/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

Consider: Become Christian. Atheists always say "God should just make a big announcement if He wanted us to believe". Well, you got one. Christ basically showed up and said "I did this for you. I would do it again."

If you can believe hippie nonsense, then you should certainly believe this. Go to a church, get baptized, follow the word diligently, and remember what Christ did for you.

>>833931

I guess i'm in shock that it actually happened. That i got a sign from God. I used to think things like that were impossible. Part of me doesn't want to believe it. But what really struck me was the emotion of the dream. I never felt anything like that.

I would advise against placing value on dreams. Demons can also manipulate your dreams. I think the fact that you believe your dream has meaning may also be a remnant of your dabbling with the New Age.

If you're considering Christianity then I would like to recommend praying to Our Lady for the grace of faith. I wish you well on your journey.

The thought of dreams being controlled by satan is a lie. Jesus said in the last days he’s gonna pour out his spirit to people and they would dream dreams. We were fed that lie in our kingdom Halls because Jesus uses dreams to wake people up from cults. He’s reaching to you. Showing you his struggles. That was him. You saw him. That’s an honor. All you need to do is stay away from fornication, idolatry, and murder. That’s what’s required from every Christian. All other imperfections are between you and God. True Christianity requires no organizations. It’s a personal relationship between you and God through his Son Jesus Christ. Even if Gods name is jehovah, don’t use it in prayer. We are to call God “Father” at the beginning of our prayers and end it in Jesus’ name. We’ve been fed spiritual poison our entire childhoods and Christ understands this. He forgives. You can’t brush this dream aside because he made his existence as obvious as he is allowed to. He answers to Father and this is him really reaching out as much as he can, for now. As you open up to him the channel will get stronger. Before you pray try to calm your nerves as much as possible, smoke weed if you must to control any anger or resentment you may have. Long story short Father has always been in full control and allowed things to happen to us that we are bound to bring onto others. No one else can fairly judge us at what we may possibly do to others in the future, except God. His math is perfect. This is coming from someone that would’ve brought onto another what was brought onto me. And I’m very grateful that God allowed me to be treated unfairly because I was bound to treat another the same without knowing it. We are his lost sheep, he’s in the process of collecting us. Bless you.

>>833929

Dreams, almost always, are just your subconscious bouncing thoughts and memories around your head while you sleep. Nothing more than that. If they're messages, then they're almost certainly just messages from yourself, to yourself.

Demons are able to trick you through your dreams - not necessarily by causing the dream itself, but by encouraging you to dwell on it and put much more energy into it than they actually deserve.

Dreams can help you realize that you have ideas you weren't necessarily aware you have, but this doesn't mean it's some sort of supernatural message. It's just your own thoughts. That's all. And what you do CONSCIOUSLY is far more important than what you brain dredges up unconsciously.

All that being said, having such a dream says that, if nothing else, some part of you puts a great value on Christ. And this is good! But you should seek Him conscientiously and with sobriety of mind, not by endlessly trying to understand a random dream.

Yes smoke weed. Only if you can’t get over the anger if you have any. Anger and rage is a form of non sobriety. God prefers that your sober. But if you can’t get rid of the hate like I couldn’t then use the weed. Hatred is worse than any Inebriated state. You need to approach him with humility and readiness. Impossible with hate. I wouldn’t recommend any other drug when conversing with God. Only weed, but if you don’t need it then don’t use it. But there are many gifts that we’ve been told are forbidden. Christ will tell you what your allowed to enjoy in life. But if using drugs inclines you to to commit fornication or idolatry or murder then it’s personally forbidden for you.

Ignore the people here. They are looking at it from a purely secular point of view. God does give dreams, I've had dreams dreams come true.

You were feeling something God gave you. I would recommend this because you're obviously curious: pray to God, tell Him what's on your heart, ask him to guide you, grab a Bible, and seek him. Ask him where you should go to church or what you should do. He'll start to guide you.

everything is under God’s influence, even dreams

Dream

>You should follow Jesus! He died for you!

Cathodox:

<Ignore it. Only evil comes from dreams.

<Except for those dream of Julian of Norwich, St. Joseph, Catherine of Aragon, all the prophets, Hildegard of Bingen, and pretty much all the saints.

<But normal people can't have dreams from God!

<obviously the saints were never normal

This is how you sound

>>833951

>We were fed that lie in our kingdom Halls because Jesus uses dreams to wake people up from cults.

