfused and with more questions. It's like every Sunday my critical thinking brain is on. I have always believed in the concept that something greater than ourselves created us. That there is a divine force, an energy, that's beyond our conception. I believe that energy is real, that spirits, angels and more are all real. I have a hard time believing in the details that religion and the brings to it, such as:
If God created everything, good bad and all, and knows all, is the one behind everything happening for a reason or another...why did he create Eve and the apple and the snake, knowing she would do it? As a set up? He created sin, why, so he'd send his only son to die for us, for us to worship him for that forever? And why did it HAVE to be his son, why not a goat, why anything?! He's the one that made the game and the rules, so why the ones he did. And his only son, isn't it not really his son, but just himself in human form?
If being gay is wrong, then why did he make people gay. Are we saying that's not real, but brainwashed by our society? Influence is real yes, but many are truly gay and a child of God, made by him, and he doesn't make mistakes.
The bible refers alot to women being submissions men, I can't help but feel the government had a huge hand in the Bible here and in other ways.
I'm still reading the Bible and learning but these are my thoughts I can't shake nor answer. Thanks for your input
A: Good questions, many wrestle with this. There are solid answers.
I do want to encourage you going forward, to not feel embarrassed to ask to have lunch with your Sunday school teacher and pastor to discuss these kinds of things. They know people are at various places in interest of God, or in believers growth regardless of when they came to salvation. Go humbly and in seeking truth.
I am from no California and we were in the conservative zone, but really if your family are solid believers then worldly views don't infiltrate your family, and if you went to a biblical not liberal church then they would steer you well. Many people, even myself didn't have Christian parents growing up. My godly grandparents had me on the weekends my whole life, so I went to church with them. They were very faithful to God and active at church, I also went to camp in high school. What I learned about God came from church and holiday gatherings where my grandpa had the day focused on Jesus, read from Scripture, prayed over the meal and made sure family (and new additions to it) understood the Gospel.
Its good you are going to church, reading the Bible amd show interest, but those things don't save. I can't tell if, but doesnt seem like you came to a saving faith by obeying the Gospel and are born again by God, yet, so settle that matter first here, or to make sure.
The below answer the questions, but you might want to bookmark this page first, so you can go through all of it and not get lost.
About God our Creator
* This video will be helpful about God
* This on who God is & His Attributes will be a huge help too as you grow to know who He is more and more, both now and in time as you read Scripture daily.
God created everything, good, but nothing bad or evil. Scripture is clear in this. Man sinned and brought corruption and evil into the world. People who are not saved;most all of humanity, are behind the reason of all the continued suffering and problems in life. But once corruption, sin and death entered, it won't be eliminated until God destroys and replaces it with the sin free eternal one.
God created the world and humans perfect. But he gave them the ability to choose to not obey, because while we were created in His image, they could chose not to obey. [ *Note this image we have includes God's morality; we can to a degree posess & live out communicable attributes but only after we are saved; restored.]
If Satan was thrown into Hell and not thrown out of Heaven to earth, then God couldn't use him to bring about His good plans. See Satan was used by God to test Adam's obedience. He failed, both to obey and to properly lead his wife. But God knew in eternity past that they would listen to Satan, that they like Satan would become prideful and sin. This is why Scripture reveals in early Genesis in the Garden, after the Fall, that the Messiah would be sent. We see the animal sacrifice and the blood stained skins covering them; pointing to Jesus sacrifice.
God could've like the fallen angels fate, justly killed us all & damned us to Hell. All humans are hellbound because of the Fall, but because He made us in his image and for his reasons he chose to save those he wrote in the Lamb's book of Life before the foundation of the world. God knew exactly who he would save. So all is not lost. He would work out all things for good.
God allowed all of this to happen so we would not only know more deeply about who God is by His attributes, which we would not know about had the Fall not happened, but the angels wouldn't know these attributes of God either without this happening. It's one reason Scripture says angels are amazed & look into these things from Heaven; saw it all from start till now.
God didn't want robots, he wanted people who would love and follow him for the right reasons. We were created by Him for Him and to glorify Him, and so even in man's decision to sin....He works all things out for good and His glory, still.
We were created to fellowship with Him in an eternal loving relationship, be righteous people, living holy, and living out the Communicable attributes rightly, and to be above all creatures on earth. We also will judge angels.
