/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

>How to be at peace knowing a lot of righteous people go to hell anyway?

Righteous people don't go to hell. If someone "righteous" goes to Hell, then they were never righteous in the eyes of God to begin with, meaning that they were never in fact just.

If you accept Christianity in its fullest implications, God becomes the objective, everything else is relative.

>At the point I am I think evidence for God's existence and historicity of the resurection is too strong to ignore, and doing so would also spell damnation on me

No, the fact that you are realizing this is God calling out to you, but you must repent and be baptized.

> My prayers feel useless. How to be at peace never knowing? Never feeling it?

You're not supposed to actually feel it, it's all faith. Faith is not the same as feeling, though you may be granted genuine feelings from God as you pursue Him.

I recommend reading the Scriptures and the Church Fathers.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/index.html

>>680346

>How to be at peace knowing a lot of righteous people go to hell anyway?

Woah there, where did you get this from?

Look, Christianity is not a happy pill, I'll tell you that. If it makes you feel any better, I've been one my entire life and I got that happy pill moment but a few times. Since I'm a Catholic I can't condone Orthodoxy, but I have to ask you, have you been receivng the sacraments? Because when you're in a state of mortal sin you become even more susceptible to sin because you're separated from God's grace. So go to confession and receive communion every Sunday.

Secondy, pray to st. Michael to defend you from evil influences, you can easily find the prayer online.

As for prayers being effective, what I've found is that they don't come into effect right away, it takes a while. For me, I've noticed that usually a seemingly coincidental series of events results in what I prayed for.

>>680346

I can empathize anon. I feel the same way sometimes. Somethings that help me when I feel fearful or hopeless and when I can't focus on prayer is to read the texts of the philokalia. The fathers that write in the philokalia dispense priceless wisdom with regards to life and prayer and their stories are truly awe-inspiring. While the reading of these texts for inspiration may lead to sentimentality, the example of godly men with absolute faith in prayer will orient your understanding and practice of prayer. Without this faith in prayer you will have nothing. To attain faith in prayer you must ask God. This may sound paradoxical but God gives freely to those who ask with their whole heart. In short, all things are given through prayer and if you find yourself lacking faith in prayer then prayer itself will solve that. Devote a good amount of time and thought to prayer, pray faithfully and dutifully, and God will have mercy on you and because He loves you He will give to you.

>>680381

http://www.olmcfssp.org/uploads/Scrupulosity_7.15.12.pdf

>>680381

http://www.olmcfssp.org/index.php/olmc/post/on-scrupulosity

Your fear comes from misunderstand.

God isn't a bad guy just waiting on some excuse to send you to your suffering.

Sin is a spectrum so you can't commit no bad things at all. That is the meaning of the Fall of Man, that our very essence has been tainted by Sin and Death.

So what we are called to do is commit less of it as to strengthen our communion with God. Made possible by the victory of Death through the Cross.

Don't let perfectionism get on the way of progress. For that, you must first accept the Fall.

>>680481

What?

>>680346

Hey, I know quite a bit about buddhism too, since i'm ethnically Sinhalese. Good that you studied theravada buddhism, and found out it was nonsense. Yeah buddhaghosa who wrote the visuddhimaga came to the conclusion that even then (around the 4th century or so? could be wrong) that the "dhamma" was too damaged already and he only hoped to be born again into a more favorable birth to get liberation from Maitreya. it's all nonsense and I can go into a lot more detail about all the flaws of it, but yeah i'll save that for another topic.

Actually after coming back to the faith (i am catholic) I have found a lot more peace actually, but it takes time. For a while it's quite hard, it's part of the purgative part of this path, it's hard and you have to learn to trust God more and more. The more you are able to, the more incredibly free you start to feel. Things will still be hard at times, but you just start to believe God will take care of you in the end. Believe that everything is happening for a reason.

As for people going to hell, actually it really discomforts me to think if many people go to Heaven, I still don't really understand why people want this. We have to know that God is infinitely just, so even if i ended up in Hell, I would have to know that that's what I truly wanted and God was just in putting me there. Also I don't want all these crappy people to get into Heaven, it would be terrible. But i'll trust God with his judgement.

Keep striving for staying on the narrow path that leads to Heaven. I don't believe it is easy to get into heaven, it takes a lot of work and struggling with sin. Just hold on, keep learning and studying the faith. Hopefully you are Catholic or Orthodox at the least, if you aren't i'd strongly recommend looking at the Catholic faith. Contemplative prayer would probably be great for you to take part in. This book called "The Cloud of Unknowing": https://transfer.sh/pMxlC/The-Cloud-of-Unknowing-and-Other-Works.pdf

is great about true contemplative prayer. But you should sacramentally confess before this - I have some experience with being in a state of mortal sin and doing this and I have had some pretty weird / bad experiences, well enough for me to think that I should stop this and wait till I confess.

Anyways as for your main question, there's a lot of stuff to read. St. John of the Cross might also be of interest to you. Since you said you have a spiritual father i'm hoping your catholic. It's probably best to get a new one if they aren't helping you. Also through the difficult times, endure them patiently and keep reading, keep studying and praying. It will get better, and myself personally as well… I used to be very anxious or worried about things, and even when I screw up, I seriously have some weird confidence that God of course knew I was going to make this wrong choice and will help me out now, and so far it's always been going good. And times when it seemed to not work out, I just remember I was commanded, literally commanded not to worry and I don't and later after a while it turns out that things are actually working out even better. And for the things that I don't get yet I just try to trust God more and more. Things that have happened many years ago i'm starting to see them working out now or seeing the meaning of it. In some senses it's beautiful - i'm like, who wrote this story of my life.