Sorry but are you saying that you believe Jesus told a lie? Even if it was for the greater good of guiding people who've joined cults back to Himself, are you saying that Jesus told a lie? That Jesus bore false witness and thus broke one of his very own commandments? That Jesus sinned?

>smoke weed

It's against God to abuse the body that he's given you and engage in recreational drug use.

Also, while I've never taken psychoactive drugs myself, I'm quite certain based off of reports I've seen that the true nature of psychoactive drugs is that they open you up to demonic influence. This would explain why people, when experiencing attack at the hands of creatures in their hallucinations, upon crying out Jesus' name, find that the attackers either increase in hostility or flee. This reaction occurs because the very name of Jesus is holy and these beings despise Him. The reason I argue that psychoactive drugs (as well as meditations not approved by the Church) open you up to demonic influence is because you seem to argue that it's acceptable that one self-medicates uncontrolled passions with these drugs however, due to their potential to temporarily or even permanently harm the user, (I believe there was one case where a Church-going man tried DMT and then seemed negatively transformed as a person and never attended Church again) I believe they should not be used even medicinally.

>>833962

>I've had dreams come true

Demons are fallen angels. Just like the angels, they too have a perfect knowledge of the present moment as well as a perfect knowledge of the past, all the way to the beginning of time. It's completely possible that a demon, using its intellect, caused that dream and implanted its prediction into the dream. I merely advocate against rushing to the assumption that everything seemingly holy is of God.

>>833965

In a sense, I agree with this. It's just that my stance is that God may allow a demon to manipulate your dream. Now, this doesn't mean God allows the demon to do whatever it pleases. I believe he will restrict it in what it can do but nonetheless, God's influence here would be that of the "stayed hand".

>>833986

I recall hearing about a particular case. It was a nun who told another nun that she had received a vision of Mary. The nun told her to throw holy water onto it next time. The next time she had the vision, she threw holy water onto it, as advised and Mary spoke and said "That won't be necessary."

https://aleteia.org/2015/10/09/saints-who-fought-the-devil-padre-pio/

In this news article, we can see St. Padre Pio, a Saint so holy, he experienced bilocation and we can see how even he talks about how the Devil would appear to him as Jesus and how he had to discern whether or not his mystic experiences were truly of God. The clergy at the time also spent time doubting and investigating his stigmata.

I vaguely recall reading that St. Joan of Arc had to be investigated first before she was accepted as legitimate.

The reason why I mention all of this is to bring attention to the fact that the Church has a long history of discerning and verifying the legitimacy of mystic experiences rather than blindly believing them.

I never meant to imply that normal people cannot have authentically holy, mystic experiences. I think it's worth noting that I am a believer in the Our Lady of Fatima Marian Apparition. I only advocate that they should be hesitant to believe in the legitimacy of their experience rather than eager due to the possibility that the experience was not holy. Ultimately, if you do have a mystic experience, I believe you'd be better off disregarding it rather than believing it since you will most likely lose nothing from disregarding it meanwhile believing it risks making you susceptible to demonic influence as the demons responsible now know that they have a way to influence you.

I hope OP attempts to follow God but I don't think a dream is a good reason for doing so. I believe to do so would be to build a faith in God off of a faulty foundation that would eventually collapse. When the collapse occurs (disregarding any damage that might've been done along the way), OP may not be the only one that gets hurt. This is why I ask OP requests the grace of Faith from Our Lady and works from there instead.

Currently christians have been getting strange dreams.

To OP: it’s in the New Testament that all sins are outside the body except fornication. There is no way to defile the body except through fornication. Regular Christians don’t know the hatred that exists for ex JW’s when they return to the Bible and start reading it again. Every word or lesson feels like God is trying to steal what’s most precious to you, it feels like he’s trying to trick you all over again. The hatred creeps up over and over again and makes it unbearable to continue reading. ExJW’s have a heavier burden than most people when trying to find God again. Regular Christians will never understand this, but there are some that do. This is why i called our childhood education spiritual poison. It stays dormant in your mind and Christ needs to unravel it and re educate. Hatred is the most difficult obstacle in overcoming this. If your able to push through this obstacle you’ll realize that Gods not trying to trick you, he’s trying to explain to you what a particular scripture really is saying and it always ends with a very happy explanation that will make you love him more and that will further strengthen the channel of communication. One day you will be able to joke with him and he with you. You will be able to laugh with him and cry with him. He will tease you and you him like childhood friends in innocents. As the hatred looses territory in your mind it will be replaced with the Holy Spirit. The mind has chambers and cracks that demons retreat to when under attack. As you help Christ win battles in your mind those demons will retreat into areas in your mind that you don’t like to open because of the traumas and the pain. You need to trust Christ and know that he is not trying to trick you, in fact many of the things you fight to hold onto and weren’t willing to give up are not what God wants you to sacrifice. Don’t be afraid to let God explain himself. After the last lie is uncovered, and it takes time, you will realize you love everything about him and won’t be able to believe how much you love Him and Father.

These are some gifts he gave to me and I’ll happily share them with you:

There will be marriage for the resurrected and childbirth as well.

There is no such thing as time and unforeseen occurrences with God, so nothing can happen to you that God doesn’t see coming.

God does not require his people to be willing to see their loved ones raped as a test of their faith.

The new world translation is very inaccurate. But it’s reference column is Gold.

The most accurate translation is The Old King James.

No translation has remained unmolested by man. God allowed this because it shouldn’t matter to a True Christian that has the Holy Spirit to guide them through the lies. The Holy Spirit relays only what the Father tells ‘Her’ to, word for word. Even Paul said that the scriptures are a ‘tutor’ not your teacher, God is your teacher. (I think it was Paul… but I know it’s in there, I read it the other day).

I would like to say this. No man is allowed to give the title of saint to another. Sainthood is decided by Father alone upon the death of the person in question. The identity of Saints is hidden to man. No man or organization has that power, specially one that sacrifices children and drinks their blood in the basements of their Vatican. Don’t ever trust any organization that hurts children. Jesus doesn’t have such friends.

>>833989

Honestly? 99% of what you say is pure garbage. It'd simply be better if you stopped talking. People who are curious, you try to destroy their hope and if not that, you simply give bad advice. You are closer to a wolf in sheep's clothing than anything and I am hesitant to say that about anyone, but you? You really are a problem.

To 1b9581: sir or mam. I’ve spent my entire life around wolves in sheep’s clothing. I don’t despise you for thinking that way. What’s important here is that OP finds Christ. In the end he will have to take everything he hears to God in prayer and God will guide him. It’s all part of the journey. I will say this though. A house divided in itself will not stand. I’m telling OP what Christ is telling me to tell him. I welcome everyone in this forum and everyone that will eventually read it to approach Jesus in prayer so he can rebuke me and put a stop to it. Christ is no joke, he’ll do it because OP is already in a lot of pain and anyone causing more of it when Christ is pulling a heavy load up a rope to save him will get what’s coming to him. I invite all to pray now and end it if I am a wolf. But if I am of Christ please accept what he tells you about me. Trust me OP has been burning up for more than two decades. It’s an unforgivable sin to add to it specially now. I say what I say because I’m compelled to by Christ. I know only some of OPs pain. Have faith in Christ, all of you. Start praying now. If I am sinning Christ will stop me. Have faith in our King.

Another thing. The brainpower of demons is very limited. Mankind’s technology is catching up to the ability of demons. They are very limited in their power. Gods power is infinite. Demons can’t see the future, at best they can only see a few things somewhat accurately. If they could perfectly see into the future then they wouldn’t have followed satan. They would’ve stayed obedient to Father, like good little boys.

>>834001

I'll concede to the possibility that my advice is bad as I am young in my faith but nonetheless, I maintain my stance that one should be wary of their mystic experiences rather than eager to believe and I back this up with the behaviour of the Church in the past.

I'd also like to mention the critique of the Charismatic Catholic Renewal by Catholic Exorcist Fr. Chad Ripperger.

Fr. Ripperger argues that the issue with the Charismatic movement is that they focus on the sensations one might experience whilst praying. The issue with having this focus is that demons can cause these experiences too. Fr. Ripperger states that God will initially give you sensations to experience when you're early in your prayer life but eventually, he will take such experiences away. He compares this to how a dog owner will reward his dog for doing the trick with a doggie treat but eventually, the dog owner takes the treats away. This is all just part of the process of getting the dog to do the trick when it's merely told to. We humans are fallen creatures and so God has to, in a sense, train us. Since demons can also induce these experiences, if you were to remain focused on mystic experiences then you've given the demons something they can use to manipulate you. Ultimately, if you're praying to God with the hope of having these experiences then your focus is on those experiences, not God. At some point, you have to be focusing on God for the sake of God.