Why Jesus was sent was because only a perfect man can pay the debt owed to God required by the Law of sin and death, by a human. No sinful person born by Adam could ever accomplish that- as no perfect person existed anymore. So we are doomed to Hell unless God made a way. So...God sent the 2nd Adam through Mary, the Son of God, to take on human flesh to accomplish the mission. Jesus was not born through Joseph. He is God the eternal Word, who was manifest in the flesh, born by the Holy Spirit thriugh Mary. Sent from Heaven by the Father to do the work necessary to redeem and restore mankind. But to more than who we were before. Because now we know about & experienced God's justice, love, forgiveness, mercy and grace, through Jesus. And we can appreciate God on a grander scale because of the extreme lengths He went to and at such valuable cost through Christ, to redeem us. It wasn't just the cross; it was him living the perfect life lived rightly and in obedience to the Law perfectly, AND his taking all the sins of each person (who would ever believe) on himself on the cross and took God's eternal wrath upon himself for every one of those sins, (only something God himself could do), to take our place, AND he died in our place. Then to prove God the Father was satisfied, that the payment was paid in full, Jesus rose victorious from the grave, to defeat death.
When we get saved, we then get baptized to show what visually happened to us; we died in Christ/died to our sins, and rose in Christ to new life in victory over the grave/rose to life. It is symbolic of all Jesus did for us and in us.
God is a Trinity. So while equal in eternity, ...for the purpose of man's redemption mission God had a hierarchy: the Father sent, the Son did the work, the Holy Spirit causes us to be born again, indwells & seals us to God eternally.
It is His real Son in the sense that he came from God, sent to earth for that mission. This also further explains this much better here.
As to lgbt it is a false identity issue. Remember, People sinned and now have a sin nature, so they live distorted and corrupt lives since they lost the righteous nature they once had, until they get saved by God they're just like broken corrupted software that needs a clean install and reboot. God didn't "make them that way", it's a particular sin they gravitated to and latched onto pursue, and cling to. There are many sexual sins, but this is one God said is an abomination, they're sinning against their design and their own body, and if they don't repent of it God will give them over to it and they can't be saved. God knows where that line is, and thats something they're accountable to Him for. All we can do is faithfully share the truth with them and share the Gospel, being prayerful that God will save them.
Yes culture can and does influence these lost unsaved people towards deviant behavior, just as we see by what the Flood brought, and nations around Israel that were wicked and had crossed the line. God judged them and got rid of them because they taught their children to be just as wicked if not morso. It would never end.
We see this in reality, as since lgbt was legalized in 2015 we've seen a 4000% jump in kids in public schools embracing lgbt lifestyles, cuz its the hot new fad that gets attention and allows them to be rebels, as drinking and smoking did in the 70s and 90s generation. If it wasn't legalized as a civil right, none of it would be happening. But since it's everywhere now luring and grooming kids... from kindergarten onward now: in cartoons, kids shows, movies, tv shows, music, celebrity coming out announcements, commercials, total indictrination to normslize, even in all classroom books for every kind of education material of every course, from English to history, has its own month dedicated and laws protect the depravity currently, it's just going to snowball further. It's pushed on kids 247 365 now. And has been going on for 17 years now, since 2008. So multiple age groups have been brainwashed into this sex cult. Its even showed up in the workforce. And it's all moving further towards the pedophilia and toddler sex consent craziness now.
But God can and does save people out of it. Churches are waking up and realizing we need to biblically educate and address this so they can respond rightly, love the lost and lead them to truth and Christ.
You can examine this much further here, and for much clarity.
As to women topics like submission there is much people misunderstand, and the unsaved men or false religions distort and misuse Scripture first their evil intentions. This section will correct the errors.
There is a lot to learn and understand as a Christian, but we do need to know the basics, so everything makes sense. Many churches have a new believers class or a foundations class where these things are taught. The sermons the pastor gives, and many archived sermons today, are a great place to gain clarity on all of these and much more, to further deeper supplement your daily Bible reading to help connect the dots. This archive can help you do that as you read through the Bible, as it is in depth. And you can use a solid study Bible like this one to help too lightly.
This is a good resource to help you grow well and avoid a bunch of growing pains, so bookmark it and go through it this year. 😊✨️
There are a lot of other questions people have and this site has many but the table of contents is being built up, and the above link will reroute you to it so when you get to it, you will find it updated.
I hope this has helped answer your questions well.
God bless
