IS GOD REAL? HOW DO YOU KNOW?

by still thinking 778 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Caedes

  Your lack of faith, will result in you being damned, that is what you deserve.

  When reading that line it just appears in my head in the voice of emperor Palpatine!
• 

  JonathanH

  @ Fernando

  But all of the examples you mention are people that knew of christianity first. Nobody ever seems to have the revelation of christ without first being exposed to the religious aspects and doctrines of christianity. Revelation only comes from culture, not the divine.
• 

  N.drew

  I think everybody knows someone who believes "it's MY way or no way so either do things my way or your life won't feel good if you stick around".

  There are also people who have wisdom that their way will work out fine and it does.

  God let's people who want to know God know that it is a person they seek. The Person of God.

  It doesn't require a book or a teacher to tell some people that they will be better off getting away from the "my way or no way" kind of people and finding the wisdom to make their way come out fine.

  So I know that God is real because wisdom is real and escape is real. God is the person to seek to find wisdom and to escape the tyrants that believe it's their way or no way.

  Some people erroneously teach that it is God that says "it's my way or no way", but the evidence proves otherwise.
• 

  Vanderhoven7

  Pro 14:12 says "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."

  There are plenty of ways/religions/philosophies that I believe are all part of the broad way that leads to destruction. No, religion etc.... is the way. I would never encourage someone to adopt a religion to get right with God. Jesus claimed to be the Truth and the Life...the only way to the Father.

  Jesus' prayer in the garden for a way to circumvent His suffering proves there is only one way to life. Peter got it all wrong...but Jesus rebuked him
• 

  Vanderhoven7

  LV101: Thank you.

  As a follow up to the question, "How can we know if God is real?"

  According to the Bible...as I understand it:

  No one can know God is real...without revelation....beyond what flesh and blood can determine

  In other words, No one can know God is real until they are born of the Spirit.

  And no one can be born of the Spirit until they grasp the horror of their own spiritual poverty. That's called conviction.

  Holy Ghost conviction results in cessation of all efforts to justify ourselves before man and God and enables us to receive grace...amazing grace.

  This of course is all counter intuitive and contrary to religion, even the religion of cultural christianity.

  But Jesus did not come for the righteous.

  You see you can't love Jesus enough to be His disciple if you don't know the horror of your own sin.

  God hides Himself from the proud; those who imagine they do not need the cross. They will never know His reality until they understand His anguish.
• 

  N.drew

  Hi Vanderhoven. I think you meant no religion is the way. You wrote " No, religion etc.... is the way." The comma can mean that you think religion ect. is the way.

  The request was to answer the question without referring to The Bible as if you had never seen the Bible or heard of Jesus.

  Can you do that?

  I'm sorry still thinking. I am not moderator but thought it helpful to say, so that my post doesn't look crazy to Vanderhoven.
• 

  Vanderhoven7

  Thanks for that correction Nancy. Sadly too late to edit. :(
• 

  N.drew

  "God hides Himself from the proud; ..... They will never know His reality until they understand His anguish." Vanderhoven

  This can be mentally realized without the actual knowledge of Israel's God, the Bible and Jesus, in my opinion.

  I believe there are millions of people who have never heard of Jesus Christ but who imagine that there must be a Spirit that feels sad over the conditions that mankind finds themselves in. So it is no wonder that there exists true missionaries. They are not after converts, they are looking for people with questions already about Who that Spirit IS. The I AM.
• 

  tec

  Holy Ghost conviction results in cessation of all efforts to justify ourselves before man and God and enables us to receive grace...amazing grace.

  I might not put things the same way as you, Vander, but I hear what you're saying, and I remember the moment I also understood this.

  It is such a release, and so peaceful, to simply accept your faults and sins and nature... to stop hiding from them, to stop denying them. (living a lie, in other words) And to know that Christ accepts and loves you... that he sees all the weaknesses and faults and has already forgiven those things. That is grace.

  It isn't about doing more and more, or of being "better", or of earning that love or grace or forgiveness. (I mean the pressure is still there to do these things sometimes - I do it to myself as well - but I think we put that pressure on ourselves.)

  It is hard to hear the truth if you refuse to look at or accept truth about yourself.

  Peace,

  tammy
• 

  Vanderhoven7

  Hi Nancy,

  Certainly we don't need God or religion to have a sense of right and wrong and to try to live up to what our conscience tells us.