Well I guess you can see it however you want, I see it as my personal reward because of the love he has for me. I know how it is to not believe, because I used to not believe before. I would ask lots of question to sort of discredit the believer or make him look like he doesn't know what hes talking about.
i think Meowgi's point is, why are you "rewarded" and not the homeless guy on the corner of Edgebrook and 45?
Yeah I understand his point, but I don't have the answer to that question. Like I said, when you are a non-believer you ask those types of questions, but for some reason you never ask someone like Joel Osteen or someone else. I could ask someone that for you though, someone who I am sure has the answer. Although his answer might not be satisfactory and it will lead to more questions. Maybe God is not handing out rewards, but I feel like he is rewarding me. Maybe he isn't though.
Has anyone accepted the Babylonian diety? Or the Roman Gods, or the Egyptian ones, which ones are we on these days? DD
According to the Gospel, the meek will inherit the Earth and it's harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than a camel to fit through the eye of a needle, that if you want to be perfect you should sell all your possessions and give to the poor. Maybe eons are better than 70 or 80 years? Who really knows?
Here's what I object to in Christianity in general. The preachers who say that as long as you believe and trust in the Lord, that you will be rewarded with money, a good job, a good family, health, and a happy life in general. It doesn't work that way. It CAN'T work that way. If every devout Christian was rich, successful, and happy and everybody else was poor and miserable, it would be an easy and obvious choice to become a Christian. But the point of being a Christian is to worship and praise Jesus and God, not to reap material rewards that God gives you because you're a Christian. If every Christian were rewarded, you'd have a lot of people becoming Christian's for wrong and selfish reasons. All you have to do is read the Bible and see that this is not the way that God works. The obvious example is Job who was a wealthy, righteous, god-fearing man. God, in order to prove to Satan that Job loved God for the right reasons and not for the blessings he had received, allowed Satan to kill Job's livestock(wealth) and children and give him sores all over his body. But Job remained faithful to God (though he did complain). God did end up give Job back his health, wealth, and a family but that's besides the point. The point is that love of God isn't contingent on what you can get in return. I fear that a lot of people that flock to the self-help style of preaching are in it for the wrong reasons. Their primary motivation is "if I worship the Lord, he will give me this and that." It has never been about what God can do for you, but it seems that that's the message that is being spread.
Agreed, good points. If I was diagnosed with cancer, my mother died , I went broke and lost my job, my faith would not change. I don't praise God or go to church because I want things, but I do thank Him for everything that I have because he has given it to me.
I usually stay away from these threads, because religion is such a touchy subject to some, but I figured Id give it a try. Yes, I go to Lakewood every Sunday. I enjoy it. I find it amusing that because he speaks a positive message instead of about hell and damnation that everyone labels him as a motivational speaker. Its also funny that just because his church is so successful, everyone assumes he is doing something shady or crooked. If you went, you would see that it is just a great place to be. For the first time in my life, church hasnt felt like a chore for the last four years. It was strange to me the first few times I went as well. But it really makes Sunday worthwhile, even when the NFL is on offseason.
Who assumes it's crooked? I'm really going to simplify things here, but protestant religions splintered from the catholic church essentially because they felt the church had turned religion into business. now protestants like osteen and his ilk have regressed their religion to the point that they have turned into what they rebelled against in the first place. osteen is selling you a product.
We, as humans, are given a choice. We have free will. This free will extends beyond simply accepting Christ. This includes getting off our lazy asses and doing something about our own problems, not accepting free handouts from church/God/public/govt.
Did you get this story from South Park? Haha jk..but why would God do such a thing to a person just to prove a point to Satan? That's pretty horrible..