Hope this was of some help.

>>680346

Try reading the Desert Fathers.

>>680481

>>680539

go away

>>680539

Are you a woman? You type the way my sister talks when she's PMSing.

>>680541

Thank you for this post my friend

>>680541

If you could go into all the flaws of it actually I'd really appreciate it

>>680705

>Abloobloobloo muh oak tree

>>680346

You probably feel this way because you're not really saved. Now you might be thinking, "no man knows what's in another man's heart" and that's true, but if you believe that you can be rejected by God for making a mistake then you are not really saved. We are saved by Grace through Faith…

Acts 16:30-31

>And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

And salvation is a gift…

Romans 6:23

>For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

If someone gives you a gift, does it come with conditions? Can they take the gift back if you upset them? Of course not, no one would do that, or else it wouldn't be a gift.

>>680736

>If someone gives you a gift, does it come with conditions? Can they take the gift back if you upset them? Of course not, no one would do that, or else it wouldn't be a gift.

Grace is alive. Grace is life. When someone gives you a dog and you do not feed them you will not have dog in no time.

Also:

>implying that grace given to you is yours and not God's, thus falling into pelagianism

For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption.

>>680346

Dear brother in Christ, know that your contrition of heart is not in vain. You may be blind to what benefit your suffering has, this is very likely due to bhuddist misconceptions towards suffering. I offer you to read psalm 23 in regards to this, as the rod is symbolic of punishment.

For those of us who wish to be sons of God, what better evidence is there for him being our father than giving us bitter medicine to improve our state of sickness(sin). This line of reasoning is all throughout the bible. To provide an example, when I was young, I broke into my dad's car to get something that was meant as a gift, I was spanked, and for this I repented and have not become a thief due to being reprimanded in such a way. This is how we must view, in part, our suffering if we are to call ourselves son's of God.

As for tears, they are a truly precious gift as the fathers say, for what means after baptism do we have to wash away our sins. Do not run from this precious gift, but instead listen to what they tell you, do you weep for a brother? your lack of prayer? Your multitude of sins? They soften your heart as water softens clay to be formed by The Master. Repent! You see your lowly estate, how can you change it except by changing your ways. It is impossible for man, to change, but in God all things are possible, so let us pray for us to be transformed towards his likeness. I tell you, you have already started this it shows from your suffering, but we are blind.

If you struggle to pray with a rule(although your tears say elsewise, but we come under assault by our passions just at the moment we need them to be silent) Look into the Jesus Prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." With this it is possible to follow the command "Pray without ceasing." 1Thes5:17. The Way of a Pilgrim is a fantastic(and easy) book on this subject.

You rightly say that we do not deserve the sacraments, for what man is righteous in his own right? Go to the good doctor, let him heal you.

As other anon's have suggested, "Sayings of the Desert Fathers" is a fantastic book, I believe it will help you immensely. They speak of a state which is foreign to the carnal world, joyful mourning, as our sins become more apparent as we approach the One who has no sin, yet still receive his great blessings we certainly do not deserve.

I will pray for you brother, and likewise I ask for you to also pray for my own wretched soul.

>>680756

Apologies for posting again, but to clarify some language for you: In Greek, repent is metanoia, which translates better as: To change one's mind/ways, or To change directions.

Sin in Greek is an archery term which means to miss the mark.

I pray for your forgiveness for my verbosity.

>>680741

No, you retard. Grace is not alive, and you can't back that up with scripture. Also, I never said grace was the gift; salvation is the gift. That's literally what the scripture says. I'm trying to give OP the Gospel and you just want to make stuff up and try to get in the way with your vain jangling.

>>680783

>but if you believe that you can be rejected by God for making a mistake then you are not really saved

There are sins unto death, blind one.

>>680756

I'll pray for you and thank you for your post, it warms my heart. I need to see God's work even in my suffering. I'll go to confession this sunday and take the sacraments after so long.

>>680864

Indeed I lack this hope, I'll check the books thanks my friend

>>680346

bruce charlton, a very interesting christian blogger, just posted this today: http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2018/07/is-christianity-therapeutic-does-being.html

interesting coincidence.

i kind of relate to you. i know christianity is true, i have no doubt about it. the historicity of the resurrection, the miracles of the saints, the efficacy of exorcisms done in the name of jesus. i could go on, i could write a whole book on apologetics, the materialistic worldview we absorb from the media, from highschool textbooks, from public atheists like dawkins and dennett, it's completely flimsy. the spiritual is very much real.

i too struggle with sexual temptation, it makes me miserable because i know it's a sin. when i renounce it and decide i'll just be 100% committed to God, i feel blissful.

christianity is too good to be true. God loves us. i can feel this. everything feels completely right when i decide to be serious about my christianity.

that's a pretty spooky picture you posted. some people say they became possessed when meditating. maybe you could look into getting deliverance.

Lol.

>>680784

Yeah, under the Mosaic Law, which Christians are not bound to, you absolute retard. Blind one? Speak for yourself.

>>680979

16He that knoweth his brother to sin a sin which is not to death, let him ask, and life shall be given to him, who sinneth not to death. There is a sin unto death: for that I say not that any man ask. 17All iniquity is sin. And there is a sin unto death.

I didn't get this understanding from the OT, anon.