Since Fr. Ripperger has genuine experience with battling demons and since, according to him, his power to exorcise demons is highly dependent on his own holiness, I have strong reason to believe his statements and to accept his message that one should indeed default to being wary of their mystic experiences.

>>834004

Even though this talk is primarily about angels, since demons are simply angels that chose to rebel, sometimes learning about the nature of angels means that you'll also learn about the nature of demons. I've attached Fr. Ripperger's talk on Guardian Angels to this post. I believe it's a good, educational talk on the topic.

>The brainpower of demons is very limited.

I believe you're implying that they're stupid in which case, I want to assert that that's simply not true. According to Fr. Ripperger, before the fall, Adam and Eve's intellects were untainted by sin. Their intellect was just below that of the lowest angels which equates to an IQ of about 200. Considering this then, demons are very smart however you are right that they are ultimately finite creatures and that God, their creator, is infinite in ability.

>Demons can't see the future

I would never argue that anyone can see the future. Not even God. This is because we humans have free will. However, while the future is not predetermined, this doesn't mean that predictions cannot be made. Indeed, Fr. Ripperger states in this talk that a demon, in the year 2007, had stated to him its prediction that 2009 would be a bad year. While they don't know the future, they can see the direction things are heading in due to their perfect knowledge of present and past.

>If they could perfectly see into the future then they wouldn’t have followed satan. They would’ve stayed obedient to Father, like good little boys.

Fr. Ripperger has stated (and he states in the video) that when he confronted them, demons confessed that they believe rejecting God was unwise however, when asked what they would do if they were presented with the choice again, they always say that they would choose rebellion. Demons should not be prayed for because they are beyond redemption. Their will is fixed in evil.

To 723fc0: God can see infinitely into the future. There are only so many decisions one can make in a day. Every thing we do changes the future in real time. Free will is in the equation. We decide what we do with our time here. As we think and decide things he sees the new possibilities we create and is able to see how it effects us in the future immediately, in real-time, in an unmeasurably small amount of time an infinitely difficult equation is solved in his mind. Literally everyones movements and decisions effect the future in his mind and he’s able to keep up with these ever changing situations. That is how nothing catches him off guard. He know us in the womb (biblical), He knows exactly when we’re gonna wake up, fall asleep, even get up out of our chairs. He can see all this, that is why nothing is ever his fault. He helps us avoid everything he sees unfit for us to go through. He knows everything. Our free will is intact, it doesn’t effect his ability to see the future. That is one of the ways he knows if we really are repentant or not, that is one reason why we can’t lie to him. It’s all spread out in front of him and he knows it at a glance. Nothing we do can make him loose his focus. Even Jesus asks him about the future. Every atom can be given a name. Every grain of sand is accounted for and will never be overlooked. Our heart rates, our tears, our doubts, every organism making up our bodies and when they will fail and how to prolong them. He’s infinitely powerful. I’d even go as far as to say that at some point in the future I’m the one that begged him to chastise me in this life because I was ashamed of myself. He can have conversations with our future selves and he knows what we’d be forever ashamed of, so he intervenes. He doesn’t only know us now, he knows the future us. When I realized the extent of this power it finally hit me what being almighty really means.

Yes demons are smart. But not really. We as humans give them far too much credit. I’m not saying let your guard down when it comes to demons, they’re very crafty, but don’t think for a second that the gap between even them and God is not also an infinite gap. All numbers no matter how large are a spec compared to infinity. That is Father. We are very fortunate, to say the least.

When the Holy Spirit put this on my mind I had to keep coming back to it, but I eventually understood enough of it and was in awe. As long as we listen to him and humble ourselves satan can’t do anything to us. That is why a personal relationship with him is so important, he tailors his advice according to the person and their future.

The demons, when they are expelled from a mind return to it and if it’s empty then they get their friends and re-enter. But when they come back and see the Holy Spirit is still there they will not dare to enter. To keep the Holy Spirit in us we must abstain from fornication, idolatry, and murder. If we grieve the spirit it will leave, opening us to attack, and our condition will be worse than before. In the end he decides how much mercy to give each person. Each person, according to their needs. Not wants.

But he cares very much about our wants.

Coincidence and synchronicity is how God got my attention again. And they were my ABC’s of communication with him. Yes that’s how the start of it was for me too. I’m happy you left the cult early, that simplifies a lot of things.

I also think it’s good that you feel like you haven’t made a conscious decision for a while. When we give ourselves to Christ he takes the wheels. You want him driving because of his ability to see far down the road. We as humans can’t possibly see that far down the road, what’s over the hill or what’s causing the traffic, or who’s gonna run a red light and hit us. We would fail steering our own lives. We can tell him our needs and wants and he’ll take us to a rest stop or a new home, or tell us to wait. You never really take the wheels again. However, you do come to a place that feels like home, and then you realize He was always with you even when you were lost.

I would like to clarify something. When I said said the new world translation reference column is gold I’m talking about the original brown or black covered NWT. They have a new one that’s grey that they made 4 or 5 years back and they removed most of it and replaced it with very bad references. The new one they have is perfected spiritual confusion.

>>833989

Marijuana has a lot of good medicinal properties compared to man made snyths. It got a bad rap from 70s propaganda and the big pharma hates anything natural that alleviates pain.

That being said, it’s unfortunate that it is abused and the way its portrayed in our culture. I personally dont take it but if i was given a choice to alleviate great pain, ill pick a brownie over some opiod/morphine.

>>834104

I just woke up from another dream in which i was trying to drive my car but it was driving itself. I was trying to control its movements but it was like it was trying to take me to its own destination.

Your post was the first thing i saw after waking up. Very strange coincidence that you used a driving metaphor. I think i'm beginning to believe.

Praise God! He is in full control or everything! I am humbled!

Skip weed. They're not good and do invite demons.

>>835095

I’m not gonna lie. He has a sense of humor. But not all your dreams will be communications. That being said continue to be happy. If you begin to doubt he’ll make His presence obvious again. There are highs and lows. I’ve been having very strange dreams that stick out of normal ones and I don’t understand some of the new ones I’ve been having. Been having some where I’m trying to run and I can’t seem to get traction. Had another trying to walk and I couldn’t get gravity to help me. In the second I was trying to carry all this junk and keep up with someone, but couldn’t quite untangle myself from all that stuff I was trying to shove in my backpack. Some are from him for sure but take a while to figure out. Others are just mental baggage resulting in a random dream. The language he speaks is different for each person, sometimes it’s similar but a different dialect. Prayer helps a lot. I don’t want to try and interpret your dream. But he does have a very interesting sense of humor. I said before, laughing with him is part of the relationship. Sometimes he has jokes that one person can laugh at and others might be weirded out. I’m happy for you. Keep at it. It’s not only gonna be dreams, other things should start being evident slowly. Read the Bible too of coarse. I started with the new testiment. A children’s book of bible stories also serves to give a person a rough outline of the Bible and it’s events as well, actually a very good way to catch up.

Ok I know I said I don’t want to interpret your dream but as a shallow interpretation, maybe he’s saying it’s time for all that crap you’ve spiritually digested over the years to come out and as your taking that massive dump it’s he’s showing you that it’ll have phases. Again it’s your dream, you and him speak a language between you. But in the Bible Gods word is considered spiritual food. You seem to have taken a toxic dump from all the spiritually poisoned food you’ve eaten over the years. And there was a lot of it. Sorry, just my shallow interpretation. Don’t take it as gospel. Can’t believe I’m about to post this reply.

There’s a woman on YouTube that God speaks to mainly in dreams. Not everything she’s says is easy to understand, but she’s easy to listen to. I also doubted her a lot in the beginning but now I know she is blessed. She’s kinda corney but a gentle soul. I learned some things from her about interpreting my own personal dreams and I don’t know if it will help you, but it helped me. She doesn’t teach people dream interpretation, but I did notice my dreams are mainly in a similar language and picked up on a few things. Her name is Rhonda Empson (Her channels name as well). This might help you, if it’s too confusing just ignore it. But I know she’s a good person, been watching for years and I can’t deny she has a good heart. Her old videos might help you, I don’t listen much to the videos she mirrors.

This is the last thing on my mind to tell you today. Overall don’t worry too much about it. Rational doubt is understandable by God, these feelings are normal, they are not something God frowns upon. The doubt that God doesn’t like doesn’t apply to people in your shoes. It applies to those who absolutely know He exists. Many prophets and kings have doubted as well, and they were also forgiven. I’ll keep praying for you, and gifts in your direction